Focus on economics: serfdom

"Those who were not slaves were not all free, for our period sees the development of a status of unfreedom which is not equal to slavery: it is serfdom. There were many routes to such servility: loss of an individual’s land through poverty and debt, or through conquest followed by loss of land. The serf householder was attached to the land he and his family cultivated, and their tenure entailed important obligations which were the mark of servility. Serfs shared the produce of their labour with their lords, they were obliged to execute work at the lord’s request, and they were limited in their right to travel. Serfs were often required to bring their corn for grinding in the lord’s mill and their grapes to the lord’s winepress, and to pay for a licence when they sought to marry outside the manor; a fine beast was paid to secure the passage of the serf’s tenure to its heir. Their lives were hard, and often characterized by writers in our periods as being simple and rude. When bishop Rather of Verona around 930 wrote with guidance to Christians of all conditions, he advised the labourer: ‘be not only fair, but hard-working, content with your lot, cheating no one, offending no one’."