The history of the feudal system in Europe makes up a very large part of the history of the Middle Ages, particularly of the period between the ninth and the fourteenth centuries. This is true because feudalism, in one way or another, touched almost every phase of the life of western Europe during this long era. More than anything else, it molded the conditions of government, the character and course of war, the administration of justice, the tenure of land, the manner of everyday life, and even the relations of the Church with sovereigns and people. "Coming into existence," says a French historian, "in the obscure period that followed the dissolution of the Carolingian empire, the feudal regime developed slowly, without the intervention of a government, without the aid of a written law, without any general understanding among individuals; rather only by a gradual transformation of customs, which took place sooner or later, but in about the same way, in France, Italy, Christian Spain, and Germany. Then, toward the end of the eleventh century, it was transplanted into England and into southern Italy, in the twelfth and thirteenth into the Latin states of the East, and beginning with the fourteenth into the Scandinavian countries. This regime, established thus not according to a general plan but by a sort of natural growth, never had forms and usages that were everywhere the same. It is impossible to gather it up into a perfectly exact picture, which would not be in contradiction to several cases."[297]