Antedating of "Feudalism"

[Fred Shapiro]

feudalism (OED 1839)

1773 John Whitaker _The History of Manchester_ 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 the other terms of feudalism, it has been vainly explored, I
apprehend, in languages to which it never bore any relation.

1782 Walter Ross _A Discourse upon the Removing of Tenants_ 160
(Eighteenth Century Collections Online)  Feudalism is now no more: it has
disappeared before the spirit of commerce.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
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