New sufficient conditions for function space controllability and hence feedback stabilizability of linear retarded systems are presented. These conditions were obtained by treating the retarded systems as a special case of an abstract equation in Hilbert space
![R^{n}\\times L_{2}([- h, 0], R^{n})](/images/tex/3928.gif)
(denoted as

}). For systems of type

, it is shown that most of controllability properties are described by a certain polynomial matrix

, whose columns can be generated by an algorithm comparing

and mixed powers of A
0and A
1multiplied by

It is shown that the M
2-approximate controllability of the system is guaranteed by certain triangularity properties of

. By using the Luenberger canonical form, it is shown that the system is M
2-approximately controllable if the pair

is controllable and if each of the spaces spanned by columns of
![[B,A_{1}B,... ,A_{1}^{j}B], j=O...n-1](/images/tex/3935.gif)
, is invariant under transformation A
0. Other conditions of this type are also given. Since the M
2-approximate controllability implies controllability of all the eigenmodes of the system, the feedback stabilizability with an arbitrary exponential decay rate is guaranteed under hypotheses leading to M
2-approximate controllability. Some examples are given.