There's little freedom and absolutely no social mobility. Peasants could never work their way up to lords, and they almost never left their villages. Thanks, Thought Bubble. One more point that's really interesting from a world history perspective. This devolution from empire to localism has happened in lots of places at lots of different times. And in times of extreme political stress, like after the fall of the Han Dynasty in China, power tends to flow into the hands of local lords who can protect the peasants better than the state can. We hear a lot about this in Chinese history and also in contemporary Afghanistan, but instead of being called feudal lords, these landlords are called warlords.