Feudal system

A political and social system which prevailed throughout precolonial Europe from the 11th through the 13th centuries under which ownership of land was by the king or other sovereign who held all rights and whose subjects had only the privilege of the use of land where upon death, title passed back to the sovereign and not to the decedent's heirs and is opposed to allodial or private ownership in the land which gives the owner the full bundle of rights.