Antedating of "Feudalism"

[Fred Shapiro]

feudalism (OED 1839)

1773 John Whitaker _The History of Manchester_ I. 359 (Eighteenth Century
Collections Online)  The word Allod or Allodium has effectually baffled
all the disquisitions of etymology to the present moment.  Like many of
the other terms of feudalism, it has been vainly explored, I apprehend, in
languages to which it never bore any relation.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
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