Editing Serfdom (section)

==Dependency and the lower orders==
Serfs had a specific place in feudal society, as did [[English feudal barony|barons]] and [[knight]]s: in return for protection, a serf would reside upon and work a parcel of land within the [[Lord of the manor|manor of his lord]]. Thus, the manorial system exhibited a degree of reciprocity.

One rationale held that serfs and freemen "worked for all" while a knight or baron "fought for all" and a churchman "prayed for all"; thus everyone had a place (see [[Estates of the realm]]). The serf was the worst fed and rewarded. However, unlike slaves, they 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 serfs associated with that land stayed with it to serve their new lord; simply speaking, they were implicitly sold in mass and as a part of a lot. This unified system preserved for the lord long-acquired knowledge of practices suited to the land. Further, a serf could not abandon his lands without permission,<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/serfdom |title=Serfdom |work=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=6 June 2017 |language=en |archive-date=12 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170912034926/https://www.britannica.com/topic/serfdom |url-status=live}}</ref> nor did he possess a saleable title in them.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/medieval-times/european-middle-ages-and-serfdom/a/serfdom-in-europe |title=Serfdom in Europe |publisher=Khan Academy |language=en |access-date=6 June 2017 |archive-date=13 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210813073605/https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/medieval-times/european-middle-ages-and-serfdom/a/serfdom-in-europe |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Initiation===
A [[Franklin (class)|freeman]] became a serf usually through force or necessity. Sometimes the greater physical and legal force of a local [[magnate]] intimidated [[Fee simple|freeholders]] or [[Allodial title|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 gaining protection, his service was required: in labour, produce, or cash, or a combination of all. These bargains became formalised in a ceremony known as "bondage", in which a serf placed his head in the lord's hands, akin to the ceremony of [[Homage (feudal)|homage]] where a [[vassal]] placed his hands between those of his [[Lord|overlord]]. These oaths bound the lord and his new serf in a feudal contract and defined the terms of their agreement.<ref>Marc Bloch, ''Feudal Society: The Growth of the Ties of Dependence''.{{page?|date=March 2024}}{{ISBN?}}</ref> Often these bargains were severe.{{Clarification needed|reason=What does severe mean?|date=April 2024}}

A 7th-century [[Old English|Anglo Saxon]] "Oath of Fealty" states:
{{blockquote|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. The children born to serfs inherited their status, and were considered born into serfdom. By taking on the duties of serfdom, people bound themselves and their progeny.

===Class system===
The social class of the [[peasant]]ry can be differentiated into smaller categories. These distinctions were often less clear than suggested by their different names. Most often, there were two types of peasants:
# freemen, workers whose tenure within the manor was [[freehold (law)|freehold]]
# [[villein]]

Lower classes of peasants, known as [[cottar]]s or [[bordar]]s, generally comprising the younger sons of villeins;<ref>''Studies of field systems in the British Isles'', by Alan R. H. Baker, Robin Alan Butlin</ref><ref>''An Economic History of the British Isles'', by Arthur Birnie. p. 218 {{ISBN?}}</ref> vagabonds; and slaves, made up the lower class of workers.

====Coloni====
The {{Lang|la|[[Colonus (person)|colonus]]}} system of the late Roman Empire can be considered the predecessor of Western European [[feudal]] serfdom.<ref name="urlThe Pictorial History of England: Being a History of the People, as Well as ... – George Lillie Craik, Charles MacFarlane – Google Książki">{{cite web |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rxk5AQAAMAAJ&q=roman+colonus+feudalism&pg=PA545 |title=The Pictorial History of England: Being a History of the People, as Well as ... – George Lillie Craik, Charles MacFarlane –Google Książki |last1=Craik |first1=George Lillie |year=1846 |access-date=3 October 2020 |archive-date=12 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220512042725/https://books.google.com/books?id=rxk5AQAAMAAJ&q=roman+colonus+feudalism&pg=PA545 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="urlThe Edinburgh Review, Or Critical Journal: ... To Be Continued Quarterly - Google Książki">{{cite web |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DblZAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA449 |title=The Edinburgh Review, Or Critical Journal: ... To Be Continued Quarterly – Google Książki |year=1842 |access-date=3 October 2020 |archive-date=7 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220407103336/https://books.google.com/books?id=DblZAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA449 |url-status=live}}</ref>

====Freemen====
Freemen, or [[free tenant]]s, held their land by one of a variety of contracts of [[feudal land tenure|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 most of the rest of Europe their numbers were also small.

====Ministeriales====
[[Ministerialis|Ministeriales]] were hereditary unfree knights tied to their lord, that formed the lowest rung of nobility in the [[Holy Roman Empire]].

====Villeins====
{{See also|Villein}}

In England, after the Norman conquest of 1066, an unfree tenant who held their land subject to providing agricultural and other services to their lord, was described as a villein. Villeins had limited rights and were tied to their lord. However they did have
more rights and were of a higher status than the lowest serf. They had to work on the demensne (their lords farm) in return for receiving small plots of land, to support their family.<ref name=friar458>{{Cite book|last=Friar|first=Stephen|title=The Sutton Companion to Local History|publisher=Sutton Publishing|year=2004|isbn=0-7509-2723-2|page=458}}</ref>

Villeins were not freemen, for example they and their daughters were not allowed to marry without their lords permission.
They 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 (serfs).<ref name=friar458/>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]].{{cn|date=July 2023}}

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 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 they were 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.{{cn|date=July 2023}}

In many medieval countries, a villein could gain freedom by escaping from a [[Manorialism|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.{{cn|date=July 2023}}

In medieval England, two types of villeins existed – ''villeins regardant'' that were tied to land and ''villeins in gross'' that could be traded separately from land.<ref name="urlThe Pictorial History of England: Being a History of the People, as Well as ... – George Lillie Craik, Charles MacFarlane – Google Książki" />

====Bordars and cottagers====
In England, the [[Domesday Book]], of 1086, uses {{Lang|ang|bordarii}} (bordar) and {{Lang|ang|cottarii}} ([[Cotter (farmer)|cottar]]) as interchangeable terms, ''cottar'' deriving from the native Anglo-Saxon tongue whereas ''bordar'' derived from the French.<ref>{{Cite book|editor-last=Hallam|editor-first= H.E.|editor2-last=Finberg|editor3-last=Thirsk |editor3-first=Joan |title=The Agrarian History of England and Wales: 1042–1350|publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1988 |location=Cambridge, England|isbn=0-521-20073-3|page=58}}</ref>

[[File:Supplice du Grand Knout.jpg|thumb|Punishment with a [[knout]]. Whipping was a common punishment for [[Serfdom in Russia|Russian serfs]].<ref>Chapman, Tim (2001). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=EJCOl7S0UYgC&pg=PA83 Imperial Russia, 1801–1905] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160513021134/https://books.google.com/books?id=EJCOl7S0UYgC&pg=PA83&dq&hl=en |date=13 May 2016}}''. Routledge. p. 83. {{ISBN|0-415-23110-8}}</ref>]]

Status-wise, the bordar or cottar ranked below a villein 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 comprised between about {{convert|1|and|5|acre|ha|1|abbr=off}}.<ref name="mcgarry242">Daniel D. McGarry, ''Medieval History and Civilization'' (1976) p. 242</ref> Under an [[Elizabethan era|Elizabethan]] [[statute]], the [[Erection of Cottages Act 1588]], the cottage had to be built with at least {{convert|4|acre|km2 sqmi|2}} of land.<ref name="elmes178">{{Cite book|last=Elmes|first=James|title=On Architectural Jurisprudence; in which the Constitutions, Canons, Laws and Customs etc |publisher=W.Benning|location=London|year=1827|pages=178–179}}</ref> The later [[inclosure act]]s (1604 onwards) removed the cottars' 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".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hammond|first=J. L. |author-link1=John Lawrence Hammond|author2=Barbara Hammond |author-link2=Barbara Hammond|title=The Village Labourer 1760–1832|publisher=Longman Green & Co|location=London|year=1912|page=100}}</ref>{{better source|date=July 2023}}

The bordars and cottars did not own their draught oxen or horses. The Domesday Book showed that England comprised 12% freeholders, 35% serfs or villeins, 30% cotters and bordars, and 9% slaves.<ref name="mcgarry242" />

====Smerd====
[[Smerd]]y were a type of serfs above kholops in [[Medieval Poland]] and [[Kievan Rus']].

====Kholops====
[[Kholop]]s were the lowest class of serfs in the medieval and early modern Russia. They had status similar to slaves, and could be freely traded.

====Slaves====
The last type of serf was the slave.<ref>{{cite web |last1=McIntosh |first1=Matthew |title=A History of Serfdom |url=https://brewminate.com/a-history-of-serfdom/ |website=Brewminate |access-date=17 February 2020 |date=4 December 2018 |archive-date=17 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200217153144/https://brewminate.com/a-history-of-serfdom/ |url-status=live}}</ref> 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.

===Duties===
[[File:Reeve and Serfs.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Reeve (England)|Reeve]] and serfs in [[kingdom of England|feudal England]], c. 1310]]

The usual serf (not including slaves or cottars) paid his [[fee]]s and [[tax]]es in the form of seasonally appropriate labour. Usually, a portion of the week was devoted to ploughing his lord's fields held in [[demesne]], harvesting crops, digging ditches, repairing fences, and often working in the [[manor house]]. The remainder of the serf's time was spent 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. 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.{{Citation needed|date=May 2008}} In exchange for this work on the lord's demesne, the serfs had certain privileges and rights, including for example the right to gather deadwood – an essential source of fuel – from their lord's forests.

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.

===Rights===
Villeins had more rights and status than those held as slaves, but were under a number of legal restrictions that differentiated them from the freeman. Within his constraints, a serf had some freedoms. Though the common wisdom is that a serf owned "only his belly"{{snd}}even his clothes were the property, in law, of his lord{{snd}}a serf might still accumulate personal property and wealth, and some serfs became wealthier than their free neighbours, although this happened rarely.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Hollister|first1=Charles Warren|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G5chAQAAIAAJ&q=serf+richer+free|title=Medieval Europe: A Short History|last2=Bennett|first2=Judith M.|date=2002|publisher=McGraw-Hill|isbn=978-0-07-112109-5|page=171|language=en|access-date=3 October 2020|archive-date=19 March 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220319152505/https://books.google.com/books?id=G5chAQAAIAAJ&q=serf+richer+free|url-status=live}}</ref> A well-to-do serf might even be able to buy his freedom.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bailey|first=Mark|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SLjCAwAAQBAJ&q=manumission+serf&pg=PA64|title=The Decline of Serfdom in Late Medieval England: From Bondage to Freedom|date=2014|publisher=Boydell & Brewer Ltd|isbn=978-1-84383-890-6|pages=63|language=en|access-date=3 October 2020|archive-date=23 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210323081919/https://books.google.com/books?id=SLjCAwAAQBAJ&q=manumission+serf&pg=PA64|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=McIntosh |first1=Matthew |title=A History of Serfdom |url=https://brewminate.com/a-history-of-serfdom/ |website=Brewminate |access-date=17 February 2020 |date=4 December 2018 |archive-date=17 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200217153144/https://brewminate.com/a-history-of-serfdom/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

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 (place)|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 enforceable by the serf in the manorial court.{{citation needed|date=June 2013}}

===Variations===
Forms of serfdom varied greatly through time and regions. In some places, serfdom was merged with or exchanged for various forms of taxation.

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 to the royal territories (''[[królewszczyzny]]'').

"Per household" means that every dwelling had to give a worker for the required number of days.<ref>Maria Bogucka, ''Białogłowa w dawnej Polsce'', Warsaw, 1998, {{ISBN|83-85660-78-X}}, p. 72</ref> 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.{{clarify|date=January 2013|reason=Undue weight? How "occasional" was it?}} Serfs could purchase their freedom, be [[manumission|manumitted]] by generous owners, or flee to towns or to 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 [[citizen|burgher]] of the town.