Hall and Kratochwil raise several serious claims in their critique of my recent article on feudal Europe. In order to demonstrate that these claims are unwarranted and that my study is sound, I will address the following points: (1) the relevance of context to empirical analysis, (2) counterfactual evidence and the representativeness of sample, (3) understanding the normative argument of critical theory, and (4) the accuracy of my citations.