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Serfdom

"Serf" redirects here. For the saint, see Saint Serf. For the type of magnetometer, see SERF. For the film, see Serf (film).

Feudal titles and status
Lord paramount / Territorial lord
Tenant-in-chief
Mesne lord
Lord of the manor / Overlord / Vogt / Liege lord
Esquire / Gentleman / Landed gentry
Franklin / Yeoman / Retinue
Husbandman
Free tenant
Domestic servant
Vagabond
Serf / Villein / Bordar / Cottar
Slave

Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery. It developed during late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century.[1]

Unlike slaves, serfs could not be bought, sold, or traded individually, though they could, depending on the area, be sold together with land. Actual slaves, such as the kholops in Russia, could, by contrast, be traded like regular slaves, could be abused with no rights over their own bodies, could not leave the land they were bound to, and could marry only with their lord's permission.[citation needed]

Serfs who occupied a plot of land were required to work for the lord of the manor who owned that land. In return, they were entitled to protection, justice, and the right to cultivate certain fields within the manor to maintain their own subsistence. Serfs were often required not only to work on the lord's fields, but also in his mines and forests and to labour to maintain roads. The manor formed the basic unit of feudal society, and the lord of the manor and the villeins, and to a certain extent the serfs, were bound legally: by taxation in the case of the former, and economically and socially in the latter.

The decline of serfdom in Western Europe has sometimes been attributed to the widespread plague epidemic of the Black Death, which reached Europe in 1347 and caused massive fatalities, disrupting society.[2] Conversely, serfdom grew stronger in Central and Eastern Europe, where it had previously been less common (this phenomenon was known as "second serfdom").

In Eastern Europe, the institution persisted until the mid-19th century. In Russia, serfdom gradually evolved from the usual European form to become de facto slavery, though it continued to be called serfdom. In the Austrian Empire, serfdom was abolished by the 1781 Serfdom Patent; corvées continued to exist until 1848. Serfdom was abolished in Russia in 1861.[3] Prussia declared serfdom unacceptable in its General State Laws for the Prussian States in 1792 and finally abolished it in October 1807, in the wake of the Prussian Reform Movement.[4] In Finland, Norway, and Sweden, feudalism was never fully established, and serfdom did not exist; in Denmark, serfdom-like institutions did exist in both stavns (the stavnsbånd, from 1733 to 1788) and its vassal Iceland (the more restrictive vistarband, from 1490 until 1894).

According to medievalist historian Joseph R. Strayer, the concept of feudalism can also be applied to the societies of ancient Persia, ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt from the late Old Kingdom through the Middle Kingdom (Sixth to Twelfth dynasty), Islamic-ruled Northern and Central India, China (Zhou dynasty and end of Han dynasty) and Japan during the Shogunate. Wu Ta-k'un argued that the Shang-Zhou fengjian were kinship estates, quite distinct from feudalism.[5] James Lee and Cameron Campbell describe the Chinese Qing dynasty (1644–1912) as also maintaining a form of serfdom.[6]

Melvyn Goldstein described Tibet as having had serfdom until 1959,[7][8] but whether or not the Tibetan form of peasant tenancy that qualified as serfdom was widespread is contested by other scholars.[9][10] Bhutan is described by Tashi Wangchuk, a Bhutanese civil servant, as having officially abolished serfdom by 1959, but he believes that less than or about 10% of poor peasants were in copyhold situations.[11]

The United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery also prohibits serfdom as a practice similar to slavery.[12]

  1. ^ "Villeins in the Middle Ages | Middle Ages". 31 May 2012. Archived from the original on 5 November 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2018.
  2. ^ Austin Alchon, Suzanne (2003). A Pest in the Land: New World Epidemics in a Global Perspective. University of New Mexico Press. p. 21. ISBN 0-8263-2871-7. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
  3. ^ "Serf. A Dictionary of World History". Archived from the original on 7 January 2010. Retrieved 12 February 2008.
  4. ^ Edikt den erleichterten Besitz und den freien Gebrauch des Grundeigentums so wie die persönlichen Verhältnisse der Land-Bewohner betreffend Archived 12 May 2022 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Wu, Ta-k'un (February 1952). "An Interpretation of Chinese Economic History". Past & Present (1): 1–12. doi:10.1093/past/1.1.1.
  6. ^ Lee, James; Campbell, Cameron (1998). "Headship succession and household division in three Chinese banner serf populations, 1789–1909". Continuity and Change. 13 (1): 117–141. doi:10.1017/s0268416098003063 (inactive 1 November 2024). S2CID 144755944.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)
  7. ^ Goldstein, Melvyn C. (1986). "Re-examining Choice, Dependency and Command in the Tibetan Social System-'Tax Appendages' and Other Landless Serfs". Tibet Journal. 11 (4): 79–112.
  8. ^ Goldstein, Melvyn C. (1988). "On the Nature of Tibetan Peasantry". Tibet Journal. 13 (1): 61–65.
  9. ^ Barnett, Robert (2008) "What were the conditions regarding human rights in Tibet before democratic reform?" in: Authenticating Tibet: Answers to China's 100 Questions, pp. 81–83. Eds. Anne-Marie Blondeau and Katia Buffetrille. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24464-1 (cloth); ISBN 978-0-520-24928-8 (paper)
  10. ^ Samuel, Geoffrey (1982). "Tibet as a Stateless Society and Some Islamic Parallels". Journal of Asian Studies. 41 (2): 215–229. doi:10.2307/2054940. JSTOR 2054940. S2CID 163321743.
  11. ^ BhutanStudies.org.bt Archived 27 June 2008 at the Wayback Machine, T Wangchuk Change in the land use system in Bhutan: Ecology, History, Culture, and Power Nature Conservation Section. DoF, MoA
  12. ^ "Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery". United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commission. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 23 February 2019.

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