Serfdom

Serfdom (Latin, servus, “servant” or “slave”), institution that characterized the social and economic arrangements of the Middle Ages, and persisted in Russia until the mid-19th century. A class of agricultural labourers, serfs were legally bound to reside and labour at one place and to work on the land owned by their lord, who might be a nobleman, an ecclesiastical dignitary, or an institution such as a monastery. They cultivated and harvested the lord's land; they were allowed to farm some of his land to support themselves and their families in return, but had to make payments in produce and money to the lord from their own profits. Such obligations included a payment for permission to give daughters in marriage, death (or inheritance) duties, payments for use of the lord's grain mill and bread oven, and for miscellaneous services such as carting. From the 13th century on, serfs were increasingly subject to an arbitrary tax called taille. Because their residence and labour were legally attached to the land, serfs were included in any transfer of that land. The lord, in turn, was obliged to protect his serfs from depredations by outlaws or other lords, and he was expected to support them by charity in times of crop failure.

Serfdom was legally a servile or “unfree” status that involved personal dependence on a lord, greatly restricted freedom of action in terms of livelihood and residence, and subjection to duties considered marks of servility. Although many serfs were the descendants of household slaves, serfdom was not identical with slavery; serfs had certain legal rights and protections, and they could not be sold. They could inherit, own, and bequeath property, and the lord's rights over their labour were restricted by local custom and tradition, which could effectively limit innovations and demands that the peasant community considered excessive. Serfs could purchase legal freedom from their lords and thus free themselves of certain arbitrary “servile” services and dues. See also Seignorialism.

Social institutions closely akin to serfdom were known in ancient times. The status of the helots in the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta resembled that of the medieval serfs, as did the condition of the peasants working on government lands in ancient Rome. These Roman peasants, known as coloni, or “tenant farmers”, are some of the possible precursors of the serfs. The breakup of the Carolingian Empire around the 10th century ad was followed by a long period during which no strong central governments existed in most of Europe; the rise to power of the feudal lords encouraged the establishment of serfdom as a source of agricultural labour.

In Russia serfdom was a system under which the peasants were theoretically free tenants, but were actually in a state of servitude to, and dependent on, the landowners. Russian serfs were rigorously exploited by the lords, who demanded ever-larger shares of the crops and thus created a steadily mounting debt on the part of the serfs. By the end of the 17th century their status scarcely differed from that of chattel slaves. In many areas of western Europe, however, large numbers of peasants had gradually risen to a degree of economic independence and personal freedom and had even become small landowners in their own right. Only vestiges of feudalism remained in the 18th century, and the French Revolution of 1789 virtually eliminated serfdom throughout western Europe. In eastern Europe, however, and particularly in Russia, the system persisted until the middle of the 19th century; serfdom was finally abolished by Tsar Alexander II in 1861.