And while the church wanted a tithe, the manor lord required you to work one or more days per week on his field, using your own tools. This was rent. There might’ve also been monetary rent in addition to work rent. And in addition to the church tithe, the manor lord wanted a tithe too. You couldn’t choose to rent somewhere else, either - while the manor lord didn’t own you, he owned the piece of land you lived on, could dictate your terms, and you’d have to pay a fine for moving away to another manor lord’s service. If he sold the parcel of land, you’d have to do all the same to the new landlord. If you could manage to hide in a city for a year + one day, you’d be free. But if you got caught, you’d be imprisoned until your lord came and picked you up.
These were the general rules in my area, others would differ. Obviously they changed over time and so on. And much of this is from the chronicles and those were written by the Order, so the real situation might’ve been worse even.
There’s plenty wrong with our current situation and we seem to be sliding back towards serfdom, but serfdom is definitely worse than what we have now and we can NOT afford to go back.
And while the church wanted a tithe, the manor lord required you to work one or more days per week on his field, using your own tools. This was rent. There might’ve also been monetary rent in addition to work rent. And in addition to the church tithe, the manor lord wanted a tithe too. You couldn’t choose to rent somewhere else, either - while the manor lord didn’t own you, he owned the piece of land you lived on, could dictate your terms, and you’d have to pay a fine for moving away to another manor lord’s service. If he sold the parcel of land, you’d have to do all the same to the new landlord. If you could manage to hide in a city for a year + one day, you’d be free. But if you got caught, you’d be imprisoned until your lord came and picked you up.
These were the general rules in my area, others would differ. Obviously they changed over time and so on. And much of this is from the chronicles and those were written by the Order, so the real situation might’ve been worse even.
There’s plenty wrong with our current situation and we seem to be sliding back towards serfdom, but serfdom is definitely worse than what we have now and we can NOT afford to go back.
First, thanks for the informative comment.
Made me imagine that we’d figured out federation backwards in time, and you were commenting from a middle ages Lemmy instance.