Feudal Society Response

While reading Marc Bloch’s, Feudal Society, I believed the information presented in the book was quite broad; however, he goes into great detail and depth of the topics at hand. To be honest I found this approach intriguing in some aspects and long in others. For example, the first few chapters on the invasions, interesting as they were, I found to be redundant. Overall, I enjoyed the book as whole. As many others mentioned, Bloch does silence the serfs and peasants throughout the book. He mentions them from time to time, but does not go into great detail about them like he does other topics.

Last week in class we discussed how Prescott viewed Cortes as the great man who changed history. I could apply this notion to Bloc’s Feudal Society, but I wouldn’t say that it was one person in particular who changed history. I think Bloch would argue that society as an entity changed history. The use of the Latin language, kinship, education, law, etc., all of which are part of the society, change with time and the understanding of their history. “Thus feudalism, a type of social organization marked by a special quality in human relationships, expressed itself not only in the creation of new institutions; it imparted its own coloring to what it received from the past, as if passing it through a prism, and transmitted it to succeeding ages” (page, 279).