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Serf redirects here. For the saint, see Saint Serf. For situations.[8]
the type of magnetometer, see SERF.
United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the
Abolition of Slavery also prohibits serfdom as a form of
Serfdom is the status of many peasants under feudalism, slavery.
specically relating to manorialism. It was a condition
of bondage, which developed primarily during the High
Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until
1 Etymology
the mid-19th century.
Serfs who occupied a plot of land were required to work
for the Lord of the Manor who owned that land, and in
return were entitled to protection, justice and the right to
exploit certain elds within the manor to maintain their
own subsistence. Serfs were often required not only to
work on the lords elds, but also his mines, forests and
roads. The manor formed the basic unit of feudal society, and the Lord of the Manor and his serfs were bound
legally, economically, and socially. Serfs formed the lowest social class of feudal society.
The decline of serfdom in Western Europe has sometimes
been attributed to the Black Death, which reached Europe in 1347,[1] although the decline had begun before
that date. Serfdom became increasingly rare in most of
Western Europe after the Renaissance, but conversely, Costumes of slaves or serfs, from the sixth to the twelfth cenit grew strong in Central and Eastern Europe, where it turies, collected by H. de Vielcastel from original documents in
had previously been less common (this phenomenon was European libraries
known as later serfdom).
In Eastern Europe the institution persisted until the mid- The word serf originated from the Middle French
19th century. It persisted in the Austrian Empire un- serf and can be traced further back to the Latin servus
til 1848 and was abolished in Russia in 1861.[2] In Fin- (slave). In Late Antiquity and most of the Middle Ages,
land, Norway and Sweden feudalism was not established, what we now call serfs were usually designated in Latin
and serfdom did not exist; however, serfdom-like insti- as coloni. As slavery gradually disappeared and the letutions did exist in both Denmark (the stavnsbnd, from gal status of servi became nearly identical to that of the
1733 to 1788) and its vassal Iceland (the more restrictive coloni, the term changed meaning into our modern concept of serf. Serfdom was coined in 1850.
vistarband, from 1490 until 1894).
According to Joseph R. Strayer, the concept of feudalism
can also be applied to the societies of ancient Persia, ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt (Sixth to Twelfth dynasty), 2 Dependency and the lower orders
Muslim India, China (Zhou Dynasty and end of Han Dynasty) and Japan during the Shogunate. James Lee and Serfs had a specic place in feudal society, as did barons
Cameron Campbell describe the Chinese Qing Dynasty and knights: in return for protection, a serf would re(16441912) as also maintaining a form of serfdom.[3]
side upon and work a parcel of land within the manor
Tibet is described by Melvyn Goldstein to have had of his lord. Thus the manorial system exhibited a degree
serfdom until 1959,[4][5] but whether or not the Ti- of reciprocity.
betan form of peasant tenancy that qualied as serfdom
was widespread is contested.[6][7] Bhutan is described by
Tashi Wangchuk, a Bhutanese civil servant, as abolishing
serfdom ocially by 1959, but Wangchuk believes less
than or about 10% of poor peasants were in copyhold
2. villeins
Lower classes of peasants, known as cottars, generally comprising the younger sons of villeins[10][11] or as
bordars in the British Isles, and slaves, made up the lower
class of workers.
2.2.1 Freemen
2.1
Becoming a serf
A freeman became a serf usually through force or necessity. Sometimes the greater physical and legal force of a
local magnate intimidated freeholders or allodial owners
into dependency. 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 he could strike a bargain with a
lord of a manor. In exchange for protection, service was
required: in cash, produce or labour, or a combination
of all. These bargains became formalized in a ceremony
known as bondage in which a serf placed his head in
the lords 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 dened the terms of their agreement.[9]
Often these bargains were severe. A 7th-century Anglo
Saxon 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.
Freemen, or free tenants held their land by one of a variety of contracts of feudal land-tenure 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.
2.2.2 Villeins
A villein (or villain) represented 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 dierentiated them from
freemen. Villeins generally rented small homes, with or
without land. As part of the contract with the landlord,
the lord of the manor, they were expected to spend some
of their time working on the lords elds. 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 prot.
1. freemen, whose tenure within the manor was In many medieval countries, a villein could gain freedom
freehold
by escaping from a manor to a city or borough and liv-
2.4
Rights of serfdom
ing 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 dicult.
2.3
HISTORY OF SERFDOM
3 History of serfdom
Main article: History of serfdom
Social institutions similar to serfdom were known in
5
labour throughout the Middle Ages. Slavery persisted
right through the Middle Ages,[19] but it was rare.
In the later Middle Ages serfdom began to disappear
west of the Rhine even as it spread through eastern Europe. Serfdom reached Eastern Europe centuries later
than Western Europeit became dominant around the
15th century. In many of these countries serfdom was
abolished during the Napoleonic invasions of the early
19th century, though in some it persisted until mid- or
late- 19th century.
3.1
Russia
[3] Lee, James; Campbell, Cameron (1998). Headship succession and household division in three Chinese banner
serf populations, 17891909. Continuity and Change 13
(1): 117141. doi:10.1017/s0268416098003063.
[4] Goldstein, Melvyn C. (1986). Re-examining Choice,
Dependancy and Command in the Tibetan Social System'Tax Appendages and Other Landless Serfs. Tibet Journal 11 (4): 79112.
[5] Goldstein, Melvyn C. (1988). On the Nature of Tibetan
Peasantry. Tibet Journal 13 (1): 6165.
[6] Barnett, Robert (2008) What were the conditions regarding human rights in Tibet before democratic reform? in:
Authenticating Tibet: Answers to Chinas 100 Questions,
pp. 81-83. Eds. Anne-Marie Blondeau and Katia Buffetrille. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-52024464-1 (cloth); ISBN 978-0-520-24928-8 (paper)
[7] Samuel, Georey (1982). Tibet as a Stateless Society
and Some Islamic Parallels. Journal of Asian Studies 41
(2): 215229. doi:10.2307/2054940.
[8] BhutanStudies.org.bt, T Wangchuk Change in the land use
system in Bhutan: Ecology, History, Culture, and Power
Nature Conservation Section. DoF, MoA
[9] Marc Bloch Feudal Society: the growth of the ties of dependence.
[10] Studies of eld systems in the British Isles By Alan R. H.
Baker, Robin Alan Butlin
[11] An Economic History of the British Isles By Arthur
Birnie. P. 218
3.2
21st century
See also
References
EXTERNAL LINKS
Vadey, Liana. Serfdom: Western Europe in Peter N. Stearns, ed, Encyclopedia of European Social
History: from 1352-2000 (2001) volume 2 pp 369
78
White, Stephen D. Re-Thinking Kinship and Feudalism in Early Medieval Europe (2nd ed. Ashgate Variorum, 2000)
Wirtschafter, Elise Kimerling. Russias age of serfdom 1649-1861 (2008)
Wright, William E. Serf, Seigneur, and Sovereign:
Agrarian Reform in Eighteenth-century Bohemia (U
of Minnesota Press, 1966).
Wunder, Heide. Serfdom in later medieval and
early modern Germany in T. H. Aston et al., Social Relations and Ideas: Essays in Honour of R. H.
Hilton (Cambridge UP, 1983), 249-72
Further reading
Backman, Cliord R. The Worlds of Medieval Europe Oxford University Press, 2003.
Blum, Jerome. The End of the Old Order in Rural
Europe (Princeton UP, 1978)
Coulborn, Rushton, ed. Feudalism in History.
Princeton University Press, 1956.
8 External links
Serfdom, Encyclopaedia Britannica (on-line edition).
Paul Vinogrado (1911).
"Serfdom".
Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.).
Peasantry (social class), Encyclopaedia Britannica.
An excerpt from the book Serfdom to SelfGovernment: Memoirs of a Polish Village Mayor,
18421927.
The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis, discussion and full online text of Evsey Domar
(1970), The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis, Economic History Review 30:1 (March),
pp. 1832.
9.1
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