Editing Monarchy (section)

===Feudal Monarchy===
Monarchy, pyramid scheme style. Generally works as a function of increasing scales to manage land. In Europe the lowest landholding class were knights, who typically held 1-2 thousand acres (~3-4 square miles) of land, which might be worked by several dozen families' worth of [[peasant]]s who paid rent or labor service in exchange for being allowed to cultivate and live on said land. Above them were Barons/Lords, who might keep several to a dozen knights and hold control over a few dozen square miles of land, a Barony being roughly analogous to an American township and producing enough surplus food to sustain a small professional class (blacksmith, baker, brewer, etc).  Above them were Counts/Earls, from which comes the modern word of County (a count's land); it was at this level that the Normans instituted [[Adeptus Arbites|Shire Reeves]] (Sheriffs) loyal to the Crown to enforce taxation and law independent of the meddling of lower aristocracy.  Above this level (Dukes, etc.) you're really dealing with true nobility, the extended family of the monarch or rival families with competing claims, and their focus is more on politicking for control rather than administration. 

Feudalism is heavily associated with Europe and Japan at roughly the same time; though other monarchies throughout history featured nobles ruling under a king, what sets Feudalism apart is how rigid and codified it is, with an explicit set of duties and responsibilities that each tier owed to the tiers above and below each other. Offices and titles are also almost entirely hereditary; special offices may exist by appointment of the king, but they’re the exception and not the norm. Anyone who’s ever played [[Crusader Kings]] can tell you that while Feudalism isn’t the most efficient form of governance as nobles might rebel against you more easily, it’s really difficult to rule a large mass of land directly without a very centralized and efficient bureaucracy in place.

Feudalism started to fall out of fashion in the 1500s for a number of reasons:
*The Black Death produced a major labor shortage, and the peasants suddenly could make a lot of demands that were previously unthinkable, like having actual wages. This was further exacerbated when peasants and even some serfs began moving off of the manorial estates and into the cities in search of better opportunities, further depriving the feudal lords of their subjects. 
*The development of trade guilds led to the rise of the nascent merchant classes and bourgeoisie, which would directly compete with the rent-seeking landed aristocracy for both power and wealth and were better suited to functioning in urban economies. 
*Military systems were restructured to favor armies composed primarily of professional fighters functioning as a standing army rather than relying on the system of vassalage that justified the power of the nobility, undermining their claims to rulership.
* Feudalism led to extremely messy political situations such as the Hundred Years War, where through a combination of marriage, alliances, and inheritance, England owned more of France than France itself did - even though the English king was supposedly a vassal of the French king. In order to create a country with an actual, stable border, centralization of the state had to take place, and that meant no more letting nobles do whatever they wanted with acquiring new lands.

That being said, remnants of feudalism typically persisted even after the formal feudal relationships became meaningless and stayed around well into the 1800s in some cases (e.g. Russia). 

:'''''IRL Examples:''' Virtually all of Europe in the Middle Ages.''