>>/40358/
Themes associated with the word are:
#1 A hierarchy bound together by trust and obligations, much like a military chain of command, on which higher ranks grant chunks of power to lower ones in exchange for certain duties
#2 The power that is distributed consists of the means of production, parts of the economy
#3 The means are land
#4 Value is obtained through rent
#5 The duties provided are often labor and/or military service
#6 What gets distributed is hereditary
#7 This happens in an agrarian society and a surname-centric society.
The communist example >>/40333/ definitively has #1. However unlike in medieval feudalism there is a strong central bureaucracy and power consists of positions within it.
Absolutism is a curious transitional phase out of it. At the level of workers and landowners change from the medieval age is moderate, after the last medieval crisis serfdom diminished in Western Europe, but by the French Revolution there was still talk of removing feudalism and the relationship was based on rent and certain obligations. But the dynamic between the monarch and his immediate vassals changes. There is a central bureaucracy and those vassals are now in the capital. They don't receive land, but positions. It's still based on trust, so #1 applies. They may or may not be hereditary.
In addition the economy has a greater commercial component. Mercantilism might have feudalistic elements as trusted individuals receive power in the form of parts of the economy i.e. monopolies, favored treatment, etc.