Serfs: What Were They and How Did They Live During the Middle Ages?

Halfway between slaves and free men we have the serfs of the people a social class that appeared during the Middle Ages and directly related to feudalism that was the foundation of the medieval economy.

We say that they are halfway between one and the other because, although they were subject to the designs of a lord, they enjoyed some rights that allowed them to say, although in a very limited way, that they were human beings like any other.

The figure of the serfs is, perhaps, difficult to understand from a modern perspective. However, by reading below about this establishment, perhaps we will be more aware of why this intermediate step between slavery and individual freedom was necessary.

The servants of the land

The servants of the gleba is the name by which they are known. the peasants who, in the Middle Ages and under a feudal context, established a social and legal contract of servitude with a landowner.

These peasants became attached to the properties of the lord, a nobleman or a high-ranking member of the clergy, offering their services and paying tribute to him in the form of crops or other products. The serfs were in conditions close to slavery, although their feudal lord was obliged to respect some rights.

It is very important not to confuse servitude with vassalage, which was another type of submission typical of feudalism In vassalage, a person belonging to a privileged class, such as the nobility or the clergy, established a political and military relationship of submission with another privileged person. On the other hand, in servitude, although there is submission, it is not between people with the same privileges or the same opportunities.

Between slavery and freedom

There is no doubt that slavery is something bad in itself, since it involves depriving another person of freedom, a basic human right that every modern society recognizes as inalienable. However, we must not make the mistake of judging past societies solely by how they treated their people. That we have gotten to where we are today is not due to a sudden change, but to changes in mentality and the way society is organized.

In classical Europe, that is, in the times of Greece and Rome, slavery was the main mode of production Through the subjugation of other people their economy and social system functioned, given that both cultures were based on the practice of slavery.

The Greco-Roman slave was the property of his master, as goats, cows and sheep are the property of the farmer. He had no right, not even to life. If his owner decided so, he could kill him without consequences or remorse. The slave had no right to start a family or marry and, if a slave had become pregnant, the master could sell the baby in the market like someone selling a chicken. In short, slaves were nothing more than subhuman objects in the eyes of the Romans.

At the other end we find ourselves the idea of ​​the free man, an idea on which the majority of current societies, defenders of individual rights, are based In ancient times, not everyone enjoyed this status and, although it seemed to us that the correct thing would have been to make all slaves free, the truth is that if it had been done, the culture of the time, the precursor of the Western culture, would have collapsed.

At the end of the Roman Empire and with the spread of Christianity, the idea of ​​slavery was increasingly rejected, although the idea that all human beings were equal was not accepted. The Catholic Church introduced changes in Roman Law, which materialized in the form of a modest abolition of slavery. However, this abolition of slavery was not synonymous with gaining freedom or living well.

The “freed” slaves did not have the necessary means of subsistence to be able to live on their own, which was synonymous with ending up dying of hunger. Although being a slave meant being an object, many masters treated their slaves with care, giving them food, shelter and protection, which with the abolition of slavery seemed to no longer be possible.

This is why many people went to landowners’ lands and ended up establishing a social contract between both parties The lord of the fief allowed them to live in the place, allowing them to have a house and, thus, giving them protection, while the new inhabitants would be in charge of working the land, giving tribute to the lord and defending him if he needed soldiers. This is how the serfs of the land were born. In fact, the word gleba is quite descriptive, referring to the piece of agricultural land that these serfs worked.

Rights and obligations of this medieval establishment

The servant of the glebe was a server who did not have the right to leave the place where he worked He was, properly speaking, linked to the land, to the piece of land that he had to cultivate. It is for this reason that, although they were not slaves, they were not free people either, since they did not have the right to free movement.

But, at the same time, this obligation to stay was also a right. The feudal lord could not expel them from his lands just like that. They belonged to the lord insofar as the lord was the owner of those lands, but not the owner of those people, strictly speaking. He also exercised a kind of property right over the house where he lived and over part of the land he cultivated. If the owner sold the property, the serf stayed on those lands, becoming the property of the new owner.

Unlike Greco-Roman slaves, serfs had the right to marry This gave them the right to marry whoever they wanted and start a family. However, or at least in theory, they could only marry their peers without expecting consequences. A nobleman and a serf could marry, but the nobleman would lose his status and would become a serf.

Besides, They had a certain right to take part of the harvest Sometimes they even farmed on their own, although they did have to give part of what they cultivated to the lord or pay them taxes and offer services. Something like a kind of rental. The lord, for his part, protected them, although in turn the serfs were obliged to join the ranks in case the lord was immersed in a military conflict and needed soldiers.

Being a servant of the people was something that could be acquired, but could not be rejected. In a turbulent time such as the Middle Ages, where wars, epidemics and famines were our daily bread, it was not strange to find people of all classes and conditions having to go to a feudal lord and ask permission to live there. The man accepted, but once this social contract was established, there was no turning back The new servant, his children and his children’s children would be servants of the land forever.

How did they disappear?

Although today, at least in Europe, there is no longer servitude, the moment in which the serfs of the people ceased to exist is not something easily delimited, given that there were many historical events that precipitated the recognition of full freedom in all human beings.

One of the precipitants of all this was the reappearance of slavery in the Western world Although the Catholic Church had eradicated slavery in Europe, with the discovery of America and explorations in Africa, Europeans discovered that they could once again use slave labor. The difference between pre-Christian slaves and those trapped in American and African lands was, basically, that the former were white and easily humanizable while the latter, in the eyes of Christianity at the time, were wild beasts that had to be domesticated.

By being able to freely exploit other people, The figure of the feudal lord dependent on the serfs of the people was weakening and evolving into that of the master of black slaves At that time they could exploit the new slaves to the point of exhaustion, and if they died it was okay because there were many more in Africa.

However, serfs would continue to exist until shortly before the French Revolution. In those times, territorial servitude still existed and it was not until the appearance of enlightened thought, the bourgeois revolutions and the defense of human rights that the figure of the serf would become part of the past.