Russkaya Pravda
A smerd () was a free peasant and later a feudal-dependent serf in the medieval Slavic states of East Europe. Sources from the 11th and 12th centuries (such as the 12th-century "Russkaya Pravda") mention their presence in Kievan Rus' and Poland as the "smardones". Etymologically, the word "smerd" comes from a common Indo-European root meaning "ordinary man" or "dependent man".