The King

At the top, you would have a king. Now the king would rule over a kingdom. Now, this is not so easy to govern, especially during the Middle Ages. And the king might owe many people, things, especially people who helped the king come to power, helped him dispose of the previous king, or to conquer this land. And so in exchange for that and to help govern, he might grant land or feasts to other people. The key currency in the Middle Ages was land under the feudal system, and land was exchanged for loyalty and service. So this whole thing is a kingdom. Now, right over here, this is a duchy. And a duchy will be controlled by a duke. I guess I didn't call it ducky because that just doesn't sound as serious. So the king might grant a duchy, or a duchy to a duke, and in exchange, the duke would pledge their loyalty and fealty. If the kingdom is threatened, the duke will fight alongside. The king would provide their own troops if the king wanted to go conquer other territories, same thing, and also provide the king with taxes, which might be in the form of coinage, depending on the time and region we are in, the Middle Ages, or it might be in the form of a percentage of the agricultural production from this duchy.