According to Anderson, feudalism arose in Eastern Europe for mainly economic reasons, without the intermediary step of what he calls "antiquity" (which included slavery and the development of urban areas). Instead of feudalism arising naturally in Eastern Europe, it was transported there from Western Europe and imposed on what was a very primitive agrarian society. Slowly, these societies produced an agricultural surplus and developed political hierarchies and urban centers. The formation of states in the East arose as a result of outside influences from Western Europe and from the Church. In several places, such as Poland, tribal and clan structures remained in existence until much later than in Western Europe. As Western Europe exercised its influence on Eastern Europe and Russia, feudalism developed in these lands in a somewhat different way than it had in the West. As Anderson states, there was at first "greater mobility and equality" (page 243). The peasants had a better status than they did in the West.
However, the crisis that struck feudalism had different effects in the East than in the West. Feudalism was imposed later in the East than in the West and was at first less structured than in the West; therefore, the crisis that struck Western feudalism, in the form of peasant revolts, struck the Eastern areas less severely, in part because the eastern areas were less populated. However, the effects of these revolts and agrarian crises were in some ways more lasting in the East than in the West, as the Eastern states resorted to instituting policies of strict and rigid serfdom that tied peasants to the land.
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