Fiefs and Vassals has revolutionized the way we think of the Middle Ages. It offers a fundamental challenge to orthodox conceptions of feudalism and overturns centuries of misconceptions about the nature of medieval social relations.

Fiefs and Vassals sets out to change our view of the medieval world. It offers a fundamental challenge to orthodox conceptions of feudalism. Susan Reynolds argues that the concepts of the fief and of vassalage, as understood by historians of medieval Europe, were constructed by post-medieval scholars from the works of medieval academic lawyers and that they provide a bad guide to the realities of medieval society.

The underlying thesis, sustained with verve and learning, is that much early medieval evidence has been given a misleading juridical coherence ... the book should make us far more sensitive both to vocabulary and to our own preconceptions.