Many peasant were serf How was a serf different from slave?

Answer 1

Many of peasants on the manors were serfs. The serfs were part of the property. It a lord sold his manor, the new lord would own the serfs as well as the land. Unlike slaves, however, serfs could not be sold without the land.

Answer 2

1st Answer:

The word "serf" is Latin for slave, so they were slaves. Peasants were not slaves they were tenant farmers working the land for the king and his nobles.

2nd Answer:

The serfs were bound to the soil, meaning that serfs could not move away from the manor on which they lived. The deal was two way, however, and the lord could not make them move away.

By contrast, free peasants were not bound to the soil. They were allowed to move away, but the lord of the manor could also fire them from their jobs and kick them out of their homes.

Serfs and freemen alike paid rent. Freemen were not usually organized the same way serfs were. And the rent they paid was more commonly money, where the serfs' rent was commonly in labor or a share of a crop.

The Latin word for slave was "servus." Deriving a description of the serf of the Middle Ages from a word from ancient Rome is not going to work, even though the word is related. They were different cultures, and the words had different meanings.