ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the implications and value of the concept as applied to African social organization. The primary referent is of course to a particular historical period, to Western Europe between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, to the social systems that on the one hand superseded the Roman Empire and the 'tribal' regimes which destroyed it. Clientship in East Africa is also discussed by Lucy Mair in her recent book dealing with the political systems of that region and in a general paper on 'Clientship in East Africa'. Indeed the African material points clearly to the fact that they may also occur as chiefless communities develop more centralized governments. To suggest that there appears little to be gained by thinking of African societies in terms of the concept of 'feudalism' implies a rejection neither of comparative work that includes European society, nor yet of the contribution the European medievalists can make to the study of African institutions.
