Feudalism - economic and political system, widespread in Mediaeval Europe, in which some individuals, called "nobles," owned land, and other individuals, called "serfs," did not. Nobility and serfdom were based on birth and family background, and there was virtually no way for a serf to obtain land. Thus, families with no land rented farmland and obtained protection from nobles, in exchange for services and resources which the serfs provided for the nobles. A rigid and largely oppressive system, it helped foster class consciousness in a society which depended on agriculture for livelihood and, for which, owning land meant having wealth and social status.

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