The Midi, Buwayhid Iraq, and Japan: Some Aspects of Comparative Feudalisms, A.D. 946–1055

• Published in: Comparative studies in society and history 1969-01, Vol.11 (1), p.47-53
• Main Author: Lewis, Archibald R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aristocracy; Armies; Comparative Study of 'Feudal' Societies; Feudal/Feudalism/Feudalist/ Feudalistic; Feudalism; Fiefs; France/French; Iraq/Iraqi/Iraqis; Japan/Japanese; Landowners; Money
• ISSN: 0010-4175; 1475-2999; 1471-633X
• DOI: 10.1017/S0010417500005144

In the year 946, in three separate areas of the civilized world, certain changes took place which mark the beginning of a new era. In Iraq in this year a Daylamite Persian adventurer of Shiah persuasion, named Ahmad, seized control of Baghdad and the surrounding Iraqi plains and in so doing established a dynasty which was to last more than a hundred years. About a decade earlier in the French Midi two princes of the house of Toulouse and their Gascon ally and kinsman journeyed north to Auvergne to do homage for their vast holdings in Southern France to the weak Carolingian monarch, Louis IV, the last such homage scions of this house were to render to their Northern French overlords for more than two centuries. Finally, during the same year of 946, in distant Japan, an official of the central government of Kyoto, named Ono, after suppressing the dangerous pirate forces of a certain Sumitomo, issued an appeal against the use of private armies which was resulting in disorder and the inability of the central government to maintain peace and security.