Under feudalism, the great majority of peasants lived on the manors or estates and everybody had a part in keeping the manorial system going. Peasants were not slaves but they were not free either. The Middle Ages never had strict distinctions between slave and serf, of serf and freeman. In Feudal Europe there was no comprehensive and systematic regulation of rights, duties or patterns of behavior. Each estate/ manor was its own self-contained community with its own set of rules, and the peasants produced the supply of food that sustained the manors’ nobles, the priests, and themselves.
Slavery in the Middle Ages:
There were true slaves in this period, and most were prisoners of war. In 476AD the Anglo- Saxons (from modern Denmark and Northern Germany) invaded England and enslaved the native Britons, calling them “Welshmen,” which means in Anglo- Saxon language “a person without freedom.” (Welsh eventually came to mean, “slave,” as would happen later when captured Slavs came to mean slave also). Great numbers of Englishmen were sold abroad in slave markets of Europe and the East until 1066AD when the Normans conquered the country. William the Conqueror (1066- 1087AD) permitted domestic slavery but banned the sale of English slaves overseas. These slaves and their descendents melted into the condition of serfdom.
Serfdom:
A serf is a peasant who was “unfree” at one degree or another. The name was taken from the Roman word for slave, “servus”. A serf did not live in a complete state of submission that typified true slavery. The feudal peasant was regulated by customs of the estate, and protected by a system of mutual obligations. He paid rent, controlled most of his time, and probably lived better than the slaves on the Roman estates. He had more personal freedom. In bad economic times, when wars broke out between overlords of the estates, or invasions or the constant wars between the European countries flared up, the free peasant often sought protection from the overlords. When the free peasant asks for protection, he gives up his land and his land become part of the estate of the overlord. In return for this protection, the peasant is relieved of all military service (which was provided by the lords’ knights) and becomes a serf. These small free peasant holdings became fused together into larger and larger estates. By the 12th century AD, there were very few completely free peasants in Europe.
Obligations of the Serf:
Once becoming a serf, they are bound to hereditary service, which meant that if you were born to a serf, you too are a serf. The degree of independence among serfs varied. Some peasants had the chance to improve their status, but the majority barely lived above the beasts in the fields. They labored chiefly for the benefit of a powerful aristocracy of warriors, and partly to the benefit of the priests and monks whose role it was to serve Christ.
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