46-514: [REDACTED] Look up bondage in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Bondage may refer to: Restraints [ edit ] Physical restraints Bondage (BDSM) , use of restraint for erotic stimulation Self-bondage , use of restraints on oneself for erotic pleasure Social and economic practices [ edit ] Serfdom , feudal enslavement of peasants Debt bondage ,
92-451: A fee for the right to leave her lord, and in compensation for her lost labour. Often there were arbitrary tests to judge the worthiness of their tax payments. A chicken, for example, might be 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 customary law and
138-410: A few years of crop failure, a war, or brigandage might leave a person unable to make his own way. In such a case, he could strike a bargain with a lord of a manor. In exchange for gaining protection, his service was required: in labour, produce, or cash, or a combination of all. These bargains became formalised in a ceremony known as "bondage", in which a serf placed his head in the lord's hands, akin to
184-745: A form of slavery which pledges debtors' labor or services as security for repayment of debt In arts and entertainment [ edit ] Bondage (1917 film) , by American director Ida May Park Bondage (1933 film) , by American director Alfred Santell Bondage (2006 film) , by American director Eric Allen Bell Bondage (play) , 1991 work by Chinese-American playwright David Henry Hwang Bondage (album) , 2009 album by J-pop singer Nana Kitade Other uses [ edit ] Spiritual attachment, such as to physical world or evil compelling force, such as original sin See also [ edit ] Bondsman (disambiguation) Topics referred to by
230-701: A form of slavery which pledges debtors' labor or services as security for repayment of debt In arts and entertainment [ edit ] Bondage (1917 film) , by American director Ida May Park Bondage (1933 film) , by American director Alfred Santell Bondage (2006 film) , by American director Eric Allen Bell Bondage (play) , 1991 work by Chinese-American playwright David Henry Hwang Bondage (album) , 2009 album by J-pop singer Nana Kitade Other uses [ edit ] Spiritual attachment, such as to physical world or evil compelling force, such as original sin See also [ edit ] Bondsman (disambiguation) Topics referred to by
276-525: A full complement of labour to the lord, often forcing them to rent out their services to other serfs to make up for this hardship. Villeinage was not a purely uni-directional exploitative relationship. In the Middle Ages, land within a lord's manor provided sustenance and survival, and being a villein guaranteed access to land, and crops secure from theft by marauding robbers. Landlords, even were legally entitled to do so, rarely evicted villeins because of
322-515: A knight or baron "fought for all" and a churchman "prayed for all"; thus everyone had a place (see Estates of the realm ). The serf was the worst fed and rewarded however, although unlike slaves had certain rights in land and property. A lord of the manor could not sell his serfs as a Roman might sell his slaves. On the other hand, if he chose to dispose of a parcel of land, the serfs associated with that land stayed with it to serve their new lord; simply speaking, they were implicitly sold in mass and as
368-467: A man was a primary issue in determining a person's rights and obligations in many of the manorial court -cases of the period. Also, runaway slaves could be beaten if caught. The usual serf (not including slaves or cottars) paid his fees and taxes in the form of seasonally appropriate labour. Usually, a portion of the week was devoted to ploughing his lord's fields held in demesne , harvesting crops, digging ditches, repairing fences, and often working in
414-551: A number of legal restrictions that differentiated them from the freeman. Within his constraints, a serf had some freedoms. Though the common wisdom is that a serf owned "only his belly" – even his clothes were the property, in law, of his lord – a serf might still accumulate personal property and wealth, and some serfs became wealthier than their free neighbours, although this happened rarely. A well-to-do serf might even be able to buy his freedom. A serf could grow what crop he saw fit on his lands, although
460-429: A part of a lot. This unified system preserved for the lord long-acquired knowledge of practices suited to the land. Further, a serf could not abandon his lands without permission, nor did he possess a saleable title in them. A freeman became a serf usually through force or necessity. Sometimes the greater physical and legal force of a local magnate intimidated freeholders or allodial owners into dependency. Often
506-568: A patch of land. As part of the contract with the landlord , the lord of the manor, they were expected to spend some of their time working on the lord's fields. The rest of their time was spent farming their own land for their own profit. Villeins were tied to their lord's land and could not leave it without his permission. Their lord also often decided whom they could marry. Like other types of serfs, villeins had to provide other services, possibly in addition to paying rent of money or produce. Villeins could not move away without their lord's consent and
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#1732757001290552-455: A serf's taxes often had to be paid in wheat. The surplus he would sell at market . The landlord could not dispossess his serfs without legal cause and was supposed to protect them from the depredations of robbers or other lords, and he was expected to support them by charity in times of famine . Many such rights were enforceable by the serf in the manorial court. Forms of serfdom varied greatly through time and regions. In some places, serfdom
598-464: A source of agricultural labour . Serfdom, indeed, was an institution that reflected a fairly common practice whereby great landlords were assured that others worked to feed them and were held down, legally and economically, while doing so. This arrangement provided most of the agricultural labour throughout the Middle Ages . Slavery persisted right through the Middle Ages, but it was rare. In
644-573: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages bondage [REDACTED] Look up bondage in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Bondage may refer to: Restraints [ edit ] Physical restraints Bondage (BDSM) , use of restraint for erotic stimulation Self-bondage , use of restraints on oneself for erotic pleasure Social and economic practices [ edit ] Serfdom , feudal enslavement of peasants Debt bondage ,
690-401: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Serfdom 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
736-512: Is first recorded in English in the late 15th century, and came to its current definition in the 17th century. Serfdom was coined in 1850. Serfs had a specific place in feudal society, as did barons and knights : in return for protection, a serf would reside upon and work a parcel of land within the manor of his lord . Thus, the manorial system exhibited a degree of reciprocity. One rationale held that serfs and freemen "worked for all" while
782-579: The Early Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century. 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
828-570: The Middle French serf and was derived from the Latin servus ("slave"). In Late Antiquity and most of the Middle Ages, what are now called serfs were usually designated in Latin as coloni . As slavery gradually disappeared and the legal status of servi became nearly identical to that of the coloni , the term changed meaning into the modern concept of "serf". The word "serf"
874-406: The manor house . The remainder of the serf's time was spent tending his own fields, crops and animals in order to provide for his family. Most manorial work was segregated by gender during the regular times of the year. During the harvest , the whole family was expected to work the fields. A major difficulty of a serf's life was that his work for his lord coincided with, and took precedence over,
920-679: The Abolition of Slavery also prohibits serfdom as a practice similar to slavery. 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. By the 3rd century AD, the Roman Empire faced a labour shortage. Large Roman landowners increasingly relied on Roman freemen, acting as tenant farmers, instead of slaves to provide labour. These tenant farmers , eventually known as coloni , saw their condition steadily erode. Because
966-665: The Chinese Qing dynasty (1644–1912) as also maintaining a form of serfdom. Melvyn Goldstein described Tibet as having had serfdom until 1959, but whether or not the Tibetan form of peasant tenancy that qualified as serfdom was widespread is contested by other scholars. 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. The United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on
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#17327570012901012-693: The French. Status-wise, the bordar or cottar ranked below a serf in the social hierarchy of a manor, holding a cottage , garden and just enough land to feed a family. In England, at the time of the Domesday Survey, this would have comprised between about 1 and 5 acres (0.4 and 2.0 hectares). Under an Elizabethan statute , the Erection of Cottages Act 1588 , the cottage had to be built with at least 4 acres (0.02 km ; 0.01 sq mi) of land. The later Enclosures Acts (1604 onwards) removed
1058-721: The Prussian States in 1792 and finally abolished it in October 1807, in the wake of the Prussian Reform Movement . In Finland, Norway, and Sweden, feudalism was never fully established, and serfdom did not exist; in Denmark, serfdom-like institutions did exist in both stavn s (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 ,
1104-585: The acceptance of the lord to whose manor they proposed to migrate to. Villeins were generally able to hold their own property, unlike slaves. Villeinage, as opposed to other forms of serfdom, was most common in Continental European feudalism, where land ownership had developed from roots in Roman law . A variety of kinds of villeinage existed in Europe in the Middle Ages. Half-villeins received only half as many strips of land for their own use and owed
1150-733: 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. Conversely, serfdom grew stronger in Central and Eastern Europe , where it had previously been less common (this phenomenon
1196-497: The ceremony of homage where a vassal placed his hands between those of his overlord . These oaths bound the lord and his new serf in a feudal contract and defined the terms of their agreement. Often these bargains were severe. A 7th-century Anglo Saxon "Oath of Fealty" states: By the Lord before whom this sanctuary is holy, I will to N. be true and faithful, and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns, according to
1242-649: 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. James Lee and Cameron Campbell describe
1288-608: The cottars' right to any land: "before the Enclosures Act the cottager was a farm labourer with land and after the Enclosures Act the cottager was a farm labourer without land". The bordars and cottars did not own their draught oxen or horses. The Domesday Book showed that England comprised 12% freeholders, 35% serfs or villeins, 30% cotters and bordars, and 9% slaves. Smerdy were a type of serfs above kholops in Medieval Poland and Kievan Rus' . Kholops were
1334-424: The duties of serfdom, people bound themselves and their progeny. The social class of the peasantry can be differentiated into smaller categories. These distinctions were often less clear than suggested by their different names. Most often, there were two types of peasants: Lower classes of peasants, known as cottars or bordars , generally comprising the younger sons of villeins; vagabonds; and slaves, made up
1380-486: The land they were bound to, and could marry only with their lord 's permission. 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
1426-555: The later Middle Ages, serfdom began to disappear west of the Rhine even as it spread through eastern Europe. Serfdom reached Eastern Europe centuries later than Western Europe – it became dominant around the 15th century. In many of these countries serfdom was abolished during the Napoleonic invasions of the early 19th century, though in some it persisted until mid- or late- 19th century. The word serf originated from
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1472-503: The laws of God and the order of the world. Nor will I ever with will or action, through word or deed, do anything which is unpleasing to him, on condition that he will hold to me as I shall deserve it, and that he will perform everything as it was in our agreement when I submitted myself to him and chose his will. To become a serf was a commitment that encompassed all aspects of the serf's life. The children born to serfs inherited their status, and were considered born into serfdom. By taking on
1518-471: The lower class of workers. The colonus system of the late Roman Empire can be considered the predecessor of Western European feudal serfdom. Freemen, or free tenants , held their land by one of a variety of contracts of feudal land-tenure and were essentially rent-paying tenant farmers who owed little or no service to the lord, and had a good degree of security of tenure and independence. In parts of 11th-century England freemen made up only 10% of
1564-496: The lowest class of serfs in the medieval and early modern Russia. They had status similar to slaves, and could be freely traded. The last type of serf was the slave. Slaves had the fewest rights and benefits from the manor. They owned no tenancy in land, worked for the lord exclusively and survived on donations from the landlord. It was always in the interest of the lord to prove that a servile arrangement existed, as this provided him with greater rights to fees and taxes. The status of
1610-408: The manorial administration and court baron . It was also a matter of discussion whether serfs could be required by law in times of war or conflict to fight for their lord's land and property. In the case of their lord's defeat, their own fate might be uncertain, so the serf certainly had an interest in supporting his lord. Villeins had more rights and status than those held as slaves, but were under
1656-578: The peasant population, and in most of the rest of Europe their numbers were also small. Ministeriales were hereditary unfree knights tied to their lord, that formed the lowest rung of nobility in the Holy Roman Empire . A villein (or villain ) represented the most common type of serf in the Middle Ages. Villeins had more rights and higher status than the lowest serf, but existed under a number of legal restrictions that differentiated them from freemen. Villeins generally rented small homes, with
1702-433: The right to gather deadwood – an essential source of fuel – from their lord's forests. 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. Fees were usually paid in the form of agricultural produce rather than cash. The best ration of wheat from the serf's harvest often went to the landlord. Generally hunting and trapping of wild game by
1748-411: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Bondage . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bondage&oldid=1151967297 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
1794-411: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Bondage . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bondage&oldid=1151967297 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
1840-413: The serfs on the lord's property was prohibited. On Easter Sunday the peasant family perhaps might owe an extra dozen eggs, and at Christmas, a goose was perhaps required, too. When a family member died, extra taxes were paid to the lord as a form of feudal relief to enable the heir to keep the right to till what land he had. Any young woman who wished to marry a serf outside of her manor was forced to pay
1886-479: The tax system implemented by Diocletian assessed taxes based on both land and the inhabitants of that land, it became administratively inconvenient for peasants to leave the land where they were counted in the census. Medieval serfdom really began with the breakup of the Carolingian Empire around the 10th century. During this period, powerful feudal lords encouraged the establishment of serfdom as
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1932-422: The value of their labour. Villeinage was much preferable to being a vagabond, a slave, or an unlanded labourer. In many medieval countries, a villein could gain freedom by escaping from a manor to a city or borough and living there for more than a year; but this action involved the loss of land rights and agricultural livelihood, a prohibitive price unless the landlord was especially tyrannical or conditions in
1978-477: The village were unusually difficult. In medieval England, two types of villeins existed – villeins regardant that were tied to land and villeins in gross that could be traded separately from land. In England, the Domesday Book , of 1086, uses bordarii (bordar) and cottarii ( cottar ) as interchangeable terms, cottar deriving from the native Anglo-Saxon tongue whereas bordar derived from
2024-454: The work he had to perform on his own lands: when the lord's crops were ready to be harvested, so were his own. On the other hand, the serf of a benign lord could look forward to being well fed during his service; it was a lord without foresight who did not provide a substantial meal for his serfs during the harvest and planting times. In exchange for this work on the lord's demesne, the serfs had certain privileges and rights, including for example
2070-545: 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. Prussia declared serfdom unacceptable in its General State Laws for
2116-456: Was merged with or exchanged for various forms of taxation. The amount of labour required varied. In Poland, for example, it was commonly a few days per year per household in the 13th century, one day per week per household in the 14th century, four days per week per household in the 17th century, and six days per week per household in the 18th century. Early serfdom in Poland was mostly limited to
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