The Consolidated Rail Corporation, commonly known as Conrail (reporting mark CR), was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeast U.S. between 1976 and 1999. Conrail is a portmanteau of consolidated and rail from the name of the company.
Feudalism was a combination of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.
The System of Feudalism. When the Western Roman Empire fell in 476 C.E., a state of chaos encompassed Western Europe for many centuries. Essentially, the people of Western Europe needed some form of a political system to defend themselves. Thus, feudalism developed. The system literally accounted for all aspects of a society, aside from religion.