Playing Crusader Kings 2 has got me thinking about this...
Is there a strict definition of feudalism that makes it distinct from cheifdoms as laid out in wikipedia?
Was there written laws that identified noble hierarchies, such as count, duke, king, etc.?
Or was a lot of the middle ages a very de facto case of 'this guy holds this much land valued at so-and-so which means he can raise such-and-such an army to exert A or B influence, so maybe the king will be nice and give him a new noble title that falls in between X title and Y title'. Otherwise, Eg. I don't think a count could get another count to become his vassal (though he might hold two counties, he'd split them up between multiple vassals or rule them directly).
Crusader Kings makes it a rule that any noble of one title cannot make a vassal out of another noble with the same title. In real life this could (possibly?) mean that the latter must be humbled or the former must be granted (or earn, by whatever political machination) a higher title.
Then again, there'd need to be written laws that rise above him saying that he could or could not, in the case of noble titles in general. Or that somehow, this was just universal popular consensus throughout every kingdom/empire that was 'feudal'.
This thing about medieval politics is a conundrum for me. Anyone willing to clear it up?
Modern historians have pretty much reached a consensus that the whole concept of a 'feudal system' (referring to the organisation of society above the level of the manor, serfs, etc.) cannot be taken as an accurate representation of medieval society.
Firstly, if you went back in time to the medieval era and asked anyone about the 'feudal system', they wouldn't know what you were talking about. It's a concept that didn't exist in medieval times. It was thought up later, as a way of understanding and explaining earlier centuries. Medieval people didn't think of a 'system' as such. There was just the way things were done.
However, the way things were done varied considerably by both place and time. There was nothing fixed or systematic about it. Land could be (and often was) owned outright, rented, received as a reward for past services without any conditions, etc. - as well as 'held' in a semi-temporary way with service conditions. Homage to a lord might only imply only protection from that lord, in return for service or payment, without land even entering into it. The land might never have belonged to a lord in the first place, or even to the king. Loyalty might be owed directly to the king, rather than to a lord, so that there was no neat triangular power structure. Loyalty might be owed to more than one person, in different ways, or in similar ways.
Disposal of church land was often very different from that of secular land, because of cannon law.
And all these things were different in different parts of France, in different parts of England, in different parts of Germany, etc. They were different from one century to another in the same area, or even from one decade to another.
Legal documents in Latin contain terms like 'feudum', 'allodium', 'beneficium', etc. whose meaning was different in different times and places. Often modern historians simply don't know what these terms mean in certain collections of documents - that is to say, if there was even a precise meaning at all, rather than a vague idea, in documents written by people who were not lawyers.
Even the meaning of terms like "vassal", "liege", etc. cannot be understood in any simple or consistent way.
The concept of one neat, clear structure of power and land holding, which was consistent across Europe for any length of time is quite simply false. Something more or less along the lines of the traditional 'feudal system' may have existed in certain limited areas, and at certain limited times, but it was never a general system (or even a 'system', in the first place).
'Feudal' relationships were very practical, and often depended on particular circumstances and on the characters of particular individuals. There was nothing settled or systematic about them.
That's why it's misleading even to think of a 'feudal system'. But the idea is so deeply entrenched, that it's difficult to remove - especially when there is nothing simple or clear to replace it with.
Sources:
The F-word : The Problem with Feudalism
http://historymedren.about.com/od/feudalism/a/feudalism.htm
Internet Medieval Sourcebook on feudalism