To what extent was feudalism a cause of the French Revolution?

by Stecki_fangaz

"A continent ravaged by war coupled with the retreat of the church from secular life." "The precipitous fall of the French Ruling class."

This question is posed on popular television show Bojack Horseman. I am a secondary social studies teacher in the US and would love to know more about it for lesson planning and my own curiosity.

My thinking is:

  1. That feudalism laid the seeds for the consolidation of land control leading to the nation-state system.
  2. The radical inequality between the second and third (and to a certain extent first and third) Estates resulted in the toppling of that nation-state's monarchy.
  3. The crusades laid the social and economic backdrop for the crusades. The literature recovered from said crusades brought forth the revitalization of Western, largely secular thought and the enlightenment.

This is my first time posting here and I think I've followed the rules. I will happily attempt to refine the question if it is too broad or if it requires any other correction!

P.s. You historiand and your Sub are amazing. Thanks for everything you do here.

Miles_Sine_Castrum

I can't really answer your question (as I don't really know enough about 18th century France), but I just want to clear up an (understandable) misconception about Feudalism in your question.

The French revolution was adamant and explicit in its abolition of 'feudalism'. However, the 'feudalism' it was talking about had nothing at all to do with medieval 'feudalism' (which, of course, never existed). What the revolutionaries had in mind, in my own understanding of it, was the legally privileged position of the aristocracy/2nd estate. This type of 'feudalism' was a creation of early modern lawyers and, as a result, is better seen as a product of the early-modern monarchical nation-state, than as a precursor to it. It has nothing to do with the pre-nation-state medieval period, or with the Crusades.

Eighteenth-century buffs, feel free to chip in if I've misrepresented anything, as this is mostly coming from my readings about the historiographical development of feudalism, not any revolutionary France expertise, so I may well have misinterpreted things.