When were there serfs?

Answer 1

AnswerSerfs (slaves) have been around for centuries. It was common practice to take men as slaves when they lost a battle or when their villages were raided. The word "serf" is Latin for slave. In the middle ages and before pirates were often the people who were in the slave business. They sold and shipped people all over Europe. AnswerSerfdom might be said to have begun with an edict by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great in 322 AD, when free tenant farmers, called coloni, were bound to the soil they worked. They were still free, in most respects, but they were not allowed to move off the land or move to other ways of life. This was the condition of Europe when the Roman Empire fell, and it was to some degree adopted by the Germanic tribes that took over Roman territories, as many Roman practices were.

The dominant power of Western Europe during the following four hundred years was the kingdom, and then the empire, built by the Franks, but, aside from the reign of Charlemagne from 768 to 814 AD, it was never well centralized. Indeed, it was divided immediately on his death, and became two nations, one of which, France, though nominally centralized, was effectively under the control of a variety of local lords, and the other, the Holy Roman Empire, was never centralized at all. This further entrenched feudalism, because feudalism was a system of mutual obligation through a hierarchical system of leadership that worked fairly well in a decentralized society.

Answer 2

Serfs were agricultural workers who were free in most respects, but who were bound to the land and not permitted to leave the manors or villas on which they worked. The idea that workers should be bound in this way originates in a decree from the Roman Emperor Constantine dating from 332 AD. There were parts of Europe where serfdom was never introduced. In England, it was introduced by the Normans in 1066. It became obsolete for various reasons in various places, and had pretty much passed out of existence in England, Scotland, and much of France by the end of the Middle Ages. It lingered until the 19th century in Eastern Europe, though there have been places where it lasted until the 20th century.

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