Serfdom

Part of a series on
Slavery
Contemporary Child labour Child soldiers Conscription Debt Forced marriage Bride buying Child marriage Wife selling Forced prostitution Human trafficking Peonage Penal labour Contemporary Africa 21st-century jihadism Sexual slavery Wage slavery
Historical Antiquity Egypt Babylonia Greece Rome Medieval Europe Byzantine Empire Kholop Serfs In Russia Emancipation Thrall Muslim world Ottoman Empire Avret Esir Pazarları Contract of manumission Barbary Coast slave trade pirates Turkish Abductions Concubinage Harem Jarya/Cariye Odalisque Qiyan Umm walad Ma malakat aymanukum Avret Esir Pazarları Abbasid harem Ottoman Imperial Harem 21st century Atlantic slave trade Middle Passage Bristol Brazil Database Dutch Nantes New France Panyarring Spanish Empire Slave Coast Thirteen colonies Topics and practice Conscription Mamluk Ghilman Devshirme Blackbirding Coolie Slave market Corvée labor Field slaves in the United States Treatment House slaves Saqaliba Slave raiding History of children in the military White slavery Naval Impressment Shanghaiing Slave ship Galley slave Pirates
By country or region Sub-Saharan Africa Contemporary Africa Trans-Saharan slave trade Red Sea slave trade Indian Ocean slave trade Angola Chad Ethiopia Mali Mauritania Niger Nigeria Seychelles Somalia South Africa Sudan North and South America Americas indigenous U.S. Natives Aztec United States Field slaves female Contemporary maps partus prison labor Slave codes Treatment interregional Human trafficking The Bahamas Canada Caribbean Barbados British Virgin Islands Trinidad Code Noir Latin America Brazil Lei Áurea Colombia Cuba Haiti revolt Restavek (Encomienda) Puerto Rico East, Southeast, and South Asia Human trafficking in Southeast Asia Bhutan China Booi Aha Laogai penal system India Debt bondage Chukri System Japan comfort women Korea Kwalliso Thailand Yankee princess Vietnam Australia and Oceania Australia Human trafficking Blackbirding Slave raiding in Easter Island Human trafficking in Papua New Guinea Blackbirding in Polynesia Europe and North Asia Sex trafficking in Europe Britain Denmark Dutch Republic Germany in World War II Malta Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia Spain Sweden North Africa and West Asia Afghanistan Algeria Bahrain Egypt Human trafficking in the Middle East Iran Kuwait Libya Morocco Oman Saudi Arabia Tunisia Qatar Yemen United Arab Emirates
Religion Bible Christianity Catholicism Mormonism Islam Judaism Baháʼí Faith
Opposition and resistance 1926 Slavery Convention Abolitionism U.K. U.S. Abolitionists Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention Anti-Slavery International Blockade of Africa U.K. U.S. Colonization Liberia Sierra Leone Compensated emancipation Freedman manumission Freedom suit Slave Power Underground Railroad songs Slave rebellion Slave Trade Acts International law Third Servile War 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom Abolition of slave trade in Persian gulf [fa]
Related Common law Indentured servitude Unfree labour Fugitive slaves laws Great Dismal Swamp maroons List of slaves owners last surviving American enslaved people Marriage of enslaved people (United States) Slave narrative films songs Slave name Slave catcher Slave patrol Slave Route Project breeding court cases Washington Jefferson Adams Lincoln 40 acres Freedmen's Bureau Iron bit Emancipation Day
v t e

Serfdom is the forced labour of serfs in a feudal society. In medieval Europe, serfs were peasant farmers who worked without pay for a lord. In exchange, they got to live and work on the lord’s manor. They also got the lord’s protection.

Serfs had more rights than slaves (for example, serfs could own property). However, they were not completely free. They could not move, marry, or leave the manor without the lord’s permission. In most serfdoms, serfs were legally part of the land. If the land was sold, they were sold with it. Serfs worked in their lord’s fields. They sometimes did other things related to agriculture, like forestry and transportation (by both land and river). Some also worked in craft and manufacturing.

Serfdom developed from agricultural slavery in the Roman Empire. It spread through Europe around the 10th century. During the Middle Ages, most European people lived in serfdoms.

Serfdom lasted up to the 1600s in England and until 1789 in France. In most other European countries, serfdom continued until the early 19th century.

Serfdom was unusual in the Russian Empire until the 18th century when it became widespread. Alexander II of Russia abolished it in 1861,