France and England

The section moves from the heartland of the feudal order to its two great western monarchies, showing how the same three orders took distinct national shapes. In France, the nobility and clergy enjoyed sweeping privileges, while the peasantry bore the crushing weight of taxes and feudal dues — a structure that would eventually explode in revolution. England, by contrast, saw the Norman Conquest graft a new feudal hierarchy onto older Anglo-Saxon traditions, with the king's power checked by a rising class of gentry and a Parliament that gave the commoners a voice. The contrast between these two paths — one of rigid privile …