Serfdom
Encyclopedia
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism
, specifically relating to Manorialism
. It was a condition of bondage
or modified slavery
which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages
in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century. Serfdom included the labor of serfs occupying a plot of land owned by a lord of the manor
in return for protection and justice and the right to exploit certain fields within the manor
to maintain their own subsistence. Serfdom involved not only work in the lord's fields, but his mines, forests and roads. The manor
formed the basic unit of society and the Lord of the Manor
and his serfs were bound legally, economically, and socially. Serfs were laborers who were bound to the land; they formed the lowest social class
of the feudal society. Serfs were also defined as people in whose labor landowners held property rights. Before the 1861 abolition of serfdom in Russia, a landowner's estate was often measured by the number of "souls" he owned. Feudalism
spread through Europe around the 10th century; it flourished in Europe during the Middle Ages but lasted until the 19th century in some countries. Although the decline of serfdom has sometimes been attributed to the Black Death
, which reached Europe in 1347, the decline had begun before that date. For example, serfdom was de facto ended in France by Philip IV
, Louis X
(1315), and Philip V
(1318). With the exception of a few isolated cases, serfdom had ceased to exist in France by the 15th century. In Early Modern France, French nobles
nevertheless maintained a great number of seigneurial privileges
over the free
peasants that worked lands under their control. Serfdom was formally abolished in France
in 1789.
After the Renaissance
, serfdom became increasingly rare in most of Western Europe
but grew strong in Central
and Eastern Europe
, where it had previously been less common (this phenomenon was known as "later serfdom"). In England
, the end of serfdom began with Tyler’s Rebellion and was fully ended when Elizabeth I freed the last remaining serfs in 1574. There were native-born Scottish
serfs until 1799, when coal miners previously kept in serfdom gained emancipation
. However, most Scottish serfs had been freed before this time. In Eastern Europe the institution persisted until the mid-19th century. It persisted in Austria-Hungary
till 1848 and was abolished in Russia
in 1861. In Finland, Norway and Sweden feudalism was not established, and serfdom did not exist. But serfdom-like institutions did exist in both Denmark (the stavnsbånd
, from 1733 to 1788) and its colony Iceland
(the much more restrictive vistarband
, from 1490 until the late 19th century).
According to the census of 1857 the number of private serfs in Russia
was 23.1 million.
Feudalism
, according to Joseph R. Strayer, can be applied to the societies of ancient Persia, ancient Mesopotamia
, Egypt
(Sixth to Twelfth dynasty), Muslim India
, China
(Zhou Dynasty
, and end of Han Dynasty
) and Japan
during the Shogunate. James Lee and Cameron Campbell describe the Chinese Qing Dynasty
(1644–1912) as also maintaining a form of serfdom. According to Pierre Bonnassie, feudalism could also be seen in Spain
. Although serfdom is believed to exist in all these regions, it was not uniform throughout them. Tibet
is described by Melvyn Goldstein to have had serfdom until 1959, but whether or not the Tibetan form of peasant tenancy qualified as serfdom was widespread is contested. Bhutan
is described by Tashi Wangchuk, a Bhutanese civil servant, as abolishing serfdom
officially by 1959, but Wangchuk believes less than or about 10% of poor peasants were in copyhold
situations.
The word "serf" originated from the Middle French
"serf", and can be traced further back to the Latin
servus, meaning "slave". In Late Antiquity
and most of the Middle Ages
, what we now call serfs were usually designated in Latin as coloni
(sing. colonus). As slavery gradually disappeared and the legal status of these servi became nearly identical to that of coloni, the term changed meaning into our modern concept of "serf". The term "serfdom" was coined in 1850.
s and knight
s: in return for protection, a serf would reside upon and work a parcel of land within the manor
of his lord
. There was thus a degree of reciprocity in the manorial system.
One rationale was that a serf "worked for all," while a knight or baron "fought for all" and a churchman "prayed for all"; thus everyone had a place. The serf was the worst fed and paid, but at least he had his place and, unlike slaves
, had certain rights in land and property.
A lord of the manor could not sell his serfs as a Roman might sell his slaves. On the other hand, if he chose to dispose of a parcel of land, the serf or serfs associated with that land went with it to serve their new lord, benefitting him from their long-acquired knowledge of practices suited to the land. Further, a serf could not abandon his lands without permission, nor did he possess a saleable title in them.
was freehold
, became a serf usually through force or necessity. Sometimes freeholders
or allodial owners were intimidated into dependency by the greater physical and legal force of a local magnate. Often a few years of crop failure, a war or brigandage
might leave a person unable to make his own way. In such a case a bargain was struck with a lord of a manor. In exchange for protection, service was required, in cash, produce or with labour, or a combination of all. These bargains were formalized in a ceremony known as "bondage" in which a serf placed his head in the lord's hands, akin to the ceremony of homage
where a vassal
placed his hands between those of his overlord. These oaths bound the lord and his new serf in a feudal contract and defined the terms of their agreement. Often these bargains were severe. A 7th century Anglo Saxon
"Oath of Fealty" states:
To become a serf was a commitment that encompassed all aspects of the serf’s life.
Moreover, the condition of serfdom was inherited at birth. By taking on the duties of serfdom, serfs bound not only themselves but all of their future progeny.
of peasant
was often broken down into smaller categories. These distinctions were often less clear than suggested by their different names. Most often, there were two types of peasants, freemen, whose tenure within the manor was freehold
, and villeins. Lower classes of peasants, known as cottars, generally comprising the younger sons of villeins or bordars in the British Isles
, and slaves, made up the lower class of workers.
and were essentially rent-paying tenant farmers who owed little or no service to the lord, and had a good degree of security of tenure
and independence. In parts of 11th century England freemen made up only 10% of the peasant population, and in the rest of Europe their numbers were small.
, the lord of the manor
, they were expected to spend some of their time working on the lord's fields. The requirement often was not greatly onerous, contrary to popular belief and was often only seasonal, for example the duty to help at harvest-time. The rest of their time was spent farming their own land for their own profit. Like other types of serfs, they were required to provide other services, possibly in addition to paying rent of money or produce. Villeins were tied to the land and could not move away without their lord's consent and the acceptance of the lord to whose manor they proposed to migrate to. Villeins were generally able to hold their own property, unlike slaves. Villeinage, as opposed to other forms of serfdom, was most common in Continental European feudalism, where land ownership had developed from roots in Roman law
.
A variety of kinds of villeinage existed in Europe in the Middle Ages. Half-villeins received only half as many strips of land for their own use and owed a full complement of labour to the lord, often forcing them to rent out their services to other serfs to make up for this hardship. Villeinage was not, however, a purely uni-directional exploitative relationship. In the Middle Ages, land within a lord's manor provided sustenance
and survival, and being a villein guaranteed access to land, and crops secure from theft by marauding robbers. Landlords, even where legally entitled to do so, rarely evicted villeins because of the value of their labour. Villeinage was much preferable to being a vagabond, a slave, or an unlanded labourer.
In many medieval countries, a villein could gain freedom by escaping from a manor
to a city
or borough
and living there for more than a year; but this action involved the loss of land rights and agricultural livelihood, a prohibitive price unless the landlord was especially tyrannical or conditions in the village were unusually difficult.
, of 1086, uses bordarii (bordar) and cottarii (cottager) as interchangeable terms, cottager being derived from the native tongue whereas bordar being derived from the French.
The status of bordar or cottager ranked below a serf
in the social hierarchy of a manor, holding a cottage
, garden and just enough land to feed a family. In England, at the time of the Domesday Survey, this would have been between about 1 and 5 acres( 0.4 to 2 hectares). Under an Elizabethan
statute
, the cottage had to be built with at least 4 acre (0.01618744 km²; 0.00625000552608715 sq mi) of land. However, the later Enclosures Act, removed the cottagers right to any land, "before the Enclosures Act the cottager was a farm labourer with land and after the Enclosures Act the cottager was a farm labourer without land".
The bordars and cottagers did not own their draught oxen or horses. The Domesday Book showed that England comprised 12% freeholders; 35% serfs or villeins: 30% cotters and borders: and 9% slaves.
. Slaves had the fewest rights
and benefits from the manor. They owned no tenancy in land, worked for the lord exclusively and survived on donations from the landlord.
It was always in the interest of the lord to prove that a servile arrangement existed, as this provided him with greater rights to fees and taxes. The status of a man was a primary issue in determining a person's rights and obligations in many of the manorial court cases of the period. Also, runaway slaves could be beaten if caught.
, harvesting crops, digging ditches, repairing fences, and often working in the manor house
. The residue of the serf’s time was devoted to tending his own fields, crops and animals in order to provide for his family. Most manorial work was segregated by gender
during the regular times of the year; however, during the harvest
, the whole family was expected to work the fields.
A major difficulty of a serf's life was that his work for his lord coincided with, and took precedence over, the work he had to perform on his own lands: when the lord's crops were ready to be harvested, so were his own. On the other hand, the serf of a benign lord could look forward to being well fed during his service; it was a lord without foresight who did not provide a substantial meal for his serfs during the harvest and planting times. In exchange for this work on the lord's demesne
, the serf had certain privileges and rights, including for example the right to gather deadwood from their lord’s forests, an essential fuel source.
In addition to service, a serf was required to pay certain taxes and fees. Taxes were based on the assessed value of his lands and holdings. Fees were usually paid in the form of agricultural produce rather than cash. The best ration of wheat from the serf’s harvest often went to the landlord. Generally hunting and trapping of wild game by the serfs on the lord’s property was prohibited. On Easter Sunday the peasant family perhaps might owe an extra dozen eggs, and at Christmas
a goose was perhaps required too. When a family member died, extra taxes were paid to the lord as a form of feudal relief
to enable the heir to keep the right to till what land he had. Any young woman who wished to marry a serf outside of her manor was forced to pay a fee for the right to leave her lord, and in compensation for her lost labour.
Often there were arbitrary tests to judge the worthiness of their tax payments. A chicken, for example, might be required to be able to jump over a fence of a given height to be considered old enough or well enough to be valued for tax purposes. The restraints of serfdom on personal and economic choice were enforced through various forms of manorial customary law and the manorial administration and court baron
.
It was also a matter of discussion whether serfs could be required by law in times of war or conflict to fight for their lord's land and property. In the case of their lord's defeat, their own fate might be uncertain, so the serf certainly had an interest in supporting his lord.
A serf could grow what crop he saw fit on his lands, although a serf's taxes often had to be paid in wheat
. The surplus he would sell at market
.
The landlord could not dispossess his serfs without legal cause and was supposed to protect them from the depredations of robbers or other lords, and he was expected to support them by charity in times of famine
. Many such rights were enforcible by the serf in the manorial court.
The amount of labour required varied. In Poland
, for example, it was commonly a few days per year per household in the 13th century; one day per week per household in the 14th century; four days per week per household in the 17th century and six days per week per household in the 18th century. Early serfdom in Poland was mostly limited on the royal territories (królewszczyzny).
"Per household" means that every dwelling had to give a worker for the required number of days. For example, in the 18th century, six people: a peasant, his wife, three children and a hired worker might be required to work for their lord one day a week, which would be counted as six days of labour.
Serfs served on occasion as soldiers in the event of conflict and could earn freedom or even ennoblement for valour in combat. Serfs could purchase their freedom, bemanumitted
by their generous owners, or flee to towns or newly-settled land where few questions were asked. Laws varied from country to country: in England a serf who made his way to a chartered town (i.e. a borough
) and evaded recapture for a year and a day
obtained his freedom and became a burgher of the town.
. The status of the helots
in the ancient Greek
city-state
of Sparta
resembled that of the medieval serfs. By the 3rd century AD, the Roman Empire
faced a labour shortage. Large Roman landowners increasingly relied on Roman freemen, acting as tenant farmers, instead of slaves to provide labour. These tenant farmers, eventually known as coloni
, saw their condition steadily erode. Because the tax system implemented by Dioclecian assessed taxes based on both land and the inhabitants of that land, it became administratively inconvenient for peasants to leave the land where they were counted in the census. In 332 AD Constantine issued legislation that greatly restricted the rights of the coloni and tied them to the land. Some see these laws as the beginning of medieval serfdom in Europe.
However, medieval serfdom really began with the breakup of the Carolingian Empire
around the 10th century. The demise of this empire, which had ruled much of western Europe for more than 200 years, was followed by a long period during which no strong central government existed in most of Europe.
During this period, powerful feudal lords
encouraged the establishment of serfdom as a source of agricultural labor. Serfdom, indeed, was an institution that reflected a fairly common practice whereby great landlords were assured that others worked to feed them and were held down, legally and economically, while doing so.
This arrangement provided most of the agricultural labour throughout the Middle Ages
. Slavery
persisted right through the Middle Ages, but it was rare, diminishing and largely confined to the use of household slaves. Parts of Europe, including much of Scandinavia
, never adopted many feudal institutions, including serfdom.
In the later Middle Ages serfdom began to disappear west of the Rhine even as it spread through eastern Europe. This was one important cause for the deep differences between the societies and economies of eastern and western Europe.
In Western Europe
, the rise of powerful monarch
s, towns, and an improving economy weakened the manorial system through the 13th and 14th centuries, and serfdom was rare following the Renaissance
.
Serfdom in Western Europe came largely to an end in the 15th and 16th centuries, because of changes in the economy, population, and laws governing lord-tenant relations in Western European nations. The enclosure of manor fields for livestock grazing and for larger arable plots made the economy of serfs’ small strips of land in open fields less attractive to the landowners. Furthermore, the increasing use of money
made tenant farming by serfs less profitable; for much less than it cost to support a serf, a lord could now hire workers who were more skilled and pay them in cash. Paid labour was also more flexible since workers could be hired only when they were needed.
At the same time, increasing unrest and uprisings by serfs and peasants, like Tyler’s Rebellion
in England in 1381, put pressure on the nobility and the clergy to reform the system. As a result serf and peasant demands were accommodated to some extent by the gradual establishment of new forms of land leases and increased personal liberties.
Another important factor in the decline of serfdom was industrial development — especially the Industrial Revolution
. With the growing profitability of industry
, farmers wanted to move to towns to receive higher wages than those they could earn working in the fields, while landowners also invested in the more profitable industry. This also led to the growing process of urbanization
.
Serfdom reached Eastern Europe
an countries later than Western Europe — it became dominant around the 15th century. Before that time, Eastern Europe had been much more sparsely populated than Western Europe, and the lords of Eastern Europe created a peasantry-friendly environment to encourage migration east. Serfdom developed in Eastern Europe after the Black Death
epidemics, which not only stopped the migration but depopulated Western Europe.
The resulting large land-to-labour ratio combined with Eastern Europe's vast, sparsely populated areas gave the lords an incentive to bind the remaining peasantry to their land. With increased demand for agricultural produce in Western Europe during the later era when Western Europe limited and eventually abolished serfdom, serfdom remained in force throughout Eastern Europe during the 17th century so that nobility
-owned estates could produce more agricultural products (especially grain
) for the profitable export market.
Such Eastern European countries included Prussia
(Prussian Ordinances of 1525), Austria
, Hungary
(laws of the late 15th and early 16th centuries), the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
(szlachta
privileges of the early 16th century) and the Russian Empire
(laws of the late 16th and first half of the 17th century). This also led to the slower industrial development and urbanisation of those regions. Generally, this process, referred to as 'second serfdom' or 'export-led serfdom', which persisted until the mid-19th century, became very repressive and substantially limited serfs' rights.
In many of these countries serfdom was abolished during the Napoleonic invasions
of the early 19th century. Serfdom remained in force in most of Russia until the Emancipation reform of 1861
, enacted on February 19, 1861, though in Russian Baltic provinces it had been abolished at the beginning of the 19th century. Russian serfdom
was perhaps the most notable Eastern European institution, as it was never influenced by German law and migrations, and serfdom and the manorial
system were enforced by the crown (Tsar
), not the nobility.
Serfdom became progressively less common through the Middle Ages, particularly after the Black Death
reduced the rural population and increased the bargaining power of workers. Furthermore, the lords of many manors were willing (for payment) to manumit ("release") their serfs. Serfdom had largely died out in England by 1500 as a personal status, but land held by serf tenure (unless enfranchised) continued to be held by what was thenceforth known as a copyhold tenancy
, which was not completely abolished until 1925 (although it was whittled away during the 19th and early 20th centuries). During the Late Middle Ages
, peasant unrest led to outbreaks of violence against landlords. In May 1381 the English peasants revolted because of the heavy tax placed upon them by Parliament
. There were similar occurrences at around the same time in Castille, Germany, northern France, Portugal, and Sweden. Although these peasant revolts
were often successful, it usually took a long time before legal systems were changed.
In German history
the emancipation of the serfs came in 1770-1830, beginning with Schleswig in 1780. Prussia
abolished serfdom with the "October Edict" of 1807, which upgraded the personal legal status of the peasantry and gave them ownership of half or two thirds of the lands they were working. The edict apply to all peasants whose holdings were above a certain size, and included both Crown lands and noble estates. The peasants were freed from the obligation of personal services to the lord and annual dues; in return and land owners were given ownership of 1/3 to 1/2 of the land. The peasant owned and rented the lands that were deeded to the old owners. The other German states imitated Prussia after 1815. In sharp contrast to the violence that characterized land reform in the French Revolution, Germany handled it peacefully. In Schleswig the peasants, who had been influenced by the Enlightenment, played an active role; elsewhere they were largely passive. Indeed, for most peasants, customs and traditions continued largely unchanged, including the old habits of deference to the nobles whose legal authority remains quite strong over the villagers. The old paternalistic relationship in East Prussia lasted into the 20th century. what was new was that the peasant could now sell his land, enabling him to move to the city, or buy up the land of his neighbors.
The land reforms in northwestern Germany were driven by progressive governments and local elites. They abolished feudal obligations and divided collectively owned common land into private parcels and thus created a more efficient market-oriented rural economy. It produced increased productivity and population growth. It strengthened the traditional social order because wealthy peasants obtained most of the former common land, while the rural proletariat was left without land; many left for the cities or America. Meanwhile the division of the common land served as a buffer preserving social peace between nobles and peasants. East of the Elbe River, the Junker class
maintained large estates and monopolized political power.
The eradication of the feudal system marks the beginning of an era of rapid change in Europe. The change in status following the enclosure
movements beginning in the later 18th century, in which various lords abandoned the open field farming of previous centuries and, essentially, took all the best land for themselves in exchange for "freeing" their serfs, may well have made serfdom seem more desirable to many peasant families.
In his book Das Kapital
, in Chapter 26 entitled "The Secret of Primitive Accumulation" and Chapter 27, "Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the Land", Marx
claimed that the feudal relationships of serfdom were violently transformed into private property and free labour: free of possession and free to sell their labour force on the market. Being liberated from serfdom meant being able to sell one's land and work wherever one desired. "The so-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production. It appears as primitive, because it forms the pre-historic stage of capital and of the mode of production corresponding with it." In a case history of England, Marx described how the serfs became free peasant proprietors and small farmers, who were, over time, forcibly expropriated and driven off the land, forming a property-less proletariat. He also claimed that more and more legislation was enacted by the state to control and regiment this new class of wage workers. In the meantime, the remaining farmers became capitalist farmers operating more and more on a commercial basis; and gradually, legal monopolies preventing trade and investment by entrepreneurs were broken up.
Taxes levied by the state took the place of labour dues levied by the lord. Although serfdom began its decline in Europe in the Middle Ages, it took many hundreds of years to disappear completely. In addition, the struggles of the working class during the Industrial Revolution can often be compared with the struggles of the serfs during the Middle Ages. In parts of the world today, forced labour is still used. Serfdom is an institution that has always been commonplace for human society; however, it has not always been of the same nature.
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
, specifically relating to Manorialism
Manorialism
Manorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market...
. It was a condition of bondage
Debt bondage
Debt bondage is when a person pledges him or herself against a loan. In debt bondage, the services required to repay the debt may be undefined, and the services' duration may be undefined...
or modified slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....
in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century. Serfdom included the labor of serfs occupying a plot of land owned by a lord of the manor
Lord of the Manor
The Lordship of a Manor is recognised today in England and Wales as a form of property and one of three elements of a manor that may exist separately or be combined and may be held in moieties...
in return for protection and justice and the right to exploit certain fields within the manor
Manor
-Land tenure:*Manor, an estate in land of the mediaeval era in England*Manorialism, a system of land tenure and organization of the rural economy and society in parts of medieval Europe based on the manor*Manor house, the principal house of a manor...
to maintain their own subsistence. Serfdom involved not only work in the lord's fields, but his mines, forests and roads. The manor
Manor
-Land tenure:*Manor, an estate in land of the mediaeval era in England*Manorialism, a system of land tenure and organization of the rural economy and society in parts of medieval Europe based on the manor*Manor house, the principal house of a manor...
formed the basic unit of society and the Lord of the Manor
Lord of the Manor
The Lordship of a Manor is recognised today in England and Wales as a form of property and one of three elements of a manor that may exist separately or be combined and may be held in moieties...
and his serfs were bound legally, economically, and socially. Serfs were laborers who were bound to the land; they formed the lowest social class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
of the feudal society. Serfs were also defined as people in whose labor landowners held property rights. Before the 1861 abolition of serfdom in Russia, a landowner's estate was often measured by the number of "souls" he owned. Feudalism
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
spread through Europe around the 10th century; it flourished in Europe during the Middle Ages but lasted until the 19th century in some countries. Although the decline of serfdom has sometimes been attributed to the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
, which reached Europe in 1347, the decline had begun before that date. For example, serfdom was de facto ended in France by Philip IV
Philip IV of France
Philip the Fair was, as Philip IV, King of France from 1285 until his death. He was the husband of Joan I of Navarre, by virtue of which he was, as Philip I, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne from 1284 to 1305.-Youth:A member of the House of Capet, Philip was born at the Palace of...
, Louis X
Louis X of France
Louis X of France, , called the Quarreler, the Headstrong, or the Stubborn was the King of Navarre from 1305 and King of France from 1314 until his death...
(1315), and Philip V
Philip V of France
Philip the Tall was King of France as Philip V and, as Philip II, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne. He reigned from 1316 to his death and was the penultimate monarch of the House of Capet. Considered a wise and politically astute ruler, Philip took the throne under questionable...
(1318). With the exception of a few isolated cases, serfdom had ceased to exist in France by the 15th century. In Early Modern France, French nobles
French nobility
The French nobility was the privileged order of France in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern periods.In the political system of the Estates General, the nobility made up the Second Estate...
nevertheless maintained a great number of seigneurial privileges
Manorialism
Manorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market...
over the free
Freehold
Freehold may refer to:*Freehold and fee simple: ownership of land and the buildings on such land...
peasants that worked lands under their control. Serfdom was formally abolished in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in 1789.
After the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, serfdom became increasingly rare in most of Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
but grew strong in Central
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
and Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
, where it had previously been less common (this phenomenon was known as "later serfdom"). In England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the end of serfdom began with Tyler’s Rebellion and was fully ended when Elizabeth I freed the last remaining serfs in 1574. There were native-born Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
serfs until 1799, when coal miners previously kept in serfdom gained emancipation
Emancipation
Emancipation means the act of setting an individual or social group free or making equal to citizens in a political society.Emancipation may also refer to:* Emancipation , a champion Australian thoroughbred racehorse foaled in 1979...
. However, most Scottish serfs had been freed before this time. In Eastern Europe the institution persisted until the mid-19th century. It persisted in Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
till 1848 and was abolished in Russia
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
in 1861. In Finland, Norway and Sweden feudalism was not established, and serfdom did not exist. But serfdom-like institutions did exist in both Denmark (the stavnsbånd
Stavnsbånd
The Stavnsbånd was a serfdom-like institution introduced in Denmark in 1733 in accordance with the wishes of estate owners and the military. It bonded men between the ages of 18 and 36 to live on the estate where they were born. It was possible, however, to purchase a pass releasing one from this...
, from 1733 to 1788) and its colony Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
(the much more restrictive vistarband
Vistarband
The Icelandic vistarband was a requirement that all landless people be employed on a farm. A man or woman who did not own or lease property had to find a position as a laborer in the home of a farmer...
, from 1490 until the late 19th century).
According to the census of 1857 the number of private serfs in Russia
Russian serfdom
The origins of serfdom in Russia are traced to Kievan Rus in the 11th century. Legal documents of the epoch, such as Russkaya Pravda, distinguished several degrees of feudal dependency of peasants, the term for an unfree peasant in the Russian Empire, krepostnoi krestyanin , is translated as serf.-...
was 23.1 million.
Feudalism
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
, according to Joseph R. Strayer, can be applied to the societies of ancient Persia, ancient Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
, Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
(Sixth to Twelfth dynasty), Muslim India
Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent
Muslim conquest in South Asia mainly took place from the 13th to the 16th centuries, though earlier Muslim conquests made limited inroads into the region, beginning during the period of the ascendancy of the Rajput Kingdoms in North India, from the 7th century onwards.However, the Himalayan...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
(Zhou Dynasty
Zhou Dynasty
The Zhou Dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang Dynasty and preceded the Qin Dynasty. Although the Zhou Dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history, the actual political and military control of China by the Ji family lasted only until 771 BC, a period known as...
, and end of Han Dynasty
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
) and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
during the Shogunate. James Lee and Cameron Campbell describe the Chinese Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
(1644–1912) as also maintaining a form of serfdom. According to Pierre Bonnassie, feudalism could also be seen in Spain
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
. Although serfdom is believed to exist in all these regions, it was not uniform throughout them. Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
is described by Melvyn Goldstein to have had serfdom until 1959, but whether or not the Tibetan form of peasant tenancy qualified as serfdom was widespread is contested. Bhutan
Bhutan
Bhutan , officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China...
is described by Tashi Wangchuk, a Bhutanese civil servant, as abolishing serfdom
Slavery in Bhutan
Slavery in Bhutan was a common legal economic and social institution until abolition in 1958. In historical records, unfree labourers in Bhutan were referred to as slaves, coolies, and serfs...
officially by 1959, but Wangchuk believes less than or about 10% of poor peasants were in copyhold
Copyhold
At its origin in medieval England, copyhold tenure was tenure of land according to the custom of the manor, the "title deeds" being a copy of the record of the manorial court....
situations.
Etymology
Middle French
Middle French is a historical division of the French language that covers the period from 1340 to 1611. It is a period of transition during which:...
"serf", and can be traced further back to the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
servus, meaning "slave". In Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed...
and most of the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, what we now call serfs were usually designated in Latin as coloni
Colonus (person)
A colonus was a type of Roman peasant farmer, a serf. This designation was carried into the Medieval period for much of Europe.Coloni worked on large Roman estates called "latifundia" and could never leave. Latifundia raised sheep and other types of cattle...
(sing. colonus). As slavery gradually disappeared and the legal status of these servi became nearly identical to that of coloni, the term changed meaning into our modern concept of "serf". The term "serfdom" was coined in 1850.
Dependency and the lower orders
Serfs had a specific place in feudal society, as did baronEnglish feudal barony
In England, a feudal barony or barony by tenure was a form of Feudal land tenure, namely per baroniam under which the land-holder owed the service of being one of the king's barons. It must be distinguished from a barony, also feudal, but which existed within a county palatine, such as the Barony...
s and knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
s: in return for protection, a serf would reside upon and work a parcel of land within the manor
Manor
-Land tenure:*Manor, an estate in land of the mediaeval era in England*Manorialism, a system of land tenure and organization of the rural economy and society in parts of medieval Europe based on the manor*Manor house, the principal house of a manor...
of his lord
Lord of the Manor
The Lordship of a Manor is recognised today in England and Wales as a form of property and one of three elements of a manor that may exist separately or be combined and may be held in moieties...
. There was thus a degree of reciprocity in the manorial system.
One rationale was that a serf "worked for all," while a knight or baron "fought for all" and a churchman "prayed for all"; thus everyone had a place. The serf was the worst fed and paid, but at least he had his place and, unlike slaves
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, had certain rights in land and property.
A lord of the manor could not sell his serfs as a Roman might sell his slaves. On the other hand, if he chose to dispose of a parcel of land, the serf or serfs associated with that land went with it to serve their new lord, benefitting him from their long-acquired knowledge of practices suited to the land. Further, a serf could not abandon his lands without permission, nor did he possess a saleable title in them.
Becoming a serf
A freeman, that is to say one whose feudal land tenureFeudal land tenure
Under the English feudal system several different forms of land tenure existed, each effectively a contract with differing rights and duties attached thereto. Such tenures could be either free-hold, signifying that they were hereditable or perpetual, or non-free where the tenancy terminated on the...
was freehold
Freehold
Freehold may refer to:*Freehold and fee simple: ownership of land and the buildings on such land...
, became a serf usually through force or necessity. Sometimes freeholders
Fee simple
In English law, a fee simple is an estate in land, a form of freehold ownership. It is the most common way that real estate is owned in common law countries, and is ordinarily the most complete ownership interest that can be had in real property short of allodial title, which is often reserved...
or allodial owners were intimidated into dependency by the greater physical and legal force of a local magnate. Often a few years of crop failure, a war or brigandage
Brigandage
Brigandage refers to the life and practice of brigands: highway robbery and plunder, and a brigand is a person who usually lives in a gang and lives by pillage and robbery....
might leave a person unable to make his own way. In such a case a bargain was struck with a lord of a manor. In exchange for protection, service was required, in cash, produce or with labour, or a combination of all. These bargains were formalized in a ceremony known as "bondage" in which a serf placed his head in the lord's hands, akin to the ceremony of homage
Homage
Homage is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic....
where a vassal
Vassal
A vassal or feudatory is a person who has entered into a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. The obligations often included military support and mutual protection, in exchange for certain privileges, usually including the grant of land held...
placed his hands between those of his overlord. These oaths bound the lord and his new serf in a feudal contract and defined the terms of their agreement. Often these bargains were severe. A 7th century Anglo Saxon
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
"Oath of Fealty" states:
"By the Lord before whom this sanctuary is holy, I will to N. be true and faithful, and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns, according to the laws of God and the order of the world. Nor will I ever with will or action, through word or deed, do anything which is unpleasing to him, on condition that he will hold to me as I shall deserve it, and that he will perform everything as it was in our agreement when I submitted myself to him and chose his will."
To become a serf was a commitment that encompassed all aspects of the serf’s life.
Moreover, the condition of serfdom was inherited at birth. By taking on the duties of serfdom, serfs bound not only themselves but all of their future progeny.
Serfdom's class system
The social classSocial class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
of peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
was often broken down into smaller categories. These distinctions were often less clear than suggested by their different names. Most often, there were two types of peasants, freemen, whose tenure within the manor was freehold
Freehold
Freehold may refer to:*Freehold and fee simple: ownership of land and the buildings on such land...
, and villeins. Lower classes of peasants, known as cottars, generally comprising the younger sons of villeins or bordars in the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...
, and slaves, made up the lower class of workers.
Freemen
Freemen, or free tenants held their land by one of a variety of contracts of feudal land tenureFeudal land tenure
Under the English feudal system several different forms of land tenure existed, each effectively a contract with differing rights and duties attached thereto. Such tenures could be either free-hold, signifying that they were hereditable or perpetual, or non-free where the tenancy terminated on the...
and were essentially rent-paying tenant farmers who owed little or no service to the lord, and had a good degree of security of tenure
Security of tenure
Security of tenure is a term used in political science to describe a constitutional or legal guarantee that an office-holder cannot be removed from office except in exceptional and specified circumstances....
and independence. In parts of 11th century England freemen made up only 10% of the peasant population, and in the rest of Europe their numbers were small.
Villeins
A villein was the most common type of serf in the Middle Ages. Villeins had more rights and higher status than the lowest serf, but existed under a number of legal restrictions that differentiated them from freemen. Villeins generally rented small homes, with or without land. As part of the contract with the landlordLandlord
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant . When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner...
, the lord of the manor
Lord of the Manor
The Lordship of a Manor is recognised today in England and Wales as a form of property and one of three elements of a manor that may exist separately or be combined and may be held in moieties...
, they were expected to spend some of their time working on the lord's fields. The requirement often was not greatly onerous, contrary to popular belief and was often only seasonal, for example the duty to help at harvest-time. The rest of their time was spent farming their own land for their own profit. Like other types of serfs, they were required to provide other services, possibly in addition to paying rent of money or produce. Villeins were tied to the land and could not move away without their lord's consent and the acceptance of the lord to whose manor they proposed to migrate to. Villeins were generally able to hold their own property, unlike slaves. Villeinage, as opposed to other forms of serfdom, was most common in Continental European feudalism, where land ownership had developed from roots in Roman law
Roman law
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve...
.
A variety of kinds of villeinage existed in Europe in the Middle Ages. Half-villeins received only half as many strips of land for their own use and owed a full complement of labour to the lord, often forcing them to rent out their services to other serfs to make up for this hardship. Villeinage was not, however, a purely uni-directional exploitative relationship. In the Middle Ages, land within a lord's manor provided sustenance
Sustenance
Sustenance can refer to any means of subsistence or livelihood within a region or a country;*food*any subsistence economy: see list of subsistence techniques**hunting-gathering**animal husbandry**subsistence agriculture...
and survival, and being a villein guaranteed access to land, and crops secure from theft by marauding robbers. Landlords, even where legally entitled to do so, rarely evicted villeins because of the value of their labour. Villeinage was much preferable to being a vagabond, a slave, or an unlanded labourer.
In many medieval countries, a villein could gain freedom by escaping from a manor
Manor
-Land tenure:*Manor, an estate in land of the mediaeval era in England*Manorialism, a system of land tenure and organization of the rural economy and society in parts of medieval Europe based on the manor*Manor house, the principal house of a manor...
to a city
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
or borough
Borough
A borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely....
and living there for more than a year; but this action involved the loss of land rights and agricultural livelihood, a prohibitive price unless the landlord was especially tyrannical or conditions in the village were unusually difficult.
Bordars and cottagers
In England the Domesday BookDomesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
, of 1086, uses bordarii (bordar) and cottarii (cottager) as interchangeable terms, cottager being derived from the native tongue whereas bordar being derived from the French.
The status of bordar or cottager ranked below a serf
SERF
A spin exchange relaxation-free magnetometer is a type of magnetometer developed at Princeton University in the early 2000s. SERF magnetometers measure magnetic fields by using lasers to detect the interaction between alkali metal atoms in a vapor and the magnetic field.The name for the technique...
in the social hierarchy of a manor, holding a cottage
Cottage
__toc__In modern usage, a cottage is usually a modest, often cozy dwelling, typically in a rural or semi-rural location. However there are cottage-style dwellings in cities, and in places such as Canada the term exists with no connotations of size at all...
, garden and just enough land to feed a family. In England, at the time of the Domesday Survey, this would have been between about 1 and 5 acres( 0.4 to 2 hectares). Under an Elizabethan
Elizabethan era
The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...
statute
Statute
A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs a state, city, or county. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. The word is often used to distinguish law made by legislative bodies from case law, decided by courts, and regulations...
, the cottage had to be built with at least 4 acre (0.01618744 km²; 0.00625000552608715 sq mi) of land. However, the later Enclosures Act, removed the cottagers right to any land, "before the Enclosures Act the cottager was a farm labourer with land and after the Enclosures Act the cottager was a farm labourer without land".
The bordars and cottagers did not own their draught oxen or horses. The Domesday Book showed that England comprised 12% freeholders; 35% serfs or villeins: 30% cotters and borders: and 9% slaves.
Slaves
The last type of serf was the slaveSlavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
. Slaves had the fewest rights
Rights
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory...
and benefits from the manor. They owned no tenancy in land, worked for the lord exclusively and survived on donations from the landlord.
It was always in the interest of the lord to prove that a servile arrangement existed, as this provided him with greater rights to fees and taxes. The status of a man was a primary issue in determining a person's rights and obligations in many of the manorial court cases of the period. Also, runaway slaves could be beaten if caught.
The serf's duties
The usual serf (not including slaves or cottars) paid his fees and taxes in the form of seasonally appropriate labour. Usually a portion of the week was devoted to ploughing his lord's fields held in demesneDemesne
In the feudal system the demesne was all the land, not necessarily all contiguous to the manor house, which was retained by a lord of the manor for his own use and support, under his own management, as distinguished from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants...
, harvesting crops, digging ditches, repairing fences, and often working in the manor house
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
. The residue of the serf’s time was devoted to tending his own fields, crops and animals in order to provide for his family. Most manorial work was segregated by gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
during the regular times of the year; however, during the harvest
Harvest
Harvest is the process of gathering mature crops from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, or reaper...
, the whole family was expected to work the fields.
A major difficulty of a serf's life was that his work for his lord coincided with, and took precedence over, the work he had to perform on his own lands: when the lord's crops were ready to be harvested, so were his own. On the other hand, the serf of a benign lord could look forward to being well fed during his service; it was a lord without foresight who did not provide a substantial meal for his serfs during the harvest and planting times. In exchange for this work on the lord's demesne
Demesne
In the feudal system the demesne was all the land, not necessarily all contiguous to the manor house, which was retained by a lord of the manor for his own use and support, under his own management, as distinguished from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants...
, the serf had certain privileges and rights, including for example the right to gather deadwood from their lord’s forests, an essential fuel source.
In addition to service, a serf was required to pay certain taxes and fees. Taxes were based on the assessed value of his lands and holdings. Fees were usually paid in the form of agricultural produce rather than cash. The best ration of wheat from the serf’s harvest often went to the landlord. Generally hunting and trapping of wild game by the serfs on the lord’s property was prohibited. On Easter Sunday the peasant family perhaps might owe an extra dozen eggs, and at Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
a goose was perhaps required too. When a family member died, extra taxes were paid to the lord as a form of feudal relief
Feudal relief
Feudal Relief was a one-off "fine" or form of taxation payable to an overlord by the heir of a feudal tenant to licence him to take possession of his fief, i.e. an estate-in-land, by inheritance...
to enable the heir to keep the right to till what land he had. Any young woman who wished to marry a serf outside of her manor was forced to pay a fee for the right to leave her lord, and in compensation for her lost labour.
Often there were arbitrary tests to judge the worthiness of their tax payments. A chicken, for example, might be required to be able to jump over a fence of a given height to be considered old enough or well enough to be valued for tax purposes. The restraints of serfdom on personal and economic choice were enforced through various forms of manorial customary law and the manorial administration and court baron
Court baron
A Court baron is an English or Scottish manorial court dating from the Middle Ages.It was laid down by Sir Edward Coke that a manor had two courts, "the first by the common law, and is called a court baron," the freeholders being its suitors; the other a customary court for the copyholders...
.
It was also a matter of discussion whether serfs could be required by law in times of war or conflict to fight for their lord's land and property. In the case of their lord's defeat, their own fate might be uncertain, so the serf certainly had an interest in supporting his lord.
Rights of serfdom
Within his constraints, a serf had some freedoms. Though the common wisdom is that a serf owned "only his belly" — even his clothes were the property, in law, of his lord — a serf might still accumulate personal property and wealth, and some serfs became wealthier than their free neighbours, although this was rare. A well-to-do serf might even be able to buy his freedom.A serf could grow what crop he saw fit on his lands, although a serf's taxes often had to be paid in wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
. The surplus he would sell at market
Market
A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...
.
The landlord could not dispossess his serfs without legal cause and was supposed to protect them from the depredations of robbers or other lords, and he was expected to support them by charity in times of famine
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...
. Many such rights were enforcible by the serf in the manorial court.
Variations
Forms of serfdom varied greatly through time and region. In some places serfdom was merged with or exchanged for various forms of taxation.The amount of labour required varied. In Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, for example, it was commonly a few days per year per household in the 13th century; one day per week per household in the 14th century; four days per week per household in the 17th century and six days per week per household in the 18th century. Early serfdom in Poland was mostly limited on the royal territories (królewszczyzny).
"Per household" means that every dwelling had to give a worker for the required number of days. For example, in the 18th century, six people: a peasant, his wife, three children and a hired worker might be required to work for their lord one day a week, which would be counted as six days of labour.
Serfs served on occasion as soldiers in the event of conflict and could earn freedom or even ennoblement for valour in combat. Serfs could purchase their freedom, bemanumitted
Manumission
Manumission is the act of a slave owner freeing his or her slaves. In the United States before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished most slavery, this often happened upon the death of the owner, under conditions in his will.-Motivations:The...
by their generous owners, or flee to towns or newly-settled land where few questions were asked. Laws varied from country to country: in England a serf who made his way to a chartered town (i.e. a borough
Borough
A borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely....
) and evaded recapture for a year and a day
Year and a day rule
The year and a day rule has been a common traditional length of time for establishing differences in legal status. The phrase "year and a day rule" is most commonly associated with the former common law standard that death could not be legally attributed to acts or omissions that occurred more...
obtained his freedom and became a burgher of the town.
History of serfdom
Social institutions similar to serfdom were known in ancient timesAncient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...
. The status of the helots
Helots
The helots: / Heílôtes) were an unfree population group that formed the main population of Laconia and the whole of Messenia . Their exact status was already disputed in antiquity: according to Critias, they were "especially slaves" whereas to Pollux, they occupied a status "between free men and...
in the ancient Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
city-state
City-state
A city-state is an independent or autonomous entity whose territory consists of a city which is not administered as a part of another local government.-Historical city-states:...
of Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
resembled that of the medieval serfs. By the 3rd century AD, the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
faced a labour shortage. Large Roman landowners increasingly relied on Roman freemen, acting as tenant farmers, instead of slaves to provide labour. These tenant farmers, eventually known as coloni
Colonus (person)
A colonus was a type of Roman peasant farmer, a serf. This designation was carried into the Medieval period for much of Europe.Coloni worked on large Roman estates called "latifundia" and could never leave. Latifundia raised sheep and other types of cattle...
, saw their condition steadily erode. Because the tax system implemented by Dioclecian assessed taxes based on both land and the inhabitants of that land, it became administratively inconvenient for peasants to leave the land where they were counted in the census. In 332 AD Constantine issued legislation that greatly restricted the rights of the coloni and tied them to the land. Some see these laws as the beginning of medieval serfdom in Europe.
However, medieval serfdom really began with the breakup of the Carolingian Empire
Carolingian Empire
Carolingian Empire is a historiographical term which has been used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty in the Early Middle Ages. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany, and its beginning date is based on the crowning of Charlemagne, or Charles the...
around the 10th century. The demise of this empire, which had ruled much of western Europe for more than 200 years, was followed by a long period during which no strong central government existed in most of Europe.
During this period, powerful feudal lords
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
encouraged the establishment of serfdom as a source of agricultural labor. Serfdom, indeed, was an institution that reflected a fairly common practice whereby great landlords were assured that others worked to feed them and were held down, legally and economically, while doing so.
This arrangement provided most of the agricultural labour throughout the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
. Slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
persisted right through the Middle Ages, but it was rare, diminishing and largely confined to the use of household slaves. Parts of Europe, including much of Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
, never adopted many feudal institutions, including serfdom.
In the later Middle Ages serfdom began to disappear west of the Rhine even as it spread through eastern Europe. This was one important cause for the deep differences between the societies and economies of eastern and western Europe.
In Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
, the rise of powerful monarch
Monarch
A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...
s, towns, and an improving economy weakened the manorial system through the 13th and 14th centuries, and serfdom was rare following the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
.
Serfdom in Western Europe came largely to an end in the 15th and 16th centuries, because of changes in the economy, population, and laws governing lord-tenant relations in Western European nations. The enclosure of manor fields for livestock grazing and for larger arable plots made the economy of serfs’ small strips of land in open fields less attractive to the landowners. Furthermore, the increasing use of money
Money
Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...
made tenant farming by serfs less profitable; for much less than it cost to support a serf, a lord could now hire workers who were more skilled and pay them in cash. Paid labour was also more flexible since workers could be hired only when they were needed.
At the same time, increasing unrest and uprisings by serfs and peasants, like Tyler’s Rebellion
Peasants' Revolt
The Peasants' Revolt, Wat Tyler's Rebellion, or the Great Rising of 1381 was one of a number of popular revolts in late medieval Europe and is a major event in the history of England. Tyler's Rebellion was not only the most extreme and widespread insurrection in English history but also the...
in England in 1381, put pressure on the nobility and the clergy to reform the system. As a result serf and peasant demands were accommodated to some extent by the gradual establishment of new forms of land leases and increased personal liberties.
Another important factor in the decline of serfdom was industrial development — especially the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
. With the growing profitability of industry
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
, farmers wanted to move to towns to receive higher wages than those they could earn working in the fields, while landowners also invested in the more profitable industry. This also led to the growing process of urbanization
Urbanization
Urbanization, urbanisation or urban drift is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of global change. The United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008....
.
Serfdom reached Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
an countries later than Western Europe — it became dominant around the 15th century. Before that time, Eastern Europe had been much more sparsely populated than Western Europe, and the lords of Eastern Europe created a peasantry-friendly environment to encourage migration east. Serfdom developed in Eastern Europe after the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
epidemics, which not only stopped the migration but depopulated Western Europe.
The resulting large land-to-labour ratio combined with Eastern Europe's vast, sparsely populated areas gave the lords an incentive to bind the remaining peasantry to their land. With increased demand for agricultural produce in Western Europe during the later era when Western Europe limited and eventually abolished serfdom, serfdom remained in force throughout Eastern Europe during the 17th century so that nobility
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
-owned estates could produce more agricultural products (especially grain
Cereal
Cereals are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their grain , composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran...
) for the profitable export market.
Such Eastern European countries included Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
(Prussian Ordinances of 1525), Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
(laws of the late 15th and early 16th centuries), the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
(szlachta
Szlachta
The szlachta was a legally privileged noble class with origins in the Kingdom of Poland. It gained considerable institutional privileges during the 1333-1370 reign of Casimir the Great. In 1413, following a series of tentative personal unions between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of...
privileges of the early 16th century) and the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
(laws of the late 16th and first half of the 17th century). This also led to the slower industrial development and urbanisation of those regions. Generally, this process, referred to as 'second serfdom' or 'export-led serfdom', which persisted until the mid-19th century, became very repressive and substantially limited serfs' rights.
In many of these countries serfdom was abolished during the Napoleonic invasions
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
of the early 19th century. Serfdom remained in force in most of Russia until the Emancipation reform of 1861
Emancipation reform of 1861
The Emancipation Reform of 1861 in Russia was the first and most important of liberal reforms effected during the reign of Alexander II of Russia. The reform, together with a related reform in 1861, amounted to the liquidation of serf dependence previously suffered by peasants of the Russian Empire...
, enacted on February 19, 1861, though in Russian Baltic provinces it had been abolished at the beginning of the 19th century. Russian serfdom
Russian serfdom
The origins of serfdom in Russia are traced to Kievan Rus in the 11th century. Legal documents of the epoch, such as Russkaya Pravda, distinguished several degrees of feudal dependency of peasants, the term for an unfree peasant in the Russian Empire, krepostnoi krestyanin , is translated as serf.-...
was perhaps the most notable Eastern European institution, as it was never influenced by German law and migrations, and serfdom and the manorial
Manorialism
Manorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market...
system were enforced by the crown (Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
), not the nobility.
The decline of serfdom
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
reduced the rural population and increased the bargaining power of workers. Furthermore, the lords of many manors were willing (for payment) to manumit ("release") their serfs. Serfdom had largely died out in England by 1500 as a personal status, but land held by serf tenure (unless enfranchised) continued to be held by what was thenceforth known as a copyhold tenancy
Copyhold
At its origin in medieval England, copyhold tenure was tenure of land according to the custom of the manor, the "title deeds" being a copy of the record of the manorial court....
, which was not completely abolished until 1925 (although it was whittled away during the 19th and early 20th centuries). During the Late Middle Ages
Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th to the 16th century . The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern era ....
, peasant unrest led to outbreaks of violence against landlords. In May 1381 the English peasants revolted because of the heavy tax placed upon them by Parliament
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
. There were similar occurrences at around the same time in Castille, Germany, northern France, Portugal, and Sweden. Although these peasant revolts
Popular revolt in late medieval Europe
Popular revolts in late medieval Europe were uprisings and rebellions by peasants in the countryside, or the bourgeois in towns, against nobles, abbots and kings during the upheavals of the 14th through early 16th centuries, part of a larger "Crisis of the Late Middle Ages"...
were often successful, it usually took a long time before legal systems were changed.
Era of the French Revolution
The era of the French Revolution (1790s to 1820s) saw serfdom abolished in most of Europe, except Russia and Austria. In France occurred on August 11, 1789 with the "Decree Abolishing the Feudal System". This decree abolished the manorial system completely. It abolished the authority of manorial courts, outlawed pigeon houses, eliminated and altered tithes (set taxes), and freed those who were enslaved. The majority of the population consisted of peasants. This social system was no longer viable.In German history
History of Germany
The concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul , which he had conquered. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the...
the emancipation of the serfs came in 1770-1830, beginning with Schleswig in 1780. Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
abolished serfdom with the "October Edict" of 1807, which upgraded the personal legal status of the peasantry and gave them ownership of half or two thirds of the lands they were working. The edict apply to all peasants whose holdings were above a certain size, and included both Crown lands and noble estates. The peasants were freed from the obligation of personal services to the lord and annual dues; in return and land owners were given ownership of 1/3 to 1/2 of the land. The peasant owned and rented the lands that were deeded to the old owners. The other German states imitated Prussia after 1815. In sharp contrast to the violence that characterized land reform in the French Revolution, Germany handled it peacefully. In Schleswig the peasants, who had been influenced by the Enlightenment, played an active role; elsewhere they were largely passive. Indeed, for most peasants, customs and traditions continued largely unchanged, including the old habits of deference to the nobles whose legal authority remains quite strong over the villagers. The old paternalistic relationship in East Prussia lasted into the 20th century. what was new was that the peasant could now sell his land, enabling him to move to the city, or buy up the land of his neighbors.
The land reforms in northwestern Germany were driven by progressive governments and local elites. They abolished feudal obligations and divided collectively owned common land into private parcels and thus created a more efficient market-oriented rural economy. It produced increased productivity and population growth. It strengthened the traditional social order because wealthy peasants obtained most of the former common land, while the rural proletariat was left without land; many left for the cities or America. Meanwhile the division of the common land served as a buffer preserving social peace between nobles and peasants. East of the Elbe River, the Junker class
Junker
A Junker was a member of the landed nobility of Prussia and eastern Germany. These families were mostly part of the German Uradel and carried on the colonization and Christianization of the northeastern European territories during the medieval Ostsiedlung. The abbreviation of Junker is Jkr...
maintained large estates and monopolized political power.
The eradication of the feudal system marks the beginning of an era of rapid change in Europe. The change in status following the enclosure
Enclosure
Enclosure or inclosure is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the...
movements beginning in the later 18th century, in which various lords abandoned the open field farming of previous centuries and, essentially, took all the best land for themselves in exchange for "freeing" their serfs, may well have made serfdom seem more desirable to many peasant families.
In his book Das Kapital
Das Kapital
Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, and how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production.- Themes :In Capital: Critique of...
, in Chapter 26 entitled "The Secret of Primitive Accumulation" and Chapter 27, "Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the Land", Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
claimed that the feudal relationships of serfdom were violently transformed into private property and free labour: free of possession and free to sell their labour force on the market. Being liberated from serfdom meant being able to sell one's land and work wherever one desired. "The so-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production. It appears as primitive, because it forms the pre-historic stage of capital and of the mode of production corresponding with it." In a case history of England, Marx described how the serfs became free peasant proprietors and small farmers, who were, over time, forcibly expropriated and driven off the land, forming a property-less proletariat. He also claimed that more and more legislation was enacted by the state to control and regiment this new class of wage workers. In the meantime, the remaining farmers became capitalist farmers operating more and more on a commercial basis; and gradually, legal monopolies preventing trade and investment by entrepreneurs were broken up.
Taxes levied by the state took the place of labour dues levied by the lord. Although serfdom began its decline in Europe in the Middle Ages, it took many hundreds of years to disappear completely. In addition, the struggles of the working class during the Industrial Revolution can often be compared with the struggles of the serfs during the Middle Ages. In parts of the world today, forced labour is still used. Serfdom is an institution that has always been commonplace for human society; however, it has not always been of the same nature.
Dates of emancipation from serfdom in various countries
- ScotlandScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
: neyfs (serfs) disappeared by late 14th century, but heritable jurisdictionsHeritable jurisdictionsHeritable jurisdictions were, in the law of Scotland, grants of jurisdiction made to a man and his heirs.They were a usual accompaniment to feudal tenures, and the power which they conferred on great families, being recognized as a source of danger to the state, led to frequent attempts being made...
survived until 1747. - England & Wales: obsolete by 15th-16th century,
- WallachiaWallachiaWallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
: Never widely practiced. Officially ended in 1746 (land reforms in 1864) - MoldaviaMoldaviaMoldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
: Never widely practiced. Officially ended in 1749 (land reforms in 1864) - Savoy: 19 December 1771
- AustriaHabsburg MonarchyThe Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
: 1 November 1781 (first step; second step: 1848) - BohemiaBohemiaBohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
: 1 November 1781 (first step; second step: 1848) - BadenBadenBaden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....
: 23 July 1783 - DenmarkDenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
: 20 June 1788 - Helvetic RepublicHelvetic RepublicIn Swiss history, the Helvetic Republic represented an early attempt to impose a central authority over Switzerland, which until then consisted mainly of self-governing cantons united by a loose military alliance, and conquered territories such as Vaud...
: 4 May 1798 - Batavian RepublicBatavian RepublicThe Batavian Republic was the successor of the Republic of the United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on January 19, 1795, and ended on June 5, 1806, with the accession of Louis Bonaparte to the throne of the Kingdom of Holland....
(Netherlands): constitution of 12 June 1798 (in theory; in practice with the introduction of the French Code NapoléonNapoleonic codeThe Napoleonic Code — or Code Napoléon — is the French civil code, established under Napoléon I in 1804. The code forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion, and specified that government jobs go to the most qualified...
in 1811) - SerbiaSerbiaSerbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
: 1804 (de facto, de jure in 1830) - Schleswig-HolsteinSchleswig-HolsteinSchleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...
: 19 December 1804 - Swedish PomeraniaSwedish PomeraniaSwedish Pomerania was a Dominion under the Swedish Crown from 1630 to 1815, situated on what is now the Baltic coast of Germany and Poland. Following the Polish War and the Thirty Years' War, Sweden held extensive control over the lands on the southern Baltic coast, including Pomerania and parts...
: 4 July 1806 - Duchy of WarsawDuchy of WarsawThe Duchy of Warsaw was a Polish state established by Napoleon I in 1807 from the Polish lands ceded by the Kingdom of Prussia under the terms of the Treaties of Tilsit. The duchy was held in personal union by one of Napoleon's allies, King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony...
(PolandPolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
): 22 July 1807 - PrussiaKingdom of PrussiaThe Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
: 9 October 1807 (effectively 1811-1823) - MecklenburgMecklenburgMecklenburg is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...
: October 1807 (effectively 1820) - BavariaBavariaBavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
: 31 August 1808 - Nassau: 1 September 1812
- Governorate of EstoniaGovernorate of EstoniaThe Governorate of Estonia or Estland, also known as the Government of Estonia or Province of Estonia, was a governorate of the Russian Empire in what is now northern Estonia.-Historical overview:...
: 23 March 1816
- Governorate of Courland: 25 August 1817
- WürttembergWürttembergWürttemberg , formerly known as Wirtemberg or Wurtemberg, is an area and a former state in southwestern Germany, including parts of the regions Swabia and Franconia....
: 18 November 1817 - Governorate of Livonia: 26 March 1819
- HanoverKingdom of HanoverThe Kingdom of Hanover was established in October 1814 by the Congress of Vienna, with the restoration of George III to his Hanoverian territories after the Napoleonic era. It succeeded the former Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg , and joined with 38 other sovereign states in the German...
: 1831 - SaxonySaxonyThe Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
: 17 March 1832 - HungaryKingdom of HungaryThe Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...
: 11 April 1848 - CroatiaKingdom of Croatia (Habsburg)The Kingdom of Croatia was an administrative division that existed between 1527 and 1868 within the Habsburg Monarchy . The Kingdom was a part of the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen, but was subject to direct Imperial Austrian rule for significant periods of time, including its final years...
: 8 May 1848 - Austrian EmpireAustrian EmpireThe Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
: 7 September 1848 - BulgariaPrincipality of BulgariaThe Principality of Bulgaria was a self-governing entity created as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. The preliminary treaty of San Stefano between the Russian Empire and the Porte , on March 3, had originally proposed a significantly larger Bulgarian territory: its...
: 1858 (de jure by Ottoman EmpireOttoman EmpireThe Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
; de facto in 1880) - Russian EmpireRussian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
: 19 February 1861 (see Emancipation reform of 1861Emancipation reform of 1861The Emancipation Reform of 1861 in Russia was the first and most important of liberal reforms effected during the reign of Alexander II of Russia. The reform, together with a related reform in 1861, amounted to the liquidation of serf dependence previously suffered by peasants of the Russian Empire...
) - TongaTongaTonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...
: 1862 - Congress PolandCongress PolandThe Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...
: 1864 - GeorgiaGeorgia (country)Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
: 1864-1871 - KalmykiaKalmykiaThe Republic of Kalmykia is a federal subject of Russia . Population: It is the only Buddhist region in Europe. It has also become well-known as an international chess mecca because its former President, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is the head of the International Chess Federation .-Geography:*Area:...
: 1892 - IcelandIcelandIceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
: 1894 (completely) - Bosnia and HerzegovinaBosnia and HerzegovinaBosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
: 1918 - AfghanistanAfghanistanAfghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
: 1923 - BhutanBhutanBhutan , officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China...
: officially abolished by 1959 - TibetTibetTibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
, People's Republic of ChinaPeople's Republic of ChinaChina , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
: March 29, 1959Serfs Emancipation DaySerf Liberation day , on March 28, is an annual holiday in Tibet, which celebrates what the central and local government calls the emancipation of serfs in Tibet. The holiday was adopted by the Tibetan legislature on January 19, 2009, and was celebrated that same year...
, but use of "serf" for Tibet is controversialSerfdom in Tibet controversyThe serfdom in Tibet controversy rests on both a political and an academic debate. In the political debate, Chinese sources claim moral authority for governing Tibet, based on narratives that portray Tibet as a "feudal serfdom" and a "hell on earth" prior to the invasion of Tibet in 1950...
See also
- BirkarlsBirkarlsBirkarls were a small, unofficially organized Finnish group that controlled taxing and commerce in central Lappmarken in Sweden during the 13th to 17th centuries.-Background:The most probable assumption is that Birkarls were originally...
- ColonusColonus (person)A colonus was a type of Roman peasant farmer, a serf. This designation was carried into the Medieval period for much of Europe.Coloni worked on large Roman estates called "latifundia" and could never leave. Latifundia raised sheep and other types of cattle...
- Debt bondageDebt bondageDebt bondage is when a person pledges him or herself against a loan. In debt bondage, the services required to repay the debt may be undefined, and the services' duration may be undefined...
- FarmFarmA farm is an area of land, or, for aquaculture, lake, river or sea, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food , fibres and, increasingly, fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single...
- FeudalismFeudalismFeudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
- FiefdomFiefdomA fee was the central element of feudalism and consisted of heritable lands granted under one of several varieties of feudal tenure by an overlord to a vassal who held it in fealty in return for a form of feudal allegiance and service, usually given by the...
- FolwarkFolwarkFolwark is a Polish word for a primarily serfdom-based farm and agricultural enterprise , often very large. Folwarks were operated in the Crown of Poland from the 14th century and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since the 15th century, from the second half of the 16th century in the joint...
- FreeholderFreeholderA freeholder can refer to:* one who is in freehold* one who holds title to real property in Fee simple* an official of county government in the U.S. state of New Jersey...
- HaciendaHaciendaHacienda is a Spanish word for an estate. Some haciendas were plantations, mines, or even business factories. Many haciendas combined these productive activities...
- Helot
- Indentured servantIndentured servantIndentured servitude refers to the historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of indenture. Usually the father made the arrangements and signed...
- JosephinismJosephinismJosephinism is the term used to describe the domestic policies of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor . During the ten years in which Joseph was the sole ruler of the Habsburg Monarchy , he attempted to legislate a series of drastic reforms to remodel Austria in the form of the ideal Enlightened state...
- KholopKholopKholops were feudally dependent people in Russia between the 10th and early 18th centuries. Their legal status was close to that of serfs.- Etymology :The word kholop was first mentioned in a chronicle for the year of 986. Its etymology is unclear...
- Kolhoz
- ManorialismManorialismManorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market...
- MinisterialisMinisterialisMinisterialis ; a post-classical Latin word, used in English, meaning originally servitor, agent, in a broad range of senses...
- Peonage
- Russian serfdomRussian serfdomThe origins of serfdom in Russia are traced to Kievan Rus in the 11th century. Legal documents of the epoch, such as Russkaya Pravda, distinguished several degrees of feudal dependency of peasants, the term for an unfree peasant in the Russian Empire, krepostnoi krestyanin , is translated as serf.-...
- Serfdom PatentSerfdom Patent (1781)The Serfdom Patent of 1781 aimed to abolish aspects of the traditional serfdom system of the Habsburg lands through the establishment of basic civil liberties for the serfs....
- Serfdom in Tibet controversySerfdom in Tibet controversyThe serfdom in Tibet controversy rests on both a political and an academic debate. In the political debate, Chinese sources claim moral authority for governing Tibet, based on narratives that portray Tibet as a "feudal serfdom" and a "hell on earth" prior to the invasion of Tibet in 1950...
- Serfs Emancipation DaySerfs Emancipation DaySerf Liberation day , on March 28, is an annual holiday in Tibet, which celebrates what the central and local government calls the emancipation of serfs in Tibet. The holiday was adopted by the Tibetan legislature on January 19, 2009, and was celebrated that same year...
- SharecroppingSharecroppingSharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land . This should not be confused with a crop fixed rent contract, in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a fixed amount of...
- ShoenShoenA was a field or manor in Japan. The Japanese term comes from the Tang dynasty Chinese term zhuangyuan.Shōen, from about the 8th to the late 15th century, describes any of the private, tax-free, often autonomous estates or manors whose rise undermined the political and economic power of the...
- Japanese serfdom - slaverySlavery in medieval EuropeSlavery in early medieval Europe was relatively common. It was widespread at the end of antiquity. The etymology of the word slave comes from this period, the word sklabos meaning Slav. Slavery declined in the Middle Ages in most parts of Europe as serfdom slowly rose, but it never completely...
- SmerdSmerdSmerds were feudal-dependent peasants in Russia and some other Slavic countries. Sources from the 11th and 12th centuries mention smerds’ presence in the Kievan Rus Smerds (sing. smerd; in Russian: pl. смерды, sing. смерд ) were feudal-dependent peasants in Russia and some other Slavic countries....
- ThrallThrallThrall was the term for a serf or unfree servant in Scandinavian culture during the Viking Age.Thralls were the lowest in the social order and usually provided unskilled labor during the Viking era.-Etymology:...
- YeomanYeomanYeoman refers chiefly to a free man owning his own farm, especially from the Elizabethan era to the 17th century. Work requiring a great deal of effort or labor, such as would be done by a yeoman farmer, came to be described as "yeoman's work"...
External links
- Serfdom, Encyclopaedia Britannica.
- Peasantry (social class), Encyclopaedia Britannica.
- An excerpt from the book Serfdom to Self-Government: Memoirs of a Polish Village Mayor, 1842–1927.
- The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis, discussion and full online text of Evsey DomarEvsey DomarEvsey David Domar was a Russian American economist, famous as co-author of the Harrod–Domar model.- Life :Evsey Domar was born on April 16, 1914 in the Polish city of Łódź, which belonged to Russia at that time...
(1970), "The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis", Economic History Review 30:1 (March), pp. 18–32.