What is serf in Russia?

Answer 1

Serfs were the lowest level of workers in most areas of medieval Europe, though in some there were slaves, who were at a lower level. Serfs were not slaves, but were not free to leave the land where they worked. Their obligation with their feudal lord was mutual; he had obligations to them, to provide a place and protect them, just as they had obligations to him, to give a part of the crop, or later, money for rent. Serfs could not be bought or sold. They belonged to the land, not the lord. If the lord sold the land, they went with it. The new owner did not have the option of moving them off the land.

Most serfs worked in agriculture, and lived on the land. Some lived in towns or villages, and formed the lowest level of laborers there. They could be cooks helpers, or even cooks. They could work in such trades as weaving. Miners were serfs of a sort. They could be masons' helpers. They did not usually occupy positions that involved mastery of a craft, such as the master masons, or the best cooks, who worked entirely for hire and were free. The serfs without plots of land were called villeins, a word related to the word village.

Various customs in various places allowed the serfs to become free, meaning they could leave the land they were born on and go elsewhere. In some cases, when a king needed to populate a new port, for example, they could be freed by running away and staying in the new town for a year. In other cases, such as after the Black Death, they were bribed off their land to farm lands of other lords that had been depopulated. The result is that serfdom ended in some places several generations before the end of the Middle Ages. The technicalities of ending serfdom took longer; for example, serfdom was technically legal in Scotland for four hundred years after it had died out nearly everywhere in the country. And in some places, such as Russia, it remained in practice into the nineteenth century.

Loosely, the term serf might be applied to anyone of peasant class, including laboring freemen, cottars, villeins, bordars, and even slaves. This use should be considered rather imprecise, however.

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Answer 2

No, a serf was not a slave, though it might be difficult for many people to understand the difference.

A slave is a possession of an owner, and must do whatever he is told to do.

A serf was free to the extent that he could decide what to do himself. He had obligations to fulfill, just as people do who enter into contracts. He was obliged to work the fields of his feudal lord for a certain amount of time each week, or alternately to give a portion of his crop to the lord each year. In exchange for this he got a place to live and a certain amount of protection. The thing that made him most like a slave was that he was bound to the land he lived on, and could not move away or end the obligation to the lord.

Answer 3

AnswerA serf was forced to work on their owners land and were not allowed to leave. MoreMost serfs were agricultural workers. They were not slaves, and were largely free to do what they wanted. In many places, their work was supervised by reeves, who also serfs, elected by the serfs to organize their labor, assign fields to each serf, and represent them to the lord and the lord to them. They owed the landlord rent, in the form of a part of their crop, labor, or money, and were legally not allowed to move away from the manor. Their landlord was obliged to give them a place to live, fields to farm, and protection in exchange; the landlord was legally obliged to allow them to live on the manor.

Please see the link below to the related question, "What was a serf's life like?" There are a number of links at that question to resource sites.

Answer 4

A "serf" is a peasant farmer who was legally bound to remain on the land where he was born and worked. He was in essence a slave who was owned by whoever owned the land to which he was bound.