Examples of serfs in the following topics:
-
-
- The workers of the land were on their way to becoming serfs.
- Serfs formed the lowest class of feudal society.
- However, a serf had some freedoms within his constraints.
- A well-to-do serf might even be able to buy his freedom.
- A serf could grow what crops he saw fit on his lands, although a serf's taxes often had to be paid in wheat.
-
- A landowner could punish his serfs at his discretion and under Catherine the Great gained the ability to sentence his serfs to hard labor in Siberia, a punishment normally reserved for convicted criminals.
- The only thing a noble could not do to his serfs was to kill them.
- The life of a serf belonged to the state.
- While she eliminated some ways for people to become serfs, culminating in a 1775 manifesto that prohibited a serf who had once been freed from becoming a serf again, she also restricted the freedoms of many peasants.
- He had a substantial force composed of Cossacks, Russian peasants, factory serfs, and non-Russians.
-
- The class of kholops, or feudally dependent persons similar to serfs but whose status was closest slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation (Russian agricultural kholops were formally converted into serfs in 1679).
- Peter's reign deepened the subjugation of serfs to the will of landowners.
- For example, he created a new class of serfs, known as state peasants, who had broader rights than ordinary serfs but still paid dues to the state.
- Evidence suggests that Peter's advisers recommended the abolition of serfdom and the creation of a form of "limited freedom" but the gap between slaves and serfs shrank considerably under Peter.
-
- In 1781, Joseph issued the
Serfdom Patent, which aimed to abolish aspects of the traditional serfdom
system of the Habsburg lands through the establishment of basic civil
liberties for the serfs.
- The Hungarian estates claimed that their
peasants were not serfs, but “tenants in fee simple, who were fully informed as
to their rights and duties by precise contracts” and continued to restrict
these “tenants.”
- The Patent granted the serfs some legal
rights in the Habsburg monarchy, but it did not affect the financial dues and
the physical corvée (unpaid labor) that the serfs legally owed to their
landlords, which it practice meant that it did not abolish serfdom but rather
expanded selected rights of serfs.
-
- Its inhabitants were classified as Spartiates (Spartan citizens,
who enjoyed full rights), Mothakes (non-Spartan, free men raised as Spartans),
Perioikoi (free, but non-citizen inhabitants), and Helots (state-owned serfs, part of the
enslaved, non-Spartan, local population).
- Instead,
Helots were given a subordinate position within Spartan society more comparable
to the serfs of medieval Europe.
- Since
Spartiates were full-time soldiers, manual labor fell to the Helot population
who worked as unskilled serfs, tilling the Spartan land or accompanying the
Spartan army as non-combatants.
-
- However, other scholars have countered that they may have been similar to serfs.
-
- Buddhist monasteries were also engaged in the economy, since their land and serfs gave them enough revenue to set up mills, oil presses, and other enterprises.
- Although the monasteries retained "serfs," these monastery dependents could actually own property and employ others to help them in their work, and could even own slaves.
-
- However, military conscription and economy continued to depend on serfdom, and the increasing demands of the state and private landowners led to increased levels of reliance on serfs.
- In 1781–82, he extended full legal freedom to serfs.
-
- Its inhabitants were classified as Spartiates (Spartan citizens who enjoyed full rights), Mothakes (non-Spartan, free men raised as Spartans), Perioikoi (freed men), and Helots (state-owned serfs, part of the enslaved, non-Spartan, local population).