The Rising Of Military Indenture In Medieval England

The medieval military indenture in England is one of the feudal military services, it evolves from the Chivalry which is based on fief and money fief. The reason military indenture developed into an independent form of military service had a profound historical background. With the development of commodity economy in England and collapse of the Chivalry, as well as frequent wars and many other conditions, military indentures took shape. In the background above, the military indenture separated itself from the fief and the money fief gradually, and became an independent military service system four centuries later and replaced money fief in the15th century.Compared with the previous fief and money fief, military indenture was less affected by the feudal relations of personal dependence. The medieval military indenture is one kind of the indenture systems, some of its features can be drawn from the existing military indentures texts. Fist, the parties are relatively equal, the only connection between them is a piece of paper. It is the greatest difference among the military services before. Second, in the form of payment the military indenture paid in cash, it benefited from the development of commodity economy in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, as well as an important embodiment of the monetary economic prosperity. Finally, on the military service duration issue, a characteristic of the military indentures is based on the parties’agreement, sometimes for months, years or lifelong. It wouldn’t last a lifetime once established like a fief or a money fief, even inheritance, division, transference. In general, the military indentures restricted the personal freedom smaller and were more flexible. For that reason the military indenture developed rapidly in the11th century and eventually became an independent and important military system.Although the military indentures had an positive affect on many respects in the11-15century in the UK, we shouldn’t ignore the drawbacks it generates. With the large numbers of applications of the military indentures after the Hundred Year’s War, the large aristocracy applied them for private war of seeking for power. They led the private army established by the military indenture to kill each other and eventually led to the war of Roses. Even though the war promoted the collapse of the old aristocracy objectively and paved the way for the development of capitalism, there in no doubt that the war of Roses resulted in a painful disaster to the whole society and the people.