Basically it’s a hierarchy. At the top there’s the king, whose major subjects hold lands ‘from’ him as his tenants-in-chief, who in turn have major tenants, knights and the like, who in turn have their own tenants among the wealthier peasantry, and then there are those tied to the land by serfdom. It’s a system supposedly held together by bonds of mutual obligation: the tier above protects the tier below which, in recompense, provides labour, military service and/or money in lieu. In practice it must have been horrible, though I suspect Julian Fellowes might have a go at a picturesque drama in
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