Serfdom was a condition of debt bondage and indentured agricultural servitude under which a peasant, the serf, was bound to work a lord's land and could not leave it without permission. It formed the characteristic labor institution of the feudal manorial system in medieval Europe, alongside comparable institutions such as helotry in ancient Sparta and the colonus system of the late Roman Empire. Serfdom weakened across Western Europe from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries, a decline often linked to the labor shortages following the Black Death from 1347 onward; it strengthened instead across Central and Eastern Europe over the same period, a divergence historians call the second serfdom, and persisted there into the nineteenth century, with Russia abolishing it only in 1861.
Facts
Institution TypeSourced to the subject's own accountStratification system: a hereditary, land-bound labor status under feudalism, comparable in structure to the slavery already on this atlas but distinguished from it by the serf's attachment to land rather than outright status as property. 1 Emergence PeriodSourced to the subject's own accountDevelops in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages in Europe, with earlier analogues in Spartan helotry and the Roman colonate, becomes the dominant peasant status under feudal manorialism, and persists longest in Central and Eastern Europe, not abolished in Russia until 1861. 1 Institution TypeSourced to the subject's own account Emergence EraSourced to the subject's own account Membership BasisSourced to the subject's own account Connections
Associated With
Debt peonage and serfdom are both institutions of bound agricultural labor tying a worker to a landowner, debt peonage through a nominally repayable financial obligation and serfdom through hereditary status.
Helotry has been compared to serfdom as a form of unfree agricultural labor tied to the land, the helots of Sparta working state-owned land on behalf of Spartan citizens.
Sociologists compare serfdom and slavery as related but distinct systems of unfree labor, distinguished chiefly by the serf's attachment to land rather than status as property outright.
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Originated In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.
Source New World Encyclopedia: SerfdomArticle textQuote, Article text
It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe, evolving from agricultural slavery of the late Roman Empire, it flourished in Europe during the Middle Ages, lasting until the nineteenth century.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Serfdom
WikipediaLead section, definition
Serfdom was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery.
History section, decline and second serfdom
serfdom grew stronger in Central and Eastern Europe, where it had been less common.
English Wikipedia, intro text
It developed during late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century and became the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism and similar systems.
English Wikipedia, sections text
The children born to serfs inherited their status, and were considered born into serfdom.
Lead, institution-type-category labour-system
Serfdom was a condition of debt bondage.
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