Final answer:
Feudalism is a medieval system where kings grant land to lords in exchange for military service and produce, creating a hierarchy of loyalty and protection. Lords had considerable power, often challenging the king, and inheritance was usually through primogeniture. The Church was also deeply woven into this system as a major landowner.
Step-by-step explanation:
The system of government where the king divides the land among his lords and nobles, and in return, they provide military service and produce from the land is known as feudalism. This hierarchical system emerged from the need for security in the absence of effective centralized government. Kings would grant land, or fiefs, to their lords (nobles and landed gentry) who, in return, pledged fealty (loyalty) and military support. These lords would have their own vassals to whom they could grant portions of land. Over time, though, kings struggled to maintain authority as some nobles gained enough wealth and power to challenge or even wage war against their monarch. Despite its inefficiencies and complexities, feudalism was the dominant social and political framework throughout the Middle Ages in Europe.
The feudal system involved various layers of power and obligation, notably absent of taxes for the nobility who instead benefited from the labor and production of the serfs working the land. The Church also played a major role as a powerful landowner in the feudal system, and its holdings were mostly tax-exempt. Bishops and abbots could be lords themselves, integrating the religious establishment into the feudal hierarchy. In Britain, a closed social hierarchy developed within the monarchy, with the tradition of primogeniture dictating the inheritance of property to the firstborn son, leaving little room for social mobility.