The volume combines works that examine the prerequisites and the initial stage of the genesis of feudalism in Western Europe. The essay on the ancient Germans describes their economy, forms of settlements and social organization in the last centuries BC. e. and in the period immediately preceding the Great Migrations of Peoples in the V century. The wide involvement of data from archeology and the history of ancient settlements will make it possible to highlight the features of the ancient German social structure in a new way. The central part of the volume is the monograph "Problems of the Genesis of Feudalism in Western Europe." It develops the problems of economic anthropology, which connects the processes of economic development with the culture, beliefs, value system and social behavior of people of an era far from us. A significant part of the volume is formed by the monograph "Viking Campaigns," because the initial stages of the development of feudalism were closely intertwined with the conflict between Western European civilization and Norman civilization.