Over the last week in Western Civilization we have been learning about a time period known as the Feudal Age. During this time, the Kings of Europe created a system called Feudalism where the rich get rich, and the poor stay poor.

Due to the fact that kings had so much land at this time, it was impossible for them to watch over all of it while waging war. To fix this, kings would give portions of their land to what are called nobles. In exchange, the nobles would have to obtain some sort of military protection for the king. To do this, the nobles allowed what are called vassals to live on the land. A vassal could be a knight for example. By doing this, the vassals now have land, and have sworn to help the king in battle. So who takes care of the land? That would be the work of peasants and serfs, which are sometimes referred to as “free slaves.” Money and food are produced by serfs and peasants and that money climbs up the ladder from serf to vassal to noble to king, almost like a pyramid scheme.

To illustrate this, we compared this economic system to the United States system which is more of a circular flow model. Not only do students understand how Medieval economics worked, they now have a better grasp on how their money flows as well.