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As slavery gradually disappeared and the legal status of servi became nearly identical to that of the coloni, the term changed meaning into the modern concept of "serf". The word "serf" is first recorded in English in the late 15th century, and came to its current definition in the 17th century. Serfdom was coined in 1850. [citation needed]
Serfdom reached Eastern Europe centuries later than Western Europe—it became dominant around the 15th century. Before that time, Eastern Europe had been much more sparsely populated than Western Europe, and the lords of Eastern Europe created a peasantry-friendly environment to encourage migration east. [3]
The origins of serfdom in Russia may be traced to the 12th century, when the exploitation of the so-called zakups on arable lands (ролейные (пашенные) закупы, roleyniye (pashenniye) zakupy) and corvée smerds (Russian term for corvée is барщина, barschina) was the closest to what is now known as serfdom.
In France and Germany, for example, the owners of landed estates had unlimited jurisdiction over them, including the power to punish by death. In Russia, their economic oppression was notorious , and one of the reasons Catherine II gave for the partition of Poland was the fact that thousands of peasants escaped from Russia to Poland to seek a ...
The monument of Alexander II, the "Tsar-Liberator," erected in 1899 in Częstochowa with funds voluntarily collected from Polish peasants. [1]Abolition of serfdom in Poland was a gradual process tied to the economy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where the nobility depended on serf labour for income and status.
Constitution abolishes serfdom. [96] Prussia: The Stein-Hardenberg Reforms abolish serfdom. [96] Michigan Territory: Judge Augustus Woodward denies the return of two slaves owned by a man in Windsor, Upper Canada. Woodward declares that any man "coming into this Territory is by law of the land a freeman." [97] 1808 United States
The 1781 Serfdom Patent allowed the serfs legal rights in the Habsburg monarchy, but the document did not affect the financial dues and the physical corvée (unpaid labor) that the serfs legally owed to their landlords. Joseph II recognized the importance of these further reforms, continually attempting to destroy the economic subjugation ...
In copyhold, both a landlord and peasant made their best business deal, whereby the peasant got use of the land and the landlord got a fixed annual payment, and both possessed a copy of the tenure agreement. Serfdom did not end everywhere and lingered in parts of Western Europe and was introduced to Eastern Europe only after the Black Death. [34]