v. [f. FEUDAL a.1 + -IZE.] trans. To make feudal, bring under the feudal system, impart a feudal character to; to convert (lands) into feudal holdings. Also, to reduce (persons) to the condition of feudal dependants.
1828. Examiner, 147/1. Could human beings be stultified and feudalized, like the peasantry in days of yore, into something a very little beyond the clods they trod upon.
1862. Ld. Brougham, Brit. Const., iii. 42. Allodial property was daily diminished in amount by proprietors feudalizing it for the sake of obtaining protection under powerful lords, in that distracted state of society.
1868. Milman, Annals of S. Paul’s Cathedral, ii. 15. The Norman Conquest feudalised the Church as well as the realm of England.
Hence Feudalized ppl. a.; Feudalizing vbl. sb.
1851. Ogilvie, Feudalizing, reducing to a feudal form.
1852. Ld. Cockburn, Jeffrey, I. 365. During its strongly feudalised condition, the landholders of Scotland, who were almost the sole judges, were really known only by the names of their estates.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), I. iv. 252. The Christianizing, the Gallicizing, and the feudalizing process, all went on vigorously in Normandy during the reign of Richard the Fearless.
1875. Maine, Hist. Inst., iii. 91. Whenever a family and place have the same name, it is the place which almost certainly gave its name to the family. This is no doubt true of feudalised countries, but it is not true of countries as yet unaffected by feudalism.
