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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 neighbours, although this happened rarely. [28]
Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract called an "indenture", may be entered voluntarily for a prepaid lump sum, as payment for some good or service (e.g. travel), purported eventual compensation, or debt repayment.
Serfs held plots of land, which was essentially a form of "payment" that the lord offered in exchange for the serf's service. [183] Serfs worked part-time for the masters and part-time for themselves and had opportunities to accumulate personal wealth that often did not exist for the slave. [182]
Civil (legal) status – the worker could for example be a free citizen, an indentured labourer, the subject of forced labour (including some prison or army labour); a worker could be assigned by the political authorities to a task, they could be a semi-slave or a serf bound to the land who is hired out part of the time. So the labour might be ...
The landowner could transfer the serf without land to another landowner while keeping the serf's personal property and family; however, the landowner had no right to kill the serf. [8] About four-fifths of Russian peasants were serfs according to the censuses of 1678 and 1719; free peasants remained only in the north and north-east of the country.
It appears as primitive, because it forms the pre-historic stage of capital and of the mode of production corresponding with it." In a case history of England, Marx described how the serfs became free peasant proprietors and small farmers, who were, over time, forcibly expropriated and driven off the land, forming a property-less proletariat.
In late 16th century Japan, "unfree labour" or slavery was officially banned; but forms of contract and indentured labour persisted alongside the period's penal codes' forced labour. Somewhat later, the Edo period 's penal laws prescribed "non-free labour" for the immediate families of executed criminals in Article 17 of the Gotōke reijō ...
Villein is derived from Late Latin villanus, meaning a man employed at a Roman villa rustica, or large agricultural estate.The system of tied serfdom originates from a decree issued by the late Roman Emperor Diocletian (r. 284–305 CE) in an attempt to prevent the flight of peasants from the land and the consequent decline in food production.