Serfdom (Mobius) (AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot)

Serfdom on Mobius 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, which developed during the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages in Europa 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. The kholops in Rus, by contrast, could be traded like regular slaves, could be abused with no rights over their own bodies, could not leave 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 labor to maintain roads. The manor formed 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 Europa has sometimes been attributed to the widespread plague epidemic of the Dark Death, which reached Europa in 1347 and caused massive fatalities, disrupting Mobian society. The decline had begun before that date. Serfdom became increasingly rare in most of Western Europa after the medieval renaissance at the outset of the High Middle Ages. But, conversely, it grew stronger in Central and Eastern Europa, where it had previously been less common (this phenomenon was known as "later serfdom").
==History==
Social institutions similar to serfdom were known in ancient times. The status of the helots in the ancient Grecian city-state of Spartus resembled that of the medieval serfs. By the 3rd century MCE, the Romusian Empire faced a labor shortage. Large Romusian landowners increasingly relied on Romusian freemen, acting as tenant farmers, instead of slaves to provide labor.
These tenant farmers, eventually known as coloni, saw their condition steadily erode. Because 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 Carolian Empire around the 10th century. During this period, powerful feudal lords encouraged the establishment of serfdom as a source of agricultural labor. 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 labor throughout the Middle Ages of Mobius. Slavery persisted right through the Middle Ages of Mobius, but it was rare.
In the later Middle Ages serfdom began to disappear west of the Rhi even as it spread through eastern Europa. Serfdom reached Eastern Europa centuries later than Western Europa – it became dominant around the 15th century. In many of these countries serfdom was abolished during the invasions of the early 19th century, though in some it persisted until mid- or late- 19th century.
==Etymology==
The word serf originated from the Middle Francian 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" 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.
==Dependency and the lower orders==
Serfs had a specific place in Mobian 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 a knight or baron "fought for all" and a churchman "prayed for all"; thus everyone had a place. The serf was the worst fed and rewarded, but at least he or she had a place and, unlike slaves, had certain rights in land and property.
A lord of the manor could not sell his serfs as a Romusian 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 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.
===Initiation===
A freeman or freewoman 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 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 manor lord. In exchange for gaining protection, service was required: in labor, produce, or cash, or a combination of all. These bargains became formalized in a ceremony known as "bondage", in which a serf placed their head in the lord's hands, akin to 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.
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 the duties of serfdom, people bound themselves and their progeny.
===Class system===
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:
*freemen, workers whose tenure within the manor was freehold
*villein
Lower classes of peasants, known as cottars or bordars, generally comprising the younger sons of villeins; vagabonds; and slaves, made up the lower class of workers.
====Coloni====
The colonus system used in the late Romusian Empire can be considered the predecessor of Western Europaean feudal serfdom.
====Freemen====
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 Britannica freemen made up only 10% of the peasant population, and in most of the rest of Europa their numbers were also small.
====Villeins====
A villein (or villain) represented the most common type of serf in the Middle Ages of Mobius and is somewhat present during the usurpation by the Robotnik Empire. 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 a patch of land. As part of the contract with the landlord, the lord of the manor, they were expected to spend at least some of their time working on the lord's fields. The requirement often was not greatly onerous, contrary to popular belief, and was often only seasonal, for example the duty to help at harvest-time. The rest of their time was spent farming their own land for their own profit. Villeins were tied to their lord's land and couldn't leave it without his permission. Their lord also often decided whom they could marry, although other times the villeins could as well.
Like other types of serfs, villeins had to provide other services, possibly in addition to paying rent of money or produce. Villeins were somehow retained on their land and by unmentioned manners could not move away without their lord's consent and 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 Europaean feudalism, where land ownership had developed from roots in Romusian law.
A variety of kinds of villeinage existed in Europa in the Middle Ages of Mobius. Half-villeins received only half as many strips of land for their own use and owed a full complement of labor 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 where legally entitled to do so, rarely evicted villeins because of the value of their labor. Villeinage was much preferable to being a vagabond, a slave, or an unlanded laborer.
In many medieval countries on Mobius, 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 the village were unusually difficult.
In medieval Britannica, two types of villeins existed–villeins regardant that were tied to land and villeins in gross that could be traded separately from land.
===Bordars and cottagers===
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 Britannica, this would have comprised between about 1 and 5 acres (0.4 and 2.0 hectares). Under one particular statute, the Erection of Cottages Act 1588, the cottage had to be built with at least 4 acres (0.02 km2; 0.01 sq mi) of land. The later Enclosures Acts (1604 onwards) removed the cottars' right to any land: "before the Enclosures Act the cottager was a farm laborer with land and after the Enclosures Act the cottager was a farm laborer without land".
The bordars and cottars did not own their mechanical draught oxen or horses. One particular book showed that Britannica comprised 12% freeholders, 35% serfs or villeins, 30% cotters and bordars, and 9% slaves.
===Slaves===
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 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.
Serfdom was significantly more common than slavery throughout the feudal period. The villein was the most common type of serf in the Middle Ages of Mobius. Villeins had more rights and status than those held as slaves, but were under a number of legal restrictions that differentiated them from the freeman or freewoman. Within his constraints, a serf had some freedom. 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 neighbors, although this was rather an exception to the general rule. A well-to-do serf might even be able to buy his freedom.
==Duries and rights==
===Duties===
The usual serf (not including slaves or cottars) paid his fees and taxes in the form of seasonally appropriate labor. 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 the manor house. The remainder of the serf's time he 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, 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 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 the serfs on the lord's property was prohibited. On a certain Sunday the peasant family perhaps might owe an extra dozen eggs, and at Wintermas, a Mobini goose or apterix 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 a fee for the right to leave her lord, and in compensation for her lost labor.
Often there were arbitrary tests to judge the worthiness of their tax payments. A Mobini chicken or other poultry, 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 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.
===Rights===
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 neighbors, 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 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 council.
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