unfeudal

English

Etymology

From un- +‎ feudal.

Adjective

unfeudal (not comparable)

1. Not feudal.
   • 1736, Thomas Madox, Baronia Anglica; an History of Land-honours and Baronies, and of Tenure in capite Verified by Records, London: Francis Gosling, 1741, Book III, Chapter III. Deviation from the Feudal Rule, p. 208,^[1]

     And it seemeth to be improper and unfeudal, to lodge the Soveraignty or High Seigneurage of the Empire, even in Part, in the middle or low estates of the Empire, to wit, in the Tenants of Arrierfiefs, or the Bourgeoisie, and Peasantrie.

   • 1817 (date written), [Jane Austen], chapter XV, in Persuasion; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volume (please specify |volume=III or IV), London: John Murray, […], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818), →OCLC:

     Upon the hint of having spoken disrespectfully or carelessly of the family and the family honours, he was quite indignant. He, who had ever boasted of being an Elliot, and whose feelings, as to connection, were only too strict to suit the unfeudal tone of the present day.

   • 1889, W. J. Ashley, “Nine lectures on the earlier constitutional history of Canada,” delivered before the University of Toronto, Toronto: Boswell & Hutchison, pp. 19-20,^[2]

     But what I wish to point out is this, that what may be called an unfeudal organization of society was not the rule but the exception in the early history of the European colonies of North America. Unfeudal is not a good word, but it will serve for what is probably the usual modern American ideal,—a society made up of a number of yeomen, or not over-large farmers, each taking part in the tilling of the soil and employing few men over and above the members of his own family,—a condition of things in which there is no large class of mere laborers, but also in which there are no over-lords, no great landlords, with tenants dependant upon them.

   • 1949, John Bowle, The Unity of European History, New York: Oxford University Press, Chapter 7. Mediaeval Christendom, p. 140,^[3]

     In the end a new type of ruler, with an unfeudal mentality, practising Machiavellian tactics and business methods learnt from the urban Italian tyrants in the South, cut his way through the tangle of feudal arrangements and established a despotic and unbridled power, the price of a new order and a new ‘state.’