Serfdom
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Costumes of Slaves or Serfs, from the Sixth to the Twelfth Centuries, collected by H. de Vielcastel, from original Documents in the great Libraries of Europe. |
Serfdom refers to the legal and economic status of some
peasants under
feudalism, specifically in the
manorial (also known as
seigneurialism)
economic system.
A serf is a
laborer who is bound to the land. Serfs formed the lowest
social class of the
feudal society. Serfs differed from
slaves in that serfs were allowed
property for themselves and could not be sold apart from the land which they worked.
Serfdom is the
forced labour of serfs, on the fields of the privileged land owners, in return for protection and the right to work on their leased fields. Serfdom involved
work not only on fields, but various
agricultural-related works, like
forestry,
transportation (both land and river-based), work in
craft and even in
manufactures.
Serfdom evolved from
agricultural slavery of
Roman Empire and spread through
Europe around the 10th century. It was dominant during the
Middle Ages of Europe.
In
England serfdom lasted up to the 1600s, in
France until 1789. In most other European countries serfdom lasted until the early 19th century.
The word "Serf" originated from the
Latin servus, meaning "slave."
All land was owned by various landowners -
nobility,
Church and
monarchs. A serf may be defined as any peasant who holds lands in return for a promise of manual labor.
While most serfs were
farmers, some serfs were
craftsman - like the village
blacksmith,
miller or
innkeeper.
The serf's feudal contract
The serfs had a feudal contract much in the same fashion as a
baron or a
knight (but without the perks). A serf's feudal contract was that, in return for protection, he would reside upon and work a parcel of land held by his Lord.
The period rationale was that the a serf "worked for all". while a knight or baron "fought for all" and a churchman "prayed for all." Thus everyone had his place and all was right with God's world. Arguably a serf got the short end of the stick, but at least he had his place and, unlike
slavery, there was a degree of reciprocity in the feudal contract.
A manorial Lord could not sell his serfs as a Roman might sell his slaves. On the other hand, if his Lord chose to dispose of a parcel of land, the serf or serfs associated with that land went with it to serve their new Lord. Further, a serf could not abandon his lands without permission, nor could he sell them.
Becoming a serf
A
free man became a serf usually through force or necessity. A few bad years or crop failure, a war or brigandage left him unable to fulfill his duties as a
free man. In such a case a bargain is struck with his lord: protection and forgiveness of fees owed in exchange for service (not an unreasonable arrangement in a largely cashless society and an idea which is in accord with the prevailing feudal political ideology).
The downside was that serfdom was heritable. A man was binding not only himself, but all his heirs as well. This, of course, was not true of a
free man.
The difference between freedom and serfdom
The line between freedom and serfdom was often indistinct. A man might own some lands under free tenancy (for instance: a "
cottier" or "
cotter" was a free man, tenant of a "
cottage"); others might owe serf-like duties.
It was always in the interest of the lords to prove that a servile arrangement existed, as this provided them with greater rights to fees and taxes. The legal status of a man was a primary issue in many of the manorial court cases of the period.
The serf's duties
The usual serf "paid" his fees and taxes in the form of seasonally appropriate labor, usually a couple of days a week ploughing his lord's fields (
demesne), harvesting crops, digging ditches, repairing fences, etc. The rest of his time was his own to tend to his own fields, crops and animals.
The tension of a serf's life derived from the fact that his work for his lord coincided 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 and so forth. On the other hand, the serf could look forward to being well fed during his service, and it was a poor lord who did not provide a substantial meal for his serfs during the harvest and planting times.
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 (usually 1/3 of the value; the "third penny"), while fees were assessed for various reasons, the birth of a child, a marriage, war, etc. Both were usually paid in the form of foodstuffs rather than cash.
Often there were rather humorous tests - humorous at least in retrospect - to judge the worthiness of their tax payments. A chicken, for example, was 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 common law and the
manorial administration and court.
Benefits of serfdom
Within his constraints, a serf had some freedom. Though the common wisdom was that a serf owned "only his belly" - even his clothes were the property, in law, of his lord - an industrious or lucky serf might still accumulate personal property and wealth, and some serfs became wealthier than their free neighbours, although this was rather an exception to the general rule. A well-to-do serf might even be able to buy his freedom.
Serfs could raise what they saw fit on their lands (within reason -- a serf's taxes often had to be paid in
wheat, a notoriously difficult crop), and sell the surplus at
market. Their
heirs were (usually) guaranteed an
inheritance.
The landlord could not dispossess his serfs without cause and was supposed to protect them from the depredations of outlaws or other lords, and he was expected to support them by charity in times of famine.
Variations
Specifics 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 serfdom required varied, for example in the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 13th century it was few days a year; in the 14th century, one day per week; 4 days per week in the 17th century and 6 days per week in the 18th century, and early serfdom was most limited on the royal territories (
królewszczyzny).
Sometimes, serfs served as soldiers in the event of conflict and could earn freedom or even
ennoblement for valour in combat. In other cases, serfs could also purchase their freedom, be
manumitted by their enlightened or 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 and evaded recapture for a year and a day obtained his freedom.
In many cases, serfs had to obtain permission from their landlord to marry a partner from off the manor (
merchet).
They could also be obliged to pay fines: on inheritance, on becoming a priest or monk or on having their children leave the manor and go to cities. Even upon their death a peasant paid a tax in the form of their best animal to their lord in exchange for confirming their heir's rights to the land.
Furthermore, serfs had to pay to use the lord's grain mill and bread oven and were charged for miscellaneous services such as using the lord's carts to haul their produce. This was a great bone of contention within the village.
Many peasants were fined for grinding their own grain and resented the fees paid to the miller (
multure), usually 1/24 of the total grain milled. Millers were routinely accused of providing short measure or taking too great a portion for their fee. A period riddle runs, "What is the boldest thing on earth?" The answer is, "A miller's shirt for it clasps a thief by the throat every day."
Many manors also required the use of the lord's oven to bake their daily bread. Such petty fees and usuries were the basis of much class resentment among peasants.
The freeing of the serfs
In the end, the nature of serfdom began to change when the value of taxes paid in kind began to be less than the value of outright renting of the land. In such cases many Lords "freed" their serfs in exchange for cash rents rather than service.
In practice, little changed for the peasants. They still had to farm their lands to feed their families, and pay their taxes. The main difference was that they could be turned off their lands if they failed to pay or if their Lord decided he wanted to use their fields for raising sheep (for example) rather than corn.
The change in status following the enclosure movements beginning in the later 13th century, in which various lords abandoned the open field farming of previous centuries in exchange for, essentially, taking all the best land for themselves and "freeing" their serfs, may well have made serfdom a lifestyle desperately to be wished for by many peasant families.
Social institutions similar 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
Germanic tribes invading the
Roman Empire for the most part displaced wealthy Romans as the landlords but left the
economic system itself intact.
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 the western Europe for more than 200 years, was followed by a long period during which no strong central governments 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 work to feed them and are held down, legally and economically, while doing so.
This arrangement provided most of the agricultural labor 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
monarchs, 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.
Also, 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 labor 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 leasing the land and increased personal liberties.
Another important factor in the decline of serfdom was industrial development - especially the
Industrial Revolution. With the growing profitabilty 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 European countries relatively later than Western Europe â€" it became dominant around the 15th century. Before that time, Eastern Europe had been much less 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 Eastern Europe.
The resulting large land-to-labor 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 products 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 include
Prussia (
Prussian Ordinances of 1525),
Austria,
Hungary (laws of late 15th/early 16th century), the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (
szlachta privileges of early 16th century) and the
Russian Empire (laws of late 16th/first half of 17th century).
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Grain doesn't pay. Those two pictures illustrate the notion that agriculture, once extremely profitable to the nobles (szlachta) in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, became much less profitable from the second half of 17th century onwards |
This also led to the slower industry 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
nineteenth century. Serfdom remained the practice on the most part of territory of Russia until
February 19,
1861, though in Russian Baltic provinces it has been abolished in the beginning of 19th century (
Russian Serfdom Reforms).
Russian serfdom was perhaps the most unique among the Eastern European experiences, as it was never influenced by German law and migrations, and the serfdom and
manorialism systems were forced by the crown (
Tsar), not the nobility.
*
Savoy: 19 December 1771
*
Baden: 23 July 1783
*
Denmark: 20 June 1788
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France: 3 November 1789
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Switzerland: 4 May 1798
*
Schleswig-Holstein: 19 December 1804
*
Grand Duchy of Warsaw (
Poland): 22 July 1807
*
Prussia: 9 October 1807 (effectively 1811-1823)
*
Mecklenberg: October 1807 (effectively 1820)
*
Bavaria: 31 August 1808
*
Nassau: 1 September 1812
*
Estonia (
Russian Empire): 23 March 1816
*
Courland (
Russian Empire): 25 August 1817
*
Württemberg: 18 November 1817
*
Livonia (
Russian Empire): 26 March 1819
*
Hannover: 1831
*
Saxony: 17 March 1832
*
Austria: 7 September 1848
*
Hungary: 2 March 1853
*
Bulgaria: 1858 (when
feudalism was definitely abolished in the
Ottoman Empire; practically in 1880)
*
Russia: 19 February 1861 (or 1974 - see 'Return of Serfdom' below)
*Danubian Principalities (
Romania): 14 August 1864
*
Bosnia and Herzegovina: 1918
*
Afghanistan: 1923
Critics of planned economies, especially those based on
Soviet-style
Communist economics, have argued that centrally-planned economies, such as the Soviet
collective farm system, amount to a return to government-owned serfdom. This view was put most powerfully by
Friedrich Hayek in the classic
Road to Serfdom as early as
1944 and has since been adopted by others including
Mikhael Gorbachev. In certain Communist countries, farmers were tied to their farms, either
kolkhoz which were theoretically collectives, or
sovkhoz which were state-owned, through a system of
internal passports and household registration (such as China's
hukou system). They had to plant crops according to instructions from the central authorities, especially if they were on state-run farms. These authorities would then "buy" their agricultural produce at vastly reduced prices and use the surplus to invest in
heavy industry.
That de-facto serfdom persisted in Russia till as late as
1974 (with a brief break during the Civil War), when the
USSR Government Decree #667 was put in effect, for the first time in Russian history granting peasants identification documents, with an unrestricted right to move within the country - thus detaching them from the piece of land where they had worked for generations. It is possible that a similar system still exists in rural
China.
*
indentured servant*
farm*
fiefdom*
folwark*
freeholder*
hacienda*
kolhoz*
Russian serfdom*
Shoen - Japanese serfdom
*
yeoman*
villein*
An extraction from the book "Serfdom to Self-Government: Memoirs of a Polish Village Mayor, 1842-1927"*
The Granary of Europe - serfdom in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth*
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. 18-32
*
The Estabilishment of Serfdom in Eastern Europe and Russia,
Richard Trethewey, American Economist, Spring 1974, Vol. 18 Issue 1
*
Serfdom*
SERFS UP!*
War Communism to the NEP: The Road from Serfdom*
Gorbachev's BBC Interview* Hayek, Friedrich A. von,
The Road to Serfdom, London: Routledge, 2001. ISBN 0415255430
