“The state itself is a non-entity for the peasant and he can neither see nor comprehend it, but he knows the landlord because he lives with him.” – F. Marwitz

If you look at the East German states before the emancipation of the peasantry (the dates vary, but for a reference, Prussia emancipated its peasants in 1809) you can see that many peasants had no issue with the status quo, and actually fought attempts to 'modernise' and change the system.

It worked via paternalism built up through mutual obligation of the past. The landlord provides the land and security for his subjects, but the peasants had to work for it and provide obedience. Many were happy to do their part providing that the labour was reasonable - many actually vied for work in the lord's brewery seeing as a decent amount of beer was provided with the day's food.

I wrote and published my Legal dissertation on English Common Law & Feudalism. Specifically, How English Common Law revolved around Real Property Rights. I love this shit so much it makes me ecstatic* to hear the word feudalism, or any variation thereof. It was such a complex and beautiful system, given the context of the time.

What you need to know.

(1) Property rights as an American would understand them are non existent. (This is part of what made America great -- a new definition of owning property shameless plug)

(2) Loyalty was shared. Every Lord, or Feudal leader in Brittany was dependent on being able to call loyal fiefs to their aid. I'm not saying being a peasant was fun, not by a long shot. But society was established, they would fight when needed to to protect their boundaries. It was their duty, and in return they received a small plot of land to feed their family and in return they would work their Lord's field.

(3) In most cases not even the Lord owned property, in the times of kings it was owned by the kings, even when there were competing kings-- or Lords competing to be Kings. So that's why there were so many "land wars" as Vizzini acknowledged, in The Princess Bride. So ultimately you need to see land ownership as a ladder system of rungs. THe peasants were the lowliest, then the knights, then the lords, then the kings of their respective and defined territories. From a legal perspective, the physical land "real estate" was owned exclusively by the highest rung. ....But their were other equally high rungs in the next town over, so if that high rung felt entitled to more, he would call upon the lower rungs to come to his aid to expand his territory. This is why choosing alliances was such a careful art. As a Lord, you wanted to back the winning person.

(4) If you go to the Land Records in London, you'll find that the families who Own substantial land in London date back 6 hundred years. This isn't by accident.

mmm Feudalism, how seductive you are.

Sorry for no sources, that was like 10 years ago.

If you want to read up: http://www.amazon.com/An-Introduction-English-Legal-History/dp/0406930538

This is also surprisingly informative: http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Monarchy-Set-1/70055046?strkid=418407440_0_0&strackid=5b35f1b9e9b2174e_0_srl&trkid=222336 Although, slightly biased in favor of the monarchy for my blood. This documentary focuses more on about 1200 to present, whereas my period focus was on about 800-1200AD.... but of course records are of short order in that time period. Nonetheless, 800 - 1600 were the most developmental years. mmmm

*By ecstatic, I mean a huge hard on.

I think i've found a match for you!

Count Floris V (1254-1296), who was in memoriam insulted by other nobles as the "god of the peasants", was a noble who enacted many beneficial policies for the peasants in his estates and was immensely popular because of it. Floris was and is somewhat of a national figure in the Netherlands (I even remember learning about his (romanticized) life and deeds in elementary school. This is about 10 to 12 years ago). From a political realistic perspective, it could be argued he simply did this to undermine local lords and their popularity, but he was loved regardless by the populace. His life ended during a failed kidnapping and led to the death of many conspirators by mobs of loyal peasants. His life was chronicled by the historian Melis Stoke (1235-1305) in a (positively) biased manner, but remains an extensive record nonetheless.

If you happen to know the Dutch language, "Floris V" by Cordfunke might be an interesting read. Just formulating an answer to your inquiry has gotten me interested in further reading, thanks!

This is outside my area of focus, but one important thing to remember about the "feudal" time period that is pretty prevalent is the notion of "the great chain of being". Basically it stated that heaven was arranged as a hierarchy w/ god the father at the head and thus so should it follow on earth. And to question this was akin to questioning god and capable of damnation and death. The time period your talking about is broad and very nuanced, and someone far more qualified can fill in the details and sources, but the power of this idealogy on the lay people was often times much more effective at ensuring the continous of a status quo then the threat of the actual physical death, because the existence of a Christian afterlife was rarely questioned and eternal punishment is quite intimidating. Again this is only a small caveat in a really broad question but I hope it could help by finding lords that perhaps begin or did question that ideology.