My granmother who was born in 1899, but whos own grandmother came on a sailing ship told the story that the ship was becalmed at sea for more than a month, everyone was out of food and water and thought they would die untill a storm came up and everyone rushed out on deck holding up whatever containers they had to catch the rain to drink, the wind came up and blew them into port where the ship was "condemed at port" due to its condition after being becalmed for so long"(more than a month)" . "she tod the story We came from the very northern part of Germany (the village of Prestin) on a sailing ship (mid 1800's.) For hundreds of years we worked in the fields like slaves 6 days a week, all the adult men and the woman from sun up to sun down, we were "watched"(emphasis and resentment attached)and not allowed to leave all day, and on the seventh day we had to attend the "Lords hall(the chapel Prestin), all day, so that we were "watched"(emphasis and resentment attached)" all day seven days a week". The children would try to catch fish under the bridges to bring home hidden in their aprons so that we might have meat in our diet. or sons were drafted into wars and killed and never came home generation after generation, Grandmother said that eventually the family managed to buy a small piece of land "so not all our sons would not all have to go to war to be killed" My name is Prestin, when we did tom geneology we found the ship my great great grondmother imigrated on was "condemened at port" only my family knows why... For context: The Prestin church was built in 1100' of wood and rebuilt of stone in the 1300's the steeple blew off in the "great wind"(a huge monumental storm) in the middle ages, but the stone church still stands.
A medieval saying was "the miller's collar is the bravest man in the village as he has caught a thief by his neck". Miller's had the right of "quernage", this means he could seize and destroy querns, or hand grain mills, and destroy them. If the miller presented the remains of the quern to the lord he received a bounty. Millers were infamous for stealing some of the grain given to them to mill, true or not, and then reselling it and this illegitimate tax was resented far more then the dues paid to the lords. In times of strife the miller was probably the first to flee the area until order was restored for obvious reasons.
I mean, people tend to displace anger, rightly or not, on people close at hand. When famine hit Paris during the revolution, citizens were lynching bakers in the streets convinced they were hiding bread.
@@k.v.7681 in psychology terms, this is the difference between anger and rage. Rage is wild, uncontrolled and typically taken out on whatever is within reach.
Despite him trying to demonstrate how complicated it was, he's actually simplifying things, because if you read the Doomsday book in the original Latin, or at the least in a translation that preserves the Latin when there is no direct translation, you find that there were two different ranks of servile, each apparently with their own set of rights based on the type of serf that they were. One of the most important reasons for proving you are Free, is if your are Free, then your children don't need anyone's permission to move away and start their own life. They can head off to London and seek their fortune, or take a longbow and serve as mercenaries in Europe for good wages (if they aren't cheated of their pay), or board a ship and go to the Holy Land, or take your tools and contract to work on the great Cathedrals, or whatever. Which again, shows that while 90% of the population probably never went more than 20 miles from their birthplace, there was a class of people even in the Middle Ages who were quite cosmopolitan. And another level of complexity to this is that economic status and social status were not so well tied as you might think. There are example in the Doomsday book of quite poor Lords and quite wealthy Serf families that own a lot of land and paid comparatively low taxes. At it's heart, Feudalism was government by private contract, and this extended all the way down to serfdom. All that court going was often to renegotiate the terms of your legal contract, and it would work both ways. A poor Lord that didn't manage his affairs well, could effectively be taking out loans from his serfs in return for improved social status, legal status, or better long term contracts. While there were broad customs and standards, every relationship was basically privately encoded and therefore legally unique.
Thanks for the insightful comment :) I am wondering, why is it called Doomsday book do you know? That sounds like something bad, like it's about the apocalypse or something! But it sounds more like a record of the land and the people who dwell there (I had never heard of it until I watched this video) :)
@@Vexarax I am fairly sure that the word "doom" in Old English originally meant something like "fate" or "destiny." So the "Doomsday book" could better be translated "Book of Destinies," which could be a fitting title for a book about people's statuses.
@@AmirAli-of6zf - I am on my phone so can't check Google for it right now, but have you tried typing "Doomsday book in modern English full text online free" - it might be archived somewhere!! I've found extremely rare very old books that way :D
Very late comment, thank you for the quality content you make. An anecdote from Austria. The most despised fraction of a rural community here were farmers up to about 1960. My grandmother was born 1928, as a reference, and is from a very poor family of laborers. She was quite intelligent but was denied a higher education (despite it being technically free) or even good marks in school despite flawless work. The reason, openly stated was: a Lindmayr is not allowed to do better; But that's just the universal rule of poor people being shat on because nobody cares. She was what was called an Armenschülerin; her mom and most of the part of the town (think: slum: little heating, damp room shared with another family, no indoor plumbing, no well; water had to be fetched from the river) she lived in worked as needed for the farmers in the fields. If you wanted to eat (or sometimes be paid at all) you had to follow the traditional rules of the farmers and those rules were pretty uniform for all farmers and typical for temporary workers and the regular Knechte (Farmhands) and Mägde (female workers, maid is not really fitting as a translation): you were not allowed to marry without the approval of your 'Herr', you would not be employed by other farmers without there was no enforceable set wage, rape and corporal punishment were quite common and counted as the farmer's rights by local law, for those who tried to trade with farmers for food, they generally got taken advantage off. Taking one of the Mägde as a wife happened - if the woman in question bore the farmer a son beforehand, girls did not count. Complaining about this treatment mostly led to the victim being shunned, including merchants refusing to trade with them, suicide rate among the populace was 30% upward between the wars.Those employer rights, were in action from 1690ies up to 1930ies and it only changed when factories were built nearby and workers did not depend on the 'goodwill' of those farmers anymore. Might makes right, that's how our world works and labels like slaves, indentured servants or workers are for the history books, not reality.
@chemina8541 Interesting. Could you perhaps expound a little on the labels part at the end? To me labels like "indentured servants or workers" are accurate labels that portray the relationship between most people (labourers) and the capitalists.
Regarding a serf becoming free because of military service, this reminds me of a similar thing in feudal Japan where a peasant could be elevated to the class of samurai. A supreme example of a spectacular rise in social ladder is a peasant, Hiyoshi-maru, who became an ashigaru (peasant foot soldier) for the Oda clan and was promoted to a samurai and eventually changed his name to Toyotomi Hideyoshi.. When he died, he held the title of Taiko instead of Shogun because he began his life as a peasant and therefore could not claim to be from a samurai lineage traceable to the ancient Minamoto clan which is a requirement to be a Shogun although he was in reality the true ruler of Japan and as powerful as any Shogun. The irony is that as Taiko, he locked down the class system so that no one born a peasant could be promoted to the rank of samurai.
Is not that strange, in both cases it was a time filled with violance, where one day you would be ok and the next your village could be burned down by invaders of another land. Everyone was in war with everyone. So anyone who could fight back and participates in the battlefield can get enough prestige and power to even change their status, but very few did really see that happend to them. People tend to forget that for any winner there where thousands of losers behind. And reason why Hideyoshi Toyotomi make the class system so rigid so no lowborn could be promoted, along with removal of weaponry among the peasant class, it was for the sake to maintain peace, even at the cost of the rights of the citizens.
yeah,only his boss Oda Nobunaga were considered have an actually will to make some changes of feudal system of japan,and therefor he murdered by his own trusty vassel(un able to spell the name) which is a classic samurai having a decent lineage.So,I think Hideyoshi may have to make some compromise with his powerful samurai Daimyos.
Denmark also had geographic differences in the amount of freemen vs serfs (at least in the 19th century). The western, less fertile part of the country had more freemen, while the fertile east was more organised in large manors. The population density of the western part was lower, so people got used to being independent and taking care of their own affairs. The liberal movement in the 19th century also found more backing among the people in the western part of Denmark. The cultural distinction between the more independently minded westerners and the rest of the country still exists up to this day. Funny thing is the difference in fertility was caused by the distribution of ice in the last ice age. The east got the clay from the glaciers, the west got sand from glacier streams. So you could say the political and cultural landscape of Denmark was caused by an ice age 12.000 years ago.
Very interesting! German is a semi second language to me and I say semi because there's still a lot I don't know, especially little sayings and idioms like this. Did Germany have a hand fast ceremony as well? Hand fasting was akin to being married but without the church vows. It also lasted a year and a day. At then end of it, you either chose to marry in a proper church ceremony or go your separate ways. It gets me wondering if there were other year and a day arrangements.
Of course it's the same laws that applied to England and Germany, because neither of these nations existed during the Middle Ages. It was all formally the Western Roman Empire. William the Conqueror took as Duke of Normandy (dux = Roman title of a commander of several provinces, i.e. counties) orders from Pope Alexander II and the Roman Emperor Henry III. All of Western Europe was one complex hierarchical feudal empire. And the Church made sure that certain laws were universally followed.
@@magister.mortran That's interesting. I mean, I know about pretty much of Europe being united in the Holy Roman Empire, and I was aware that this rooted in the conquest of the Franconian Empire some centuries before. But I was never aware that England was so closely connected to continental reign and law. Obviously there was a lot of intermarrying between the leading houses over all of Christian Europe. But that doesn't automatically mean there are identical laws pushed by a central power. Does anyone know if there are surviving documents from the period, attesting to this law taking its origin with a pope or emperor of the time? (edit: grammar)
@@magister.mortran Im sorry but the Crowns of England and France were not part of the Roman Empire at that point. The HRE was mainly the german lands, the low countries, bohemia and italy.
It's always easier to see how the serf system was viewed from above (because those people could write). It's much more interesting to dig into how the structure was viewed by the serfs themselves. From their perspective, they were the ones connected to specific plots of lands (as compared to being connected to a region like the lord). They often saw themselves as 'renting' the services of the lord for protection, settling disputes, etc. The land was then more 'theirs' then it was the lord's. This is why there were so many fights when lords tried to unilaterally raise taxes. The serfdom structure had many aspects of a bilateral arrangement. In a bilateral arrangement, one side cannot just say 'oh, I know we agrred you would pay me 10% or whatever, but I now have decided it is 15%'. The peasants saw themselves as having an important role and that the lords had to *convince* them that the expenditure (raising an army, funding a mill, etc) was necessary.
It was the Normans who brought the concept of noblesse oblige, the duty of nobility to treat the common people well. In the strict definition of a monarchy all lands and people ultimately belong to the Crown. Nobles don't actually own the land, they are given possession of the right to hold the land, in service to and at the pleasure of the Crown. Because the monarch is the nation and embodies the people, any insult to even the least of subjects is an insult to the Crown. Nobility was not immune to having their titles and lands repossessed by the Crown. All license is by order of the Crown, which is illustrated today by the fact Queen Elizabeth needs no driver's license: It is by her own permission she is allowed to drive.
@@bbgun061 She was in the British Military, as all Royals are obliged to be, and she served as an Army vehicle mechanic, so she presumably did drive those vehicles. And I believe I recall seeing a picture of her driving a Land Rover recently. Not needing a driver's license may not seem like much of a perk, but it does symbolize the fact that, even in today's Constitutional Monarchy, the Queen actually possesses vast powers she never uses, in the interest of upholding the Constitution.
Really convenient for the nobility, and even powerful people today, that the serfs couldn't write their side of the story. I'm sure they'd have a lot to say about how noblesse oblige worked in practice. Here in the US, there are plenty of southerners who want to talk about how slavery wasn't that bad because some slavers were nice.
@@jeffersonclippership2588 I don't think anyone is claiming it was a good system. But the Normans did improve the lot of the average serf in some ways. The Norman Conquest has a very negative reputation among the public, for many good reasons. But it is also worth pointing out where there were social advancements. As an Englishman, it took me a long time to acknowledge the benefits that the Normans brought with them. This has nothing to do with justifying their rule over serfs.
I saw a comment from Denmark. Swede here and for most of our history we have had a rather unique situation where not only were the vast majority freemen, but they paid taxes directly to the crown, not the local lord. Swedish nobles had few freemen and even fewer serfs. We also had elected kings all up to Gustav I in the mid 16th century. This meant that unlike in a lot of Europe the farmers often voted with the king when there were tings or "Riksdags" and the king used the farmers as support to keep the noble families in check. Even after Guatav I the farmers usually sided with the king.
But what about Nils Dacke and his men? If it was as you describe, then the actions of the Swedish king, imposing Lutheranism on his subjects, must have embittered the Swedish peasants.
The farmers usually sided with the king, because they demanded that the king would promise to continue to upheld the farmers rights and freedoms, or else.
@@cetus4449 actually the rise of Lutheranism was quite popular among the peasantry, the church tithes and political whims of members of the upper clergy were heavily disliked. the result was the removal of the higher cleargy with the imposition of Lutheranism was fairly popular.
Splendid work. I love the level of information you present, the accuracy of your research and your presentation style, but I have to Say, GOSH that forest shot Is beautiful. Is that a grove near where you live?
This channel has always had a special place in my being. I love knowing more about the ancestors of our island. Our politics might be messed up right now but the sheer beauty of our country side and monuments means allot to me. I can still get lost in the maze of imagination trying to imagine what it would have been like.
Lord: I expect 10 chickens by the end of the week. Peasant: What?! I pay rent, I'm a freeman! Lord: No you're not. You're my Serf. 10 Chickens. Peasant: Nonsense! I'm taking you to court! Lord: You don't have the shilings for the legal fees. Peasant: We'll see about that! Man... things haven't changed much, have they?
When you took your lord to court it was in the lord's manor court. Evidence as we know it was almost unknown and guilt or innocence were proven by ordeal. Transmutation of boon work into rent only happened owing to a shortage of labor resulting from one of the regular plagues, or when the king had conscripted a whole bunch of the lord's laborers for one of the regular wars, and the laborers found that they liked being soldiers more than they liked being serfs. Back at the ranch opportunities for rape, looting and pillage were limited.
@@shadeburst pretty sure tennäntsusually arent favouredin court? Also the money on court. Also why do you guesssubscribe m8stly im theus army,poorpeople, 🤔 🤔tedthey tied alot bons to being in the army and pay for college, but still.
They did, for a little while, but we backslid into things we used to do. It's the story of humanity; We keep making the same mistakes and trying to trick ourselves and those around us that were doing something new by calling those same things by some other name. But it's still the same 💩
@@shadeburst You know, in the middle ages the peasants would not have made such silly claims and would have known that while court might be situated at the manor, for convenience, the lord would not preside the court for himself, but a judge. The peasants would have laughed at you for suggesting the lord could judge a case where he was the one being accused. Did you know, btw, that medieval hoaxes that were easily disproven in the medieval times go around the internet because apparently, medieval peasant can outsmart a modern internet user. In short, dont believe everything you see in a Hollywood movie.
@@EvidensInsania That's what happens when the government takes control of education. They're not going to tell you anything that goes against their version of history.
Aye, as much as we like things being black or white, it's often a tricky grey what serves as an explanation. One that comes to mind, is 'people in ancient times died at 30-40', well, there was a lot of miscarriages and kid mortality which brings the mean down, but for sure there were healthy men living more than 50 years old.
@@cabroncete William Marshall successfully led the charge against invading French forces despite being in his 70s. And this is after 70 years of brutal fighting in tourneys, wars and the crusades.
*video description:* "What's the difference between a Serf and a Slave?" *video content at the beginning:* "Here are 15 ways in which you are basically still a serf today."
@@GALA89 on one hand, yes, on the other hand, no, they worked longer hours as the work had to be done in a time frame which was short, but outside of that they had fewer tasks for their job, they just filled it with things others do for us now, preparing food, any projects that need to be done, etc
I have always loved cooking and I was living in a very rural area of Spain a few years ago. One day I started to think about how medieval peasants were capable of doing the work I used to do (but without modern equipment) eating only mud and squirrels. So I searched in TH-cam medieval peasant food and find your amazing videos with that lovely lady about medieval classes food. I subscribed immediately and this is still the best channel for me. What a treat
I NEED more shots and videos like those clips of you in full laborer garb walking through the woods. I LOVE it. And the general videos of daily life and the small stuff like this? Perfect. You make learning fun, and you bring the lives of ages long past to life. And THAT is the work of a truly great scholar. Thank you.
I quite like it too, knights and soldiers are flashier (and heck, I still love them) but as I age I'm getting more into what the lay people lived like, is quite fun to learn about it and how they lived.
Oh.. u mean u need more of him in his everyday life... Lol. That's maybe part of why he doesn't so much... Would youuuu.. want to Flaunt and show off your everyday life.. noo. You will just wanna do.. LIFE
Why is so much of history focused on warfare? Im more interested in what life was like than the battles fought. Edit: I get it, that was rhetorical. Just thought I'd clarify since this is the internet.
@@weaksause6878I think it has to do with both simplicity and impact. Simplicity because discrete dates and events are easier both to remember and to digest. Impact I think because of time frame. obviously all the small activities and nuances of daily life have tremendous influence on everyone, but that influence tends to operate over very long and consistent time periods, the arcs it traces may be tremendous, but they take a while to properly view. on the other hand, a war, or even a battle, can completely change the fortunes of a people or a kingdom overnight, and so for a moment to moment measurement their influence is far greater. e.g. Twisting your ankle hurts and can ruin your day, so you will remember it, even if sleeping on a bad mattress for many years can disfigure your spine in a way that will change your entire life.
One of my history professors suggested that we think first about “coerced labor” instead of getting too beguiled by the differences between serfs, slaves, or peons.
We all do coerced labor. Unless you have people on hand to feed you, house you, and clothe you. Otherwise, even as a free person, you are coerced to work to pay for the necessities of life. Unless you are born to wealth, you are a wage slave. Granted, wage slaves today have a lot of rights and privilege, but it's not complete freedom. Nor should it be. I personally believe that you need to expend at least some effort to stay alive. You need to work to eat.
This man has taken the time to read the Manor rolls. They aren't hard to find, and really I wish, wish, wish that Fantasy authors would take the time to learn HOW the medieval period actually was. We have all these stupid misconceptions about the medieval world thanks to the lazy authors of the 80s.
While some of this is the writer's failure of education and failure of imagination, this often as not is actually a problem of the reader's failure of education and failure of imagination. If you are writing your Fantasy novel or even your Historical novel, how much time do you really want to spend on technical exposition to explain a world that is so alien to the readers current norms? How much time do you really want to spend trying to get the reader to realize just how differently the characters see the world and think about the world, especially when in the end you just might end up making the reader relate less to your character? When you start talking about modern Fantasy novels, quite often the writer's concepts were invented after exposure to modern Fantasy RPGs. But even in this situation, where you can really dig in and simulate an alien society, how much does it help the enjoyment of the game to dwell on the technical details of the game world. You run into problems if you make your game too realistically Medieval, that your players need a PhD in history in order to pretend successfully to be characters within that world. And if you add to that all the other things that make your game world unique, you find you are really demanding too much of the players and slowing the pacing of your rousing adventure story. So, even if you really know a lot about the real history, you usually accept anachronisms and simply things or push them aside to dole out in small amounts as color for the sake of the story. Fantasy writers are often doing the same thing, even those in the 1980s.
@@celebrim1 you don't have to explain the intricacies to your reader, like everything else you show it to your reader. further, much like in your daily life you don't need someone to explain to you how the power grid, computers, or cars work, you just have know the rules, you pay your power bill, you need to know what a monitor keyboard and mouse is, but the rest is magic for most people, you buy gas maintenance and repairs for your car, but if i gave most people a screw driver and told them to work on it people who use these things every day would not know where to start. the core problem is the authors don't know enough to make the worlds "real" or believable.
@@vidard9863 Imagine the situation reversed and you are trying to explain the life of a person in the modern world to a medieval person. You wouldn't necessarily need to explain how the power grid, computers, or cars work, but you would have to explain that those things exist, and then you'd have to explain that none of it was magic, that was is just a complicated application of natural philosophy no more mysterious than a grist mill - if you knew enough about the middle-ages to use terms like natural philosophy and grist mill. So would you then choose as part of your story to explain what a mouse and keyboard were, sufficiently well that the medieval person would grasp the rudiments of them if he then encountered them, knowing for example enough to explain that when he was right clicking or left clicking? Would this really help your story? In the same way, you might have in your medieval story that the yeoman's son goes to town to sell a cow on behalf of his father, and he falls into argument with a pair of drovers near the gate who complains that they ought to have the right of the road, but just then the Fuller's Guild led by a church father carrying the icon of their patron Saint , James the Less, because this being the 3rd of May is the feast day of James the Less, and therefore the Fuller's Guild is having a parade. And the Guild Apprentices are cavorting in their ceremonial sheep skin robes, and the masters are marching the the symbols of their trade, and behind them children are dancing and screaming and hoping to be thrown a present like a sweet roll or a pomegranate. And our protagonist sees his friend, who ran away from the master a year ago to make his fortune in the town among the apprentices. And a fight breaks out between the drovers and the fullers, and the priest is chastening them mightily their un-Christian behavior. And at this point you might have to explain what drovers, fullers, saints, feast days, and guilds are unless your audience is particularly well read.
Part of it also depended on where you were. England apparently had some of greatest rights for serfs, but Russia's version was toeing the line of outright slavery.
Yes. The medieval era wasnt homogenous. You learn about medieval monarchy at school, normally centered on french or british feudalism. But these don't explain how the system works in places like the italian republics.
Toeing the line is perhaps a little conservative. Russian serfs that were not state serfs (belonging to the monarchy) could be bought/sold/gambled away, could not get married without their lord's permission, didn't have free right of travel, and could be abused and often times even murdered with no repercussions. They technically had some rights but I think it is hard to say that they amounted to much.
My great grandmother, who was alive when I was a child in the 1970's (she, 106 or so - they didn't record births and deaths too well in Russia back then, for the lowest class). She started life as a peasant in Russia (a serf ..by 'Russian' standards!) When she escaped genocide and came to Britain (still really, just a child). In the UK, she then became what was called an 'indentured servant'. However, this really meant you were 'owned' by the household you worked for (and a slave to whatever they decided). Thankfully, because it was the 19th century in Britain. Her owners were kind (and against classic Slavery per se). And so, like many other privileged families at that time, gave her a full education and treated her well (compared to anywhere, globally). That education, allowed her to break a cycle. And, later start a family. It allowed her to create stable generations going forwards (rather then future generations of poor and uneducated). It'd hard for some to understand, but we still truly thank that family who saved our great grandmother. It will be a debt MY family never forgets. Its why, as a family, we will always be proud of the British. And, to be British ourselves!
@@19374hklmaq The ones in Russia where ethnic minorities were either mass murdered or had to flee to the ports to look for safe passage to other countries. Given the wording of your comment, I trust you can research these massacres yourself. Russia though, aren't that big on remembering this history (and like to 'revise' it). Peace.
@@19374hklmaq Most likely the Holodomor or a similar man made famine, they were quite common in Soviet russia around the time frame they specified or, if far enough back, the german invasion of the Soviet Union. Quite horrific events and the posters grandmother was very fortunate and likely strong of character to survive and later thrive.
Abandoning land and buildings and allowing them to fall into disrepair without releasing title was injurious to the ville and to the manor. Land abandoned for a year and day is forfeit, and the rights of the serf to hold it are extinguished. While the air of the town is free, and freedom, the *typical* lot of a 'free' serf with only the shirt on his back was one of a labourer, living in relatively cramped conditions, and in a location where (as the settlement size (minor) and density (major factor)) increased famine and pestilence were more prevalent than in less the rural environment at large. A peasant here 'gains the freedom' to breathe town air, but at the cost of his rights to hold and use the land and messuage he inherited. The land holder might want to hold a skilled tenant on the land, but also might want to clear up intent to leave, rather than sloping off in the night - the land in waste harms other tenants, the desmene and glebe lands, and risks the surplus which collectively can be produced. If farmed (rights to work the land passed to another), then another tenant can work the land to their profit and to the benefit of all. If the rights to the land are granted away, the land can be gifted to other hard working peasants who will remain. The serf is also 'stealing' the rents, the works due within that year and day, and perhaps other dues payable (including heriot) and may be seeking compensation for those losses. It may have a lot more to do with contractual law and profits than it does with the *man*. At least in some cases.
On another note, isn't that last bit about Henry V translate closer to, "if you fight with me and win, I release you from your yearly dues so you can come pillage with me. Also, I'll probably settle things with your lord."
So the free peasants are the medieval equivalent of a freelancer while serfs where similar to employees? Kinda makes sense, if you where a serf you wouldn´t have many rights, but at least you had some kind of protection in the land you worked unlike a free one. Plus back in the day nepotism was a common practice, people would rather hire a family member, even if there are bad at the job, way more than a complete stranger. Don´t forget this was a time where wars are rampant, and people usually where very cautious to anyone who doesn´t belong to their community. For someone of the Middle Ages being part of one it was a very big deal.
What a great video. No over the top editing, no obnoxious demands to "like and subscribe", no ridiculous attempts to inject modern day politics into the presentation- love it.
A few notes One may contrast English freemen from the French. The former were taxed and made to pay rent, forced to learn learn archery, made to be ready to enlist as mercenaries in campaign, the latter were truly free. Stabilis, a serf of Fleury on the continent, worked his way to marrying a noble lady (nobility pertaining to wealth and respectability than peerage in medieval times) and owning an entire freehold. Society was more like a trifle than a sandwhich: visible layers yet overlapping and blurry borders, like the sherry seeping through a trifle's layers. Distinction between nobility and commoner mattered far less than servile vs free - a clerk in a royal household could be more "noble" than a rural judge. Social mobility was strong and alive in Medieval times, with econometric estimates for Paris determining human capital to be the greatest predictor of income based on tax rolls. Good reasings are Reynolds - Fiefs and Vassals, Epstein - A Social and Economic History of Latter Medieval Europe, Reynolds - Communities and Kingdoms in Western Eurooe 900-1300, Crouch - The Birth of Nobility: Constructing Aristocracy in England and France, 900-1300 Source for the last note is Income Inequality in Paris in the Heyday of the Commercial Revolution by Sussman
@@stevenobrien557 I'm writing the script for my first video (about the Great Famine, 1315-1322). Taking a long time with the combined research (have to shift through studies not just about the Famine itself but also about socio-economic conditions in 1300s Europe), work, and graduate school.
@@viatorinterra I was half joking, you have a really good way of explaining for a midwit such as myself. I look forward to anything you end up posting to TH-cam.
Interesting to learn how they thought about social arrangements. So, yeah, a serf is tied to the land and he can't leave it, but he is also tied to the land and nobody can sell it without including him and his right to work it. Splitting the concept of ownership of the land and ownership of the right to work it is an interesting concept.
I suppose this is a bit like "landlords" today selling homes which have ongoing tenants in them. The rent paying tenants are passed from one landlord to the next. Makes you realise, that today we might not be as free as we think! I wonder how the labour of a serf compares to rent for a typical home today? In this video it is described that you could buy your freedom or run away to a town. That is a bit like buying a home so that you no longer have to pay rent. I suppose we have one area of freedom that definitely did not exist back then, which is the welfare state.
I think it is like game sort of. Lowest level of people like farmers consume lowest resource and without any skills. Most civilization will try to make sure that they don't die of starvation, disease, robberies, and natural disaster. More resource will pour more into more skills people as carpenter, blacksmith, and so on. more resource will pour more into knight, smart people, and royals, as they will protect the land from attacks from aggressive outlanders, robbers, and thieves and decide where resource will pouring into to produce better plans for the civilization.
"Who knows why people wanted to be free?" I find the confusion here disconcerting. Freedom is a good in and of itself, with no additional motive required.
Freedom means different things. Is a homeless person more free than someone who pays a mortgage? Is someone who pays for public healthcare more free than someone who is not insured etc.
@@ModernKnight the homeless person can, legally, get a job and buy a home. The mortgagee can, legally, pay his mortgage or sell his home. Regardless of the practicality of their situations, these people are not bound, unable to change them. The slave and the serf are bound to their situations, and have no right to change them. Their lack of freedom isn't a mere situational limitation, but a legal status. One that cannot be changed without outside interference. These are not comparable.
About church law and the death penalty : in France at least, the only "crime" the Church could condemn you to death for was for being "relapse" (no idea how to translate that), that is falling back into ill ways you had officially renounced (such as heresy - or being a woman in men's clothes as a certain saint was informed). Most people who got condemned to death in relation to religious trials were so by the civil court, generally on grounds of disturbing the peace or rebellion.
It never ceases to amaze me how much power the church had at that time. (They still do but it's quite different now) I'm Protestant Christian myself but I feel terrible about things the church did. I also would have been screwed because I hate wearing dresses because they're so impractical to things I need to get done. Haha
I have some doubts about that because the trial that condemned that woman in men's clothes to death was later declared null after a (post-mortem) retrial. Even a relapse wouldn't have condemned her to death since it was merely about clothes. With that said, I can see the rationale for executing someone relapsing into heresy, especially if rebellion charges are attached to it.
@@Knoloaify Well that particular trial was not exactly the fairest ever, since there were important people (the English) who really really wanted "that person" dead. It doesn't change the fact that the legal basis for her execution was her supposedly being relapse.
A big point often forgotten: servs had the right to be protected by their master. They did not have to fight themselves. But the master had to organize and pay for a protection force.
Thank you. I have some school work I reviewed with my kids about how literally all non-royals in the medieval period were serfs, and that's just a fancy way to say slaves connected to land. How they were stuck there, always mistreated, and weren't ever allowed to leave their backbreaking drudgery. Also, their food was bland and uninteresting, while the nobles eat Peacock and other things. I had to correct this. It drives me crazy how "experts" write books blatantly wrong.
It is an unfortunate fact that people suffer from a normalcy bias and most of us dont realize it. We like to look down on our ancestors and imagine that everything must have been worse back then. We like to think that the way they organized society must have been inferior to ours and that they were mistaken about what is right or wrong while we are so much better - smarter, wiser and more righteous. This kind of thinking is where the classic trope of the permanently shit-stained peasants in grey rags comes from. Regarding this topic specifically, i believe the misconceptions you describe are common partly due to this mindset, which occurs naturally, and party due to intentional indoctrination. We in the west are taught liberal democracy and egalitarianism with all of their dogmas since childhood. Few of us ever really question and ponder this philosophy. We are subtly conditioned to think of democracy as a guarantee or synonym of freedom and righteousness. It does not surprise me in the slightest that schools teach kids to look at medieval societies the way you describe.
There was also a lot of protestant porpaganda which the enlightenment later doubled down on. Both factions were anti-catholic, so it was in their interests to make the catholic dominated medieval period seems as ignorant and miserable as possible - with historical revisionism to make things look much better in ancient greece.
Its entirely fabricated to attack the era where christemdom was mostly united and the catholic church "ruled the states". Look into an peasant or an slave during the classical era and you will find he lives the same or worse than medieval peasants, but for some reason they never bring it up. We have an glorified version of the classical era while the medieval era is vilified. Just wait until you realise the inquisition wasn't some monty python sketch and that it was more lenient than the medieval secular courts or "vigilante" justice of the era and that there's no proof about "millions of people burned at the stake by the inquisition. Its incredible easy to create facts in the past if you have the media behind you, like the canadian "native kids mass graves in the homeschools", no real mass graves were found, not one skeleton was showed or even tested nor any proof of foul play was shown. They just went to cemeteries and concluded that there were bodies there(duh).
And some of it is just laziness. They learned back in 3rd or 4th grade that the nobility could do anything to the serfs and the serfs had no rights and no way out, and rather than doing proper research they just basically repeat what they were told.
They wouldn't have thought of themselves as slaves. They probably felt fortunate to be part of the community at all. In exchange for their labor, they would also get the benefit of living near the castle (or in the case of some privileged laborers like blacksmiths, they actually got to live in a lot of cases AT the castle) and their payment was literally just protection. Most of them would have been farmers, so in exchange for their crops they would get to live "under the umbrella" so to speak. Some lords probably took better care of their peasants than others, but generally speaking an attack on them was an attack on the vassal himself and would be treated as such. They weren't educated so their opportunities were limited as far as doing much else with their lives. I don't think the vast majority of them cared nor did they view themselves as slaves.
Those who lord it over others are invariably less loved by those they oppress and exploit than they'd like to imagine. Nobody wants to slave the fields to provide luxuries for some nob in a manor house.
Would they have even understood the concept? I mean considering the amount of uprisings and attempted uprisings I don't think their lives were particularly great. And expecting a lord not to abuse their positions...1 in a 1000 maybe.
On the other hand, if a lord just didn't feel like spending the time and effort protecting his serfs from bandits or whatever, there was nothing the serfs could do to make him. Same is true if the serfs were threatened by their own cruel or greedy lord. This idea of noblesse oblige only survives because serfs didn't have the ability or chance to leave records of their side of the story.
@@berilsevvalbekret772 There's a limit to that and most lords understood their position and weren't willing to abuse their power and contracts, you have to consider the amount of lords that existed compared to the amount of revolts and you'd notice how uncommon it was for your average lord to so anger his subjects that they'd be willing to revolt. Its similar to today in many cases, do most people revolt (peaceably or not) over slightly subpar work environments? Not really, only when you see exceptional cases of decrepit workplaces does that happen, usually when they have a way too much central power over too wide a swath that you start to see corruption and the allowance for more wicked actions for which people generally revolt over. Same happened in serfdom and feudal cases, a lord with a relatively small amount of serfs did not have much power and was incapable to just abuse them because they could go so far as to revolt and easily win, but a lord with a rather large amount of serfs would have a lot of power and over time would be more likely to become corrupt and abuse some serfs, which may cause revolts but wouldn't always result in a successful revolt.
About the military service...imagine you are a noble. You are expected to maintain a retinue of a certain size. Some of your men died during a war and you need replacements and the sons of your existing retainers are too young to join. It would make sense to look at the serfs who have followed you to war as part of their feudal obligation and offer the most well-performing and loyal ones a spot in your retinue, which would naturally lift them out serfdom. Though this is probably not the same becoming a freeman as the former serf would then become a retainer instead.
I don't know about other countries, but in mine it happened that peasants were sold or given as a "gift" to other nobles or they were simply thrown out of the land without anything, a peasant could not leave the lord's land without special permission, the penalty for escaping was death by saying and hunts were also organized for escaped peasants, the lord could beat them with a whip or even beat them to death for not taking off their hat or making a weak bow.... in addition to working for the lord, the peasant also worked on the parson's (church's) land, women were often given linen to carry and comb etc., a family of peasants had to give back a certain amount of ready-made material from this flax, if the quality was poor and there were a lot of losses, the peasants had to use their own resources to pay for the material, there was also a tax on owning various things, such as a chimney in a cottage, this tax was so high that people lived very primitively and instead of normal stoves they had fireplaces because they could not afford a regular chimney
@@Alainmontpellier1000 Bobrzyński M., Karta z dziejów ludu wiejskiego w Polsce, Akademia Umiejętności 1892. Konarski M., Legal issues related to the flight of peasants in old Poland (14-th-19th century), „Review of European and Comparative Law”, t. 38 (2019). Leszczyński A., Ludowa historia Polski, W.A.B. 2020. Obrońcy chłopów w literaturze polskiej, cz. 2, oprac. M. Piszczkowski, Wydawnictwo M.Kot 1948. Śreniowski S., Zbiegostwo chłopów w dawnej Polsce jako zagadnienie ustroju społecznego, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego 1997. Świętochowski A., Historia chłopów polskich, Wydawnictwo Polskie R. Wegnera 1928. Trzyna E., Wtórne poddaństwo [w:] Historia chłopów polskich, t. I: Do upadku Rzeczypospolitej szlacheckiej, red. S. Inglot, Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza 1970
@@Rauser142 Maybe in your country. Polish peasants were also the subject of trade. Their sale was carried out by means of donation (donation manualis) - such an act was drawn up between the parties and reported to the appropriate municipal office. Peasants were sold in various numbers, for example, the Smolensk voivode Piotr Sapieha gave Barbara Kwilecka 37 families, and as a result of an agreement concluded between Marianna Radońska and Jan Przebendowski, the latter obtained 68 people for the amount of 4,000 zlotys. From 1496 only one peasant family per year could leave the lord's village, but on condition of settling accounts with its owner. And escapes were punished. The punishment for escape was a brand on the forehead, tendons were cut, and collective responsibility was applied. Piotr Skarga even mentions the punishment of peasants by death by hanging.
I really enjoy your channel. I am an American and amateur medieval historian. Your channel is so very informative and I savour every episode. My family came from South Oxfordshire. All that to say thank you.
@@0Boogiee0 there’s no place in this world I would rather visit than England. 🏴 I want to see Stonehenge, the Tower, Hastings, the land of Edward I and III, Henry the Vth, and I could go on and on. That isle set in the sea, this land this realm this England. Thank you, I pray that I might visit soon. 🙏🏻🏴🇬🇧
l'm sorry l don't understand - when you say your family came from South Oxfordshire do you mean just one generation ago or was it further back than then? lf the latter then how much research did you make to establish that all your family came from that one location. l've done some checking on my family history and, in my family's case, came across far more diversity in the origins of them.
@@billythedog-309 hi, I understand. It was on my mother’s side of the family that came from England. My great grandparents came over in the 1880’s into Canada. My mother was the first American born child in Michigan. Her father was British in citizenship back then Canada was part of Britain still. I am adopted so I did a DNA search and found what areas we originally came from as well as getting in touch with my biological mother. It’s been a long haul. My great grandparents left the south of England and moved to the Isle of Man. From there immigrated to Canada. My father’s side is Native American. I hope I haven’t confused you.
In terms of the military service one, I believe the Roman Empire did something of the sort. It was some 20 years of service in a legion, and then you’d be granted ownership of land somewhere, and maybe a pension? Of course, there weren’t so many standing armies in the medieval period, so it couldn’t really be done in years of service, but it might’ve been a similar sort of idea.
Yeah I do as well recall something about that, a legionary would be granted a bit of land to live on, unless he wished to continue in service or was recalled post-service as evocati.
Yup, that particular topic of rewarding Veteran soldiers is pretty much what caused the Roman Civil war, Caesar had an obscene amount of soldiers he needed to pay after his Gallic campaigns (with Land or coin of equal value) and my history is a little fuzzy but as i remember. the Senate did not think to pay them as well as they; the veterans. thought they deserved, and also it was 'expected' that Generals had to pay their own men... (See Crassus's folly) and Caesar was not nearly rich enough, So Caesar argued that the Senate should pay them in a complicate legal contract. Of course whether you think Julius used this as a plight and excuse to stage a civil war. or if he just genuinely wanted to provide for his veterans is up for the poets. point of the story being that Caesars veterans didn't just cross the Rubicon because they just "loved Caesar sooooooo much" no they did it because they wanted money & land and felt cheated.
@@marth8000 right. After 20 years of service, where is your land and where is your wife ? The land is probably not kept and the wife is probably remarried. Those issues did not begin with Julius Caesar to be sure.
Terrific video! Always enjoy learning new goodies. After the medieval period early Englishmen & women who came to British America often signed contracts of indenture with land owners who paid their passage for a predetermined period of time. Temporary serfdom.
That continued up to the early 20th century for Irish migrants. Seven years for bed, board, work clothes and a little pocket money on top of the passage costs was standard. Many endured gross exploitation even by old standards. Once time had been served they were free to go.
@@michellebyrom6551 That's true. In the Atlantic coastal British colonies they also had headrights. Land was given to land owners for importing indentured workers. Guess who didn't get the land.
I was 'Indentured' as an Apprentice in the 1970's. My Father and the Company had to both sign the contract. There were rules. I had to get my manager's permission to either get married or get a personal loan. Funny how old school these things were even in a free country like Australia in the 70's.
There's still plenty of outright slavery too, sweatshops all over the place where the owners have to put up nets outside the buildings to prevent the slaves throwing themselves off the roof
This is my first MH video. I loved the personal nature of it; I felt like he was talking to me directly and certainly not giving me a boring lecture. Learned quite a lot they missed way back in grade school! It was also interesting to learn that you may have had a better situation if you were a serf rather than free. Which of course triggers a very complex and interesting philosophical question. Anyway, looking forward to lots more of these - going to queue them up!
Fascinating video delivered with great passion! The first scenes of you in the woods in medieval garb would look so different if you were in modern dress. Our eyes pick up on the cues of the clothes from those remote times and the woods behind you somehow suddenly feel like a place of mystery and adventure. That's the way I see it anyway. Probably played too much D&D as a kid and watched too many 80s fantasy movies :)
Such perfect presentation - it is so easy for videos on history to feel dumbed down & patronising. Thank you for your gentle, intelligent and inspiring videos. They are a window into the past.
The term slave is a broad term that is dependant on the historical frame, location and government. Sometimes slavery ended if you payed off debts, sometimes slaves had rights, and sometimes there were no rules allowed at all. Serfs had no freedom of movement, had to work for a lord without pay at least part of their week, and could be bought with the land. This falls into parameters of slavery that were already established in the ages before serfdom. Add to that that the amount of serfs able to write down what their lords did to them is minimal at best, plus the fact that their lord was usually an absolutist leader over it's land (controlling law, executive actions and their word counted as more legitimate in national courts) makes the idea that serfdom isn't slavery pretty strange to me.
@@AdamJorgensen He's one of the CEOs or one of the founder members, I don't remember the details, of the game Dev of the Sniper game franchise. People talk about it sometimes here in the comments.
@@AdamJorgensen Jason is the CEO of Rebellion Developments Limited, famed for Sniper Elite, he is also CEO of Rebellion Developments the publisher of 2000AD, (Judge Dreed etc.).
Steam had the full Rebellion catalogue on sale recently and a bought it mainly out of support for Jason who seems like a great guy. Also especially with how the game and movie industry is so heavily infected with wokeness and run by absolute scum I feel it's important to back those who aren't like that.
10 types of comments that absolutely must appear under every video: 1. Compliments. They are always well deserved, so I mention them only for an equal account :) 2. Discovery. “Wow, so this is THIS Jason Kingsley? (here appears a list of Rebellion's flagship) Really? I had no idea!” 3. Curiosity. “What does OBE mean?” 4. Good advice. 172 suggestions on how to name a Mule With No Name. 5. Comparison. “This is better than Default History Channel!”. 6. Cogitation. “Why is it not on TV?” 7. Fiscal control. “I'm curious where he gets the money for it all” (the answers lead inevitably to point 2). 8. Manifesto.“Knights were robbers, rapists, fascists, sexists, carnivores, Christians, fetishists, philatelists, oppressed their subjects and enforced ius primae noctis!” 9. Ignorance. “How many is an inch, a yard, a hand, a mile, a stone etc.” Google bites! 10. Dunning Kruger Effect. “I saw once the horse/sword/bow/lance in the picture, so I know better.” And as a bonus - "wow, he looks like Denethor" :)
Fabulous content! From the composition, to the videography, to editing the final package, this is 18 minutes of condensed history for the history buff. Sir Jason, your voice is nectar and honey! More, please. 👏 👏
As I read it, the key difference between serfdom and chattel slavery is that a serf was at or near the bottom rung of society, but had some rights and autonomy. In contrast, a slave was not recognized as part of society; they were merely a commodity.
17:20 in medieval Romania, especially in the principalities of Muntenia and Moldova, peasants were awarded with land for their military service. Historical records show us that the vast majority of peasants were free, mostly thanks to this system, by the times of Vlad the Impaler and Stephen the Great, and that the backbone of the army were free peasants (called răzeși/părtași in Moldova, moșneni in Muntenia and Oltenia). The situation in Transylvania was similar up until 1438, when Ius Valachicum and Universitas Valachorum were removed and the romanian peasants became permanent serfs/slaves to the hungarians and later to the austrians.
@@cv4809 William the conqueror wiped out those who would not submit to him after the battle of Hasting due to massive popular revolts to drive the norman invaders away, extremely extremely common thing, people never did bow to foreigners easily, nationalism unlike many disingenous people and outright liars claim has always existed, and so you, if you were a foreign invader cannot take land without signficantly taking a toll on the population which will take arms against you. Machieavelli speaks of this aswell. The commenter is mentioning specifically the "Harrying of the North"
@@cv4809 To Harry of Harrying, to carry out repeated and persistant attacks to wear somebody down. Which leads to a stupidly maccho nickname which then becomes just a normal name.
@@alexmag342 I don't think Nationalism was a thing yet or at least not yet a popular belief, people were more concerned with local issues as the issue with William was less because he was Norman but because he was a conqueror and most of the Lords are Saxon. (thus endangering the Saxon nobility and because Will is also a Bastard.) While people have an attachment to their people it was less because they believe in a rule of the people and thus the Nation but more who the next King would be (Monarchy is built on the Mandate of God while Nations are buit in the mandate of the people which wasn't really common back then.) P. S people back then while yes have a love for their people that doesn't mean they believe in building a Nation with that people like how we see it.
Genoside is really not that uncommon back then especially when it comes to wars between people of different faiths and ethnicities, but its also rare as wars are usually on the small scale.
They were 'bound to the land', so legally I think they were regarded more as fixtures than chattel. They could garden for themselves, cut wood for fuel, draw water from streams and wells and raise certain livestock like chickens and pigs.
The divide between the Danelaw and southern England is interesting to me as an American. There's a work on the ethnographic origins and the folkways of settlers in the 13 colonies called Albion's Seed, and it traced the ancestry of the southern US States like Virginia to Cavaliers from Southern England. The work shows that the indentured servitude traditions of these colonists lead to the development of plantation culture in the south, and a heavier class stratification that eventually reified into chattel slavery. It's so interesting to see the sharp north-south cultural divide that served as one of the main fracture points of our own civil war reflected so clearly in much deeper English history.
Another major divide was in how different cultural groups decided the concept of "freedom". Basically each American cultural class had a different concept of what "liberty" meant, and as such this lead to fractions in the young nation and eventually war. The Coastal northerner's conceptions of "liberty" were based on the religious ideas of the Puritan, Quaker, and religious refugee stock who conceptualized their liberty as a means of practicing faith and self organization distinct from a hereditary monarch. In the South - which had become dominated by a landed aristocracy - the conceptualization of "liberty" was based on their rights as private owners of land, having a far more classicist view of freedom as their right to pursue their happiness and interest in the accordance with their station.
Eh that's not entirely correct. while the upper class of South was dominated by aristocratics from England majority of the colonists were from lower classes from the border regions of England and the Scots and Irish who were the indentured servants.
I've always heard the opposite. People from the north of England settled the American South and the Northern U.S. was settled by people from the South of England. This distribution is said to be reflected in speech patterns, however I am southern born and bred, but I find it easier to understand the English accents from the southern end of England. Northern English accents grate on my ears like people from New York, New Jersey and New England do.
@@purrdiggle1470 the north of England is the border region between England and Scotland. Speech patterns in both US and England have changed a lot since then.
@@purrdiggle1470 There is another ethnic group in the inland south - the Appalachians - these people originated in the far north of Britain, so that may be where the confusion comes from. New Englanders comes from East Anglia, and the 'Rust Belt' has its roots in the North Midlands.
Teachers/professors take notes; this is how you teach a subject. Love these videos! Entertaining and educational. Bravo, Jason. And... 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 A standing ovation for Kasumi's mad editing skills! Superb, seamless transitions. 👏👏👏 Thank you both for this great video and great content. Hope you're all keeping well.
@@Chuubii I'm very much aware of what Jason does for a living. My point is that he makes history interesting where as there are professors who will put you to sleep!
in central europe (holy roman empire) only freeman were mandatory to military service, with their own equipment, while Serfs were not part of a muster. the equipment requiremnents dependet upon the wealth of each man. Many of the poorer free man transcended into serfdom because military service was to expensive to maintain. from many (late) mediveal german towns are records avaible what equipment was required to maintain as part of your citizenship, depending on the individuel wealth. Most citys required an average craftsman to maintain a crossbow, a sidearm and some basic body armor, while master of a craft on average was required basic plate armor, a crossbow, a sidearm and sometimes a polearm. citizens with less income than a craftsman to maintain at least a spear. these average requirements varied over time and places. For rural communities are less records avaible. These armament requirments and military service were additional to taxes, to be free was an expensive endeavour.
I was looking for the difference between the rights and duties of freemen and serfs. Possibly same thing in england. I am also reminded of the polish system, where freemen were exempt from taxation but were required to provide military service (schlahtia i think its spelt) But i forget what the word for the taxed peasant is
@@dango470 yeah, the Polish nobility was a very large and very diverse part of the population compared to other countries. This is quite unique, the only similar situation I know was in feudal Japan.
@@GilmerJohnYeah, that was my understanding. They had a full time job subsistence farming and doing everyday chores, AND you needed to work for your “Lord” 2-3 days a week.
So between 30 & 40% of your working time and produce was given to the load. That still equates to the 30-40% of the money we earn is given to the govt in tax. Nothing's really changed.
It seems that in feudal kingdoms, the most important right was the right to use land which came with the duty to either pay rent to the landlord or become a servant for the landlord
Me, too! I love watching and learning -- and thinking about how my great-grandparents lived and worked like medieval peasants. My grandparents started their lives like that, but eventually got electricity, indoor plumbing and tractors.
11:30-40 "As you can imagine with human beings, the situation is quite complicated. Just like today status mattered to some people, but not everybody" That is pretty insightful, this channel is legitimate history explanations.
You, Sir, are doing a great job at explaining this kind of stuff! I'm very passionate about history and always following your videos with excitement! Thanks!
Very true with the king making you a freeman from helping him in battle. I myself am a freeman of Malmesbury. My ancestor had helped king Athelstan in the battle against the Danes and therefore was made a freeman and also given land.
I for one am related to the great flighing cockman. My family is deeply proud of our ancestor for setting our line free, bringing great wealth and honor to our name, and slaying hot wet box where he found it.
Interesting side fact (at least for the HRE): The transition from work to money was one part of the downfall of the nobility in the later medieval ages and Renaissance. Because they exchanged the work for a set amount of money, that was never to be changed again. And they did have inflation like today. So while someone working for 2 days a week was basically as useful in the 9th century as it was in the 17th century, the same want true for the buying power of whatever sum they were paying. Great idea in the short run, very bad in the long run
@@ThePlayerOfGames The transition of work to money improved the lives of everyone.. besides the nobility. Wages are supposed to change based on the value of the work. If you raise them you're causing inflation because the buying power is not effected. I have a feeling you might not understand economics. Are you a low skilled minimum wage worker or something?
@@JustinL614 I have a feeling that ExDee understands economics better than you do. Wages have not kept up with inflation for the middle and lower classes for the past few decades. Inflation happens whether wages go up or not.
It was financing the 100 Years War that drove the transition to cash in France and Britain. Some people might not agree with me that the outbreak of widespread plague at the time was the result of inflation in the price of food, as it was being reserved for soldiers, but then a lot of people aren't smart.
@@rottenmeat5934 I would have thought financing the Crusades played a part in the transition to money. Mediterranean ship owners would want to be paid in something easily convertible and that would be coin.
I wish my landlord would allow us townhouse tenants to grow small gardens outside our doors! The lease that I signed says gardens are forbidden "for your safety" 🤔
Likely the safety reason is BS. The only danger I can imagine is neighbour pets poo or pee on your plants or someone dumps rat poison on the plants oblivious to the fact that you plan on eating parts of the plants. There have been cases where people have died or nearly died eating grass they harvested in their own back yards because some neighbour put pesticides on it.
I always loved the medieval "and a day" measurement. I'm sure practically it was the baker's dozen of minimum time, one extra day to guarantee one year paid in full. But as an American, it has a fey magical quality.
The power that landlords had over serfs varied across Europe, the idea of "rights" was strong in Britain, in theory if not in practice. I like the fact that you address some of the complexities, in the time you have quite a few.
That's an issue with the notion of "medieval Europe". And while a lot of people warn against the fact that it was a pretty long period of time with gigantic changes, people tend to forget that it's also a pretty big area with a BIG amount of cultural differences among dozens or even hundreds of cultural groups as well. A spanish peasant had almost nothing in common with a british or polish one. We know from chroniclers of the time that even nobles weirded each other out, and they married each other across borders. Try making any sense of the peasants who considered people from 5 villages over as foreigners in any united kind of way for the entire continent.
@@k.v.7681 it can be difficult in an age of constant communication and easy travel to remember that 2 villages 20 miles apart might have no direct contact among the peasants who were unlikely to have the inclination to walk 40 miles to say hi, and who couldn't spare a full day day to walk there and back even if they had the inclination.
@@Jayremy89 rights were a thing but a very different thing. For example feudal lords were very big on their rights, as were kings. The idea of rights for an individual rather than rights as a consequence of rank were very much a later development. Magna Carta though very 0ver praised in its actual importance did include some idea of a right to justice (Though the main motive behind it was more about protecting privileges than rights.
17:32 what Shakespeare referred to seem to hold water since there were cases of men who served under him during that war who were caught by authorities breaking the law however were declared exempt from legal punishment because the King promised that they were free from punishment (because of that campaign), so it was common knowledge then that these men became not just free, but "equals with the King" (maybe in rights, as for instance legal punishment) at least while they were alive. In one case of a trouble maker it seems that the King himself personally intervened on his favour during his trial. There was a documentary about that campaign where historians explained their bestowed perk into detail, really interesting stuff. Current politicians would just make promises and throw everyone under the bus.
17:40 "If you gave good military service, why wouldn't your lords and masters make you free?" Because it would cost them money to replace you, same reason military veterans have always been mistreated: treating them well is expensive. You're probably right that the king made the promise, but highly unlikely that he made good on it; that would be politically inexpedient
As a lover of England / medieval times I consider your channel the best. Every time I am going to watch your videos I sit down, take a plate of food and relax. Much love and strong health from the Czech republic! You should visit Czech republic sometime! Take care, mr. Jason! Sincerely, John
Hi Jason, I recently discovered your channel and just want to let you know that it is incredible. Thank you for sharing your extensive knowledge in an interesting and digestible format! This episode on peasants and serfs is very well done. I would be very much interested in seeing future content that continues to expand upon your Medieval People and Society episodes, such as more on specific roles in medieval courts other than knights (e.g., kings & queens, household & servants, royal guard, other nobility & court appointments, musicians & entertainers, etc.) And on that note, perhaps the topic of medieval instruments and music as well. I love the episodes where you interview other people in their area of expertise and relate the discussion to medieval society. Keep up the great work!
Very educational. Puts in perspective different definitions of "slavery". Much different than what Americans think of slavery. Maybe the Egyptians had a similar sort of system?
I don't know about Egypt specifically but it seems it was somewhat similar in ancient Roman and Greek societies, many layers of social classes with more freedom and rights higher you went, and slaves simply being at the bottom of the ladder with neither freedom or rights.
According to Genesis, "slavery" in Egypt originated as Pharaoh taking 10% of his subjects' future produce in exchange for access to his stored food during the 7 year famine. So by that standard we are all slaves for paying taxes. Of course, the slavery that later befell the Hebrews was of a much harsher nature.
The modern conception of slavery is that of the Ottoman empire which started the Iberian slave trade and later the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Other forms of indentured service had different amounts of rights and benefits, and were almost all notoriously more benign.
@@SepticFuddy I watched some history shows about Egyptian archaeology and paleontology where the Egyptian (and other nearby countries') accounts of the "slavery of the Hebrews" was a whole lot closer to indentured servitude or an exploitative communal work contract than 'whips and chains' slavery. But that Charlton Heston movie pretty much jelled the Biblical version of "truth" in a the minds of a couple of generations.
'Freedom' in a medieval sense was a VERY dangerous thing. For most it meant 'freedom to starve'. The absolute lowest class in the medieval world was the urban day laborer. They were the first to starve in a famine and never earned enough wages to actually prosper. There was **security** in being a serf /peasant. You traded your farming skills and labor for a fair share of the village crop and what you could grow in your own garden, and protection from beasts and bandits from the village lord. A free unguilded day laborer in a city only lived on what few coins he would make that day or week.
Oh god, how austalopitecs, later on humans lived and thrived without being chained to a land by a guy who was born from a vagina chosen by some guy called himself "cool lord". No idea how humanity thrived without this system, probably leftie propaganda, in fact God created Lords and Slaves and we always lived like this hail God!
@@nerodominus7582 I'm not justifying slavery, ND. There is a a wide legal difference between feudalism and chattel slavery, though most modern interpreters have a hard time distinguishing between the two. For one thing, 'Slavery' in a US and UK sense implies an element of racism that isn't present in feudalism. Yes, there was cultural bigotry [say, between the conquering Normans and the native Anglo-Saxons of Domesday-era England] but mostly it is a matter of social class distinctions. And class distinctions are not 'Slavery', either. I'm certainly not arguing that net effect of feudalism wasn't very near chattel slavery, especially when the lords and church were squeezing their serfs for as much as they could get. But there are important legal and social distinctions between the two. And it isn't as if you could form a democracy in Europe before the Protestant Reformation anyway.
@@carlhicksjr8401 Nah, it is just people applying connotations to words without caring about the underlying reality. The reason people historically didn't like to be slaves is because slaves 'died out'; that is they didn't have children or were worked to death so needed to constantly be replaced. Unfree labor that doesn't have that downside isn't as unpopular, because you can have it work for generations so people get used and it becomes the normal state of affairs. There isn't a massive difference for most people between 'work or starve' and 'work or be beaten'. However since the connotations of the word are bad, people don't like having it applied to things they might experience. It is why people get upset when you call conscription slavery even though conscription is often worse. "And it isn't as if you could form a democracy in Europe before the Protestant Reformation anyway." The Ciompi Revolt (Florence) was in 1378 and temporary established what amounted to universal male suffrage.
@@samuelskinner7704 'Sufferage' meaning 'every male had a voice in leading the city' or 'sufferage' as in 'every male was no longer bound to a master'? That's an important distinction. In addition, you have the Catholic Church saying that everyone was born to their station as decreed by God, and one should not seek to improve upon it. Lastly, I don't want to make feudalism sound like it was hippie cooperative. So long as the taxes were paid on time, a liege lord didn't give a damn what happened on a fief... including beatings! Oh, there's be low court, if the fief-holder was feeling formal about it, but literally the only punishment he couldn't put on an unlucky and ill-favored serf was death itself. The lord could do what he wished otherwise. BUT a medieval serf DID have rights that an urban unskilled laborer did not have... including a right to his fair share of the harvest.
The 10c Bodmin Manumissions well predate the Norman conquest and actually occur at the end of fashion for Anglosaxon manumission of slaves in England and then Cornwall. So the process had already been ongoing for up to 200years before the Norman - Bretons turned up. It was infact the pagan Vikings in Ireland who maintained the slave trade.
4:34 Given how arbitrary Norman overlords could be, as compared to the Saxons, it's quite remarkable that they transformed slaves into serfs with rights.
In German we say "Stadtluft mach frei!", which literally translates to "city air sets you free!". Quite interesting that the same seemed to hold in different countries.
@F.W. You only worked in an city if you were part of an medieval corporation. They had several benefits and coupled with the christian ethos that permeated society they weren't inclined to create sub-par products to sell for overpriced prices, profit margins were small due to moral qualms about how much profit is just.
King William ended open slavery in 1066 but it was replaced by serfdom where instead of owning the person the land that person relied on to survive was owned thus effectively enslaving the serf. People were tied to the land and unable to travel which is why there was free masons, they were allowed to travel and ply their trade.
Great content. It’s far more interesting to learn about how real people lived than being able to recite a list of dates of the " important " stuff. Could you address how the numerous religious holidays played into this system? I’m glad you mentioned that it was difficult to just pull up stakes and move. We are accustomed to the free right of travel. Besides banditry there were inherent dangers in travel to places where you were not known.
The cramming of "important history stuff" literally is the reason I couldnt give a shit in school. Ever since discovering these channels that go into the daily lives of people surrounding these events is so much more interesting
It is fascinating how things can be called the same, but function completely differently depending on the country. In Russian Empire serfdom was adopted right after the ban on slavery, all slaves automatically got renamed to serfs - but in practice the naming and some language around it was pretty much an extent of it. There were some fancy laws designed to make it look like it's not slavery, but most of them didn't make any difference, or weren't followed by serf owners (like Tolstoy once said, and i'm roughly translating, "the severity of Russian laws is compensated by them being optional to follow") So, for instance, one could not sell serfs, but could sell a right for their labor - all the details of the sale made it esentially the same as selling a slave, just with a different language on the paper. There were different casts of serfs, "labor" of some could be sold with the land, "labor" of others could be sold on their own. There were laws that restricted the ways serfs could be punished, but those were largely ignored. In practice, the only way a nobleman could get in trouble for beating or killing a serf was if said serf was not theirs and instead was owned by someone else - and in those cases it was treated in court just like any property dispute would, just like if said nobleman killed a cow or damaged some cropsbelonging to other nobleman. Now here's where the real "fun" starts: the serfdom in Russian Empire was abolished four years before the US abolished slavery, but in order to keep the nobility happy about it the serfs had to buy out the land, the house and all of their property back from the nobility that owned them, with the price in most cases being assigned by the nobility themselves. What it meant was that while on paper Russian Empire got rid of what effectively was slavery four years befor the US did, in reality the now "free" serfs found themselves paying off huge debts that came out of nowhere - with records showing that some people were still paying those off as late as early 1900s-1910s. It was either that, or going straight to the curb with all of your family, with no money and no means to sustain yourself: if you didn't pay up, you can't stay in your house or use your tools, cause those were still nobleman's property, and you can't just go to the woods and build a hut there cause the woods were a part of the nobleman's land, just like the land where your house is.
@@TheBelrick Uh. No, they're not. Ask anyone what'd they choose: be a literal slave back in the day in their corresponding country, with everything that comes with it; or a low wage job employee in 2021. I can bet everyone in their right mind would choose the latter. Because in modern day even with worst of the jobs available you still have a choice to quit, actual human rights, and all kinds of benefits, like scheduled work hours, sick days and overtime pay - you know, things that a slave back in the day simply wouldn't have. Even companies that have pretty bad working conditions by modern standarts would do really well when compared to literal slavery - as much as you want to preach how it's worse these days, you won't see people being sold off as property, beaten to death by their boss cause they "underperformed" in their job, nor would you see any boss having a say on whether their employee gets to marry or not.
@@iamsatanjr Son, comparing apples, oranges and creating a strawman The difference that you based your argument on is called technology So lets compare without that factor Then, keep all you earnt. Could build stuff without permission, could even collect rainwater vs. now Half of what you earn is taken, cannot build without pleading unelected bureaucrats for permission. thugs of supremacists running around with the laws consent pillaging and looting. Cannot advance in many careers because born the wrong skin colour. Cannot collect rainwater. Must be on a big pharma drug regime or else lose even more liberty
"I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective."
"You're fooling yourself. We live under an autocracy where we are exploited"
"Dennis! There's some lovely filth down 'ere."
How d'ye know he's a king?
Easy. He's the only one not covered in sh*t.
And then you learn about wattle and daub.
@@joeturner8184 Must collect me berries, get back to me cave, and chastise meself ...
yep that's a reference to a movie
"You either die a villein, or live long enough in the town to be declared a free man."
Maybe villein not villain. Two separate things. Bloody English language!
@@fedupwelsh7211 Thank you for the correction.
Villein is basically farmer
If you were a villein and ran away, if your lord didn't catch you within 4 days the lord would have to go to court to get you back.
@@fedupwelsh7211 same root.
Genuinely one of the best history channels on YT. Thank you for doing all this great work.
Hey I know you
Weird seeing you here. How's the cat?
Agreed
Wow, crossover time I guess (also I agree)
Oh shit off ponse
My granmother who was born in 1899, but whos own grandmother came on a sailing ship told the story that the ship was becalmed at sea for more than a month, everyone was out of food and water and thought they would die untill a storm came up and everyone rushed out on deck holding up whatever containers they had to catch the rain to drink, the wind came up and blew them into port where the ship was "condemed at port" due to its condition after being becalmed for so long"(more than a month)" . "she tod the story We came from the very northern part of Germany (the village of Prestin) on a sailing ship (mid 1800's.) For hundreds of years we worked in the fields like slaves 6 days a week, all the adult men and the woman from sun up to sun down, we were "watched"(emphasis and resentment attached)and not allowed to leave all day, and on the seventh day we had to attend the "Lords hall(the chapel Prestin), all day, so that we were "watched"(emphasis and resentment attached)" all day seven days a week". The children would try to catch fish under the bridges to bring home hidden in their aprons so that we might have meat in our diet. or sons were drafted into wars and killed and never came home generation after generation, Grandmother said that eventually the family managed to buy a small piece of land "so not all our sons would not all have to go to war to be killed"
My name is Prestin, when we did tom geneology we found the ship my great great grondmother imigrated on was "condemened at port" only my family knows why...
For context: The Prestin church was built in 1100' of wood and rebuilt of stone in the 1300's the steeple blew off in the "great wind"(a huge monumental storm) in the middle ages, but the stone church still stands.
@@tractor1358 Wow! Thank you for sharing that!
@@tractor1358 what a fascinating story!! Did they arrive on British land then? Or another part of Germany? Thank you for sharing 🙏
@@tractor1358 where did she land?
It’s a bot
"As you can imagine, with human beings, the situation is quite complicated." A phrase for the ages.
Lol when I scrolled down to see comments I read yours just as he spoke those words. So true though
How every historical argument starts, really.
We often make simple things complicated when we wish to obscure our evil selfish actions.
@@1112viggo no we dont
@@MarkelMathurin Denial is of course the more popular option...
A medieval saying was "the miller's collar is the bravest man in the village as he has caught a thief by his neck".
Miller's had the right of "quernage", this means he could seize and destroy querns, or hand grain mills, and destroy them. If the miller presented the remains of the quern to the lord he received a bounty. Millers were infamous for stealing some of the grain given to them to mill, true or not, and then reselling it and this illegitimate tax was resented far more then the dues paid to the lords. In times of strife the miller was probably the first to flee the area until order was restored for obvious reasons.
I mean, people tend to displace anger, rightly or not, on people close at hand. When famine hit Paris during the revolution, citizens were lynching bakers in the streets convinced they were hiding bread.
@@k.v.7681 in psychology terms, this is the difference between anger and rage. Rage is wild, uncontrolled and typically taken out on whatever is within reach.
Interesting. In the game Kingdom Come Deliverance, the millers are treated like a sort of mafia, so maybe that has a basis in reality then.
@@gunnar6674 if you read the codex in KCD, they explain how millers were the victims of unsubstantiated rumors.
@@gwkiv1458 Ah, just like certain Sicilian businessmen.
Despite him trying to demonstrate how complicated it was, he's actually simplifying things, because if you read the Doomsday book in the original Latin, or at the least in a translation that preserves the Latin when there is no direct translation, you find that there were two different ranks of servile, each apparently with their own set of rights based on the type of serf that they were.
One of the most important reasons for proving you are Free, is if your are Free, then your children don't need anyone's permission to move away and start their own life. They can head off to London and seek their fortune, or take a longbow and serve as mercenaries in Europe for good wages (if they aren't cheated of their pay), or board a ship and go to the Holy Land, or take your tools and contract to work on the great Cathedrals, or whatever. Which again, shows that while 90% of the population probably never went more than 20 miles from their birthplace, there was a class of people even in the Middle Ages who were quite cosmopolitan.
And another level of complexity to this is that economic status and social status were not so well tied as you might think. There are example in the Doomsday book of quite poor Lords and quite wealthy Serf families that own a lot of land and paid comparatively low taxes. At it's heart, Feudalism was government by private contract, and this extended all the way down to serfdom. All that court going was often to renegotiate the terms of your legal contract, and it would work both ways. A poor Lord that didn't manage his affairs well, could effectively be taking out loans from his serfs in return for improved social status, legal status, or better long term contracts. While there were broad customs and standards, every relationship was basically privately encoded and therefore legally unique.
Thanks for the insightful comment :) I am wondering, why is it called Doomsday book do you know? That sounds like something bad, like it's about the apocalypse or something! But it sounds more like a record of the land and the people who dwell there (I had never heard of it until I watched this video) :)
@@Vexarax I am fairly sure that the word "doom" in Old English originally meant something like "fate" or "destiny." So the "Doomsday book" could better be translated "Book of Destinies," which could be a fitting title for a book about people's statuses.
Do you know where i can read the book ? I would be thankful
@@Comradez thanks for the reply, I only just saw it as I was notified of the new comment here!
@@AmirAli-of6zf - I am on my phone so can't check Google for it right now, but have you tried typing "Doomsday book in modern English full text online free" - it might be archived somewhere!! I've found extremely rare very old books that way :D
Very late comment, thank you for the quality content you make. An anecdote from Austria. The most despised fraction of a rural community here were farmers up to about 1960. My grandmother was born 1928, as a reference, and is from a very poor family of laborers. She was quite intelligent but was denied a higher education (despite it being technically free) or even good marks in school despite flawless work. The reason, openly stated was: a Lindmayr is not allowed to do better; But that's just the universal rule of poor people being shat on because nobody cares. She was what was called an Armenschülerin; her mom and most of the part of the town (think: slum: little heating, damp room shared with another family, no indoor plumbing, no well; water had to be fetched from the river) she lived in worked as needed for the farmers in the fields. If you wanted to eat (or sometimes be paid at all) you had to follow the traditional rules of the farmers and those rules were pretty uniform for all farmers and typical for temporary workers and the regular Knechte (Farmhands) and Mägde (female workers, maid is not really fitting as a translation): you were not allowed to marry without the approval of your 'Herr', you would not be employed by other farmers without there was no enforceable set wage, rape and corporal punishment were quite common and counted as the farmer's rights by local law, for those who tried to trade with farmers for food, they generally got taken advantage off. Taking one of the Mägde as a wife happened - if the woman in question bore the farmer a son beforehand, girls did not count. Complaining about this treatment mostly led to the victim being shunned, including merchants refusing to trade with them, suicide rate among the populace was 30% upward between the wars.Those employer rights, were in action from 1690ies up to 1930ies and it only changed when factories were built nearby and workers did not depend on the 'goodwill' of those farmers anymore. Might makes right, that's how our world works and labels like slaves, indentured servants or workers are for the history books, not reality.
What a history lesson. Thank you.
@chemina8541 Interesting. Could you perhaps expound a little on the labels part at the end? To me labels like "indentured servants or workers" are accurate labels that portray the relationship between most people (labourers) and the capitalists.
Interesting. Could you a provide a source for your information, including the commonality of 'grapes' or farmers taking advantage off trading?
Regarding a serf becoming free because of military service, this reminds me of a similar thing in feudal Japan where a peasant could be elevated to the class of samurai. A supreme example of a spectacular rise in social ladder is a peasant, Hiyoshi-maru, who became an ashigaru (peasant foot soldier) for the Oda clan and was promoted to a samurai and eventually changed his name to Toyotomi Hideyoshi.. When he died, he held the title of Taiko instead of Shogun because he began his life as a peasant and therefore could not claim to be from a samurai lineage traceable to the ancient Minamoto clan which is a requirement to be a Shogun although he was in reality the true ruler of Japan and as powerful as any Shogun. The irony is that as Taiko, he locked down the class system so that no one born a peasant could be promoted to the rank of samurai.
Is not that strange, in both cases it was a time filled with violance, where one day you would be ok and the next your village could be burned down by invaders of another land. Everyone was in war with everyone. So anyone who could fight back and participates in the battlefield can get enough prestige and power to even change their status, but very few did really see that happend to them. People tend to forget that for any winner there where thousands of losers behind.
And reason why Hideyoshi Toyotomi make the class system so rigid so no lowborn could be promoted, along with removal of weaponry among the peasant class, it was for the sake to maintain peace, even at the cost of the rights of the citizens.
yeah,only his boss Oda Nobunaga were considered have an actually will to make some changes of feudal system of japan,and therefor he murdered by his own trusty vassel(un able to spell the name) which is a classic samurai having a decent lineage.So,I think Hideyoshi may have to make some compromise with his powerful samurai Daimyos.
Usually they don't come back, but the English did.
@@hilskalaludwig3561 your looking for akechi mitsuhide ?
@@hilskalaludwig3561 both Oda Nobunaga and Ieyasu Tokugawa were very fond to name foreigners as samurai
"how servile are you?" one of the standard questions in every job interview
My servility increases relative to monetary compensation... so very much so, but that's up to you.
Also in the preamble to any good marriage.
I have often thought that an IQ test is essentially a test of servility. Perform these abstract tasks just because we tell you to.
@@tamlandipper29 An IQ tests determines whether you were smart enough to practice doing IQ tests beforehand.
@@tamlandipper29 lmao that is just an insane comparison
Denmark also had geographic differences in the amount of freemen vs serfs (at least in the 19th century). The western, less fertile part of the country had more freemen, while the fertile east was more organised in large manors. The population density of the western part was lower, so people got used to being independent and taking care of their own affairs. The liberal movement in the 19th century also found more backing among the people in the western part of Denmark. The cultural distinction between the more independently minded westerners and the rest of the country still exists up to this day.
Funny thing is the difference in fertility was caused by the distribution of ice in the last ice age. The east got the clay from the glaciers, the west got sand from glacier streams. So you could say the political and cultural landscape of Denmark was caused by an ice age 12.000 years ago.
Wonderful bit of infomation, thanks.
So, people in Jutland are the Danish equivalent of cowboys :) ?
this is the cool thing about historical materialism - you can often trace the social structure of a society to the geography that they were born into.
Very interesting. Thanks for the info about Denmark
@@memyself4852 Only if you like simplistic reductionism.
I really love the topics you cover and the way you contextualize history. You have one of the very best channels on TH-cam!
Lord: "Rent!"
Serf: "YOU'LL GET YOUR RENT WHEN YOU FIX THE GODDAMN MOAT!!!"
Gold, if only lol!
Thank you. That will keep me chuckling for days
“Shall I flog him, Sir?”
“No… he is good boy.”
Why does the serf care about the moat anyway?
@@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana renters just need any reason to shout. Their lives are sad. They want to take it out on you
It is exactly the same phrase in Germany: "Stadtluft macht frei." - "Town air sets you free"
Just what I was going to remark! And the rule of a year and a day was the same, too.
Very interesting! German is a semi second language to me and I say semi because there's still a lot I don't know, especially little sayings and idioms like this. Did Germany have a hand fast ceremony as well? Hand fasting was akin to being married but without the church vows. It also lasted a year and a day. At then end of it, you either chose to marry in a proper church ceremony or go your separate ways. It gets me wondering if there were other year and a day arrangements.
Of course it's the same laws that applied to England and Germany, because neither of these nations existed during the Middle Ages. It was all formally the Western Roman Empire. William the Conqueror took as Duke of Normandy (dux = Roman title of a commander of several provinces, i.e. counties) orders from Pope Alexander II and the Roman Emperor Henry III. All of Western Europe was one complex hierarchical feudal empire. And the Church made sure that certain laws were universally followed.
@@magister.mortran That's interesting. I mean, I know about pretty much of Europe being united in the Holy Roman Empire, and I was aware that this rooted in the conquest of the Franconian Empire some centuries before. But I was never aware that England was so closely connected to continental reign and law. Obviously there was a lot of intermarrying between the leading houses over all of Christian Europe. But that doesn't automatically mean there are identical laws pushed by a central power. Does anyone know if there are surviving documents from the period, attesting to this law taking its origin with a pope or emperor of the time?
(edit: grammar)
@@magister.mortran Im sorry but the Crowns of England and France were not part of the Roman Empire at that point. The HRE was mainly the german lands, the low countries, bohemia and italy.
It's always easier to see how the serf system was viewed from above (because those people could write). It's much more interesting to dig into how the structure was viewed by the serfs themselves. From their perspective, they were the ones connected to specific plots of lands (as compared to being connected to a region like the lord). They often saw themselves as 'renting' the services of the lord for protection, settling disputes, etc. The land was then more 'theirs' then it was the lord's. This is why there were so many fights when lords tried to unilaterally raise taxes. The serfdom structure had many aspects of a bilateral arrangement. In a bilateral arrangement, one side cannot just say 'oh, I know we agrred you would pay me 10% or whatever, but I now have decided it is 15%'. The peasants saw themselves as having an important role and that the lords had to *convince* them that the expenditure (raising an army, funding a mill, etc) was necessary.
It was the Normans who brought the concept of noblesse oblige, the duty of nobility to treat the common people well. In the strict definition of a monarchy all lands and people ultimately belong to the Crown. Nobles don't actually own the land, they are given possession of the right to hold the land, in service to and at the pleasure of the Crown. Because the monarch is the nation and embodies the people, any insult to even the least of subjects is an insult to the Crown. Nobility was not immune to having their titles and lands repossessed by the Crown. All license is by order of the Crown, which is illustrated today by the fact Queen Elizabeth needs no driver's license: It is by her own permission she is allowed to drive.
Does she ever drive though? (Or did she when she was younger?)
@@bbgun061 She was in the British Military, as all Royals are obliged to be, and she served as an Army vehicle mechanic, so she presumably did drive those vehicles. And I believe I recall seeing a picture of her driving a Land Rover recently.
Not needing a driver's license may not seem like much of a perk, but it does symbolize the fact that, even in today's Constitutional Monarchy, the Queen actually possesses vast powers she never uses, in the interest of upholding the Constitution.
@@natfoote4967 I had no idea she was an army mechanic. I assumed once she became queen, she was chauffered everywhere.
Really convenient for the nobility, and even powerful people today, that the serfs couldn't write their side of the story. I'm sure they'd have a lot to say about how noblesse oblige worked in practice. Here in the US, there are plenty of southerners who want to talk about how slavery wasn't that bad because some slavers were nice.
@@jeffersonclippership2588 I don't think anyone is claiming it was a good system. But the Normans did improve the lot of the average serf in some ways. The Norman Conquest has a very negative reputation among the public, for many good reasons. But it is also worth pointing out where there were social advancements. As an Englishman, it took me a long time to acknowledge the benefits that the Normans brought with them. This has nothing to do with justifying their rule over serfs.
I saw a comment from Denmark. Swede here and for most of our history we have had a rather unique situation where not only were the vast majority freemen, but they paid taxes directly to the crown, not the local lord. Swedish nobles had few freemen and even fewer serfs. We also had elected kings all up to Gustav I in the mid 16th century.
This meant that unlike in a lot of Europe the farmers often voted with the king when there were tings or "Riksdags" and the king used the farmers as support to keep the noble families in check.
Even after Guatav I the farmers usually sided with the king.
But what about Nils Dacke and his men? If it was as you describe, then the actions of the Swedish king, imposing Lutheranism on his subjects, must have embittered the Swedish peasants.
The farmers usually sided with the king, because they demanded that the king would promise to continue to upheld the farmers rights and freedoms, or else.
That’s fascinating, thank you for shedding some light on this history in this part of the world!
@@cetus4449 actually the rise of Lutheranism was quite popular among the peasantry, the church tithes and political whims of members of the upper clergy were heavily disliked. the result was the removal of the higher cleargy with the imposition of Lutheranism was fairly popular.
Quite advanced and fair.
Splendid work. I love the level of information you present, the accuracy of your research and your presentation style, but I have to Say, GOSH that forest shot Is beautiful. Is that a grove near where you live?
It's on his estate. He's a british millionaire.
Thanks, oh elfin one. Yes, it's woodland on my farm. I am very lucky to live where I live.
You two could do worse than to collaborate on a video. Just saying..😉.
@@ModernKnight And I was thinking you had been demoted from a knight or earl to a peasant 😹
@@ModernKnight Now that he knows where it is, Metatron is going to rob your medieval stuff, pretty sure about it
This channel has always had a special place in my being. I love knowing more about the ancestors of our island. Our politics might be messed up right now but the sheer beauty of our country side and monuments means allot to me.
I can still get lost in the maze of imagination trying to imagine what it would have been like.
Lord: I expect 10 chickens by the end of the week.
Peasant: What?! I pay rent, I'm a freeman!
Lord: No you're not. You're my Serf. 10 Chickens.
Peasant: Nonsense! I'm taking you to court!
Lord: You don't have the shilings for the legal fees.
Peasant: We'll see about that!
Man... things haven't changed much, have they?
Ahh the beauty of language. You could be a freeman but are you a free man?
When you took your lord to court it was in the lord's manor court. Evidence as we know it was almost unknown and guilt or innocence were proven by ordeal. Transmutation of boon work into rent only happened owing to a shortage of labor resulting from one of the regular plagues, or when the king had conscripted a whole bunch of the lord's laborers for one of the regular wars, and the laborers found that they liked being soldiers more than they liked being serfs. Back at the ranch opportunities for rape, looting and pillage were limited.
@@shadeburst pretty sure tennäntsusually arent favouredin court? Also the money on court.
Also why do you guesssubscribe m8stly im theus army,poorpeople, 🤔 🤔tedthey tied alot bons to being in the army and pay for college, but still.
They did, for a little while, but we backslid into things we used to do. It's the story of humanity; We keep making the same mistakes and trying to trick ourselves and those around us that were doing something new by calling those same things by some other name. But it's still the same 💩
@@shadeburst You know, in the middle ages the peasants would not have made such silly claims and would have known that while court might be situated at the manor, for convenience, the lord would not preside the court for himself, but a judge. The peasants would have laughed at you for suggesting the lord could judge a case where he was the one being accused.
Did you know, btw, that medieval hoaxes that were easily disproven in the medieval times go around the internet because apparently, medieval peasant can outsmart a modern internet user. In short, dont believe everything you see in a Hollywood movie.
I find it really interesting how the class system really worked. It's nowhere near as plain as it was taught in school.
Is their anything in history. That is as simple as it was taught in school?
Start off with the basic assumption that everything teachers tell you in school is a lie, especially now.
@@EvidensInsania That's what happens when the government takes control of education. They're not going to tell you anything that goes against their version of history.
Aye, as much as we like things being black or white, it's often a tricky grey what serves as an explanation. One that comes to mind, is 'people in ancient times died at 30-40', well, there was a lot of miscarriages and kid mortality which brings the mean down, but for sure there were healthy men living more than 50 years old.
@@cabroncete William Marshall successfully led the charge against invading French forces despite being in his 70s. And this is after 70 years of brutal fighting in tourneys, wars and the crusades.
*video description:* "What's the difference between a Serf and a Slave?"
*video content at the beginning:* "Here are 15 ways in which you are basically still a serf today."
Worse, they can take your house if you go bankrupt and you have to work far more than a serf today
@@GALA89 we absolutely work far less than slaves and serfs had to.
@@Quincy_Morris wrong, he literally said it in the video, other than being a quick google search away. Serfs worked 160 days a year
@@Quincy_MorrisAnother lie you've been sold
@@GALA89 on one hand, yes, on the other hand, no, they worked longer hours as the work had to be done in a time frame which was short, but outside of that they had fewer tasks for their job, they just filled it with things others do for us now, preparing food, any projects that need to be done, etc
Pretty sure a lot of british medieval peasants had a much more friendly work/life balance than us
I have always loved cooking and I was living in a very rural area of Spain a few years ago. One day I started to think about how medieval peasants were capable of doing the work I used to do (but without modern equipment) eating only mud and squirrels. So I searched in TH-cam medieval peasant food and find your amazing videos with that lovely lady about medieval classes food. I subscribed immediately and this is still the best channel for me. What a treat
thanks for your kind words and support!
"A steady diet of mud and squirrels"
I thought they ate mud, squirrels and potage. Pretty good, varied diet I think 😊
Another great lesson from my favorite historian on the tube, I could listen all day
Glad you enjoy it!
He is quite wonderful to listen to.
I NEED more shots and videos like those clips of you in full laborer garb walking through the woods. I LOVE it. And the general videos of daily life and the small stuff like this? Perfect. You make learning fun, and you bring the lives of ages long past to life. And THAT is the work of a truly great scholar. Thank you.
If I could upvote your comment more than once to show how much I agree... I would!
I quite like it too, knights and soldiers are flashier (and heck, I still love them) but as I age I'm getting more into what the lay people lived like, is quite fun to learn about it and how they lived.
Oh.. u mean u need more of him in his everyday life... Lol.
That's maybe part of why he doesn't so much... Would youuuu.. want to Flaunt and show off your everyday life.. noo. You will just wanna do.. LIFE
Why is so much of history focused on warfare? Im more interested in what life was like than the battles fought.
Edit: I get it, that was rhetorical. Just thought I'd clarify since this is the internet.
@@weaksause6878I think it has to do with both simplicity and impact.
Simplicity because discrete dates and events are easier both to remember and to digest. Impact I think because of time frame. obviously all the small activities and nuances of daily life have tremendous influence on everyone, but that influence tends to operate over very long and consistent time periods, the arcs it traces may be tremendous, but they take a while to properly view. on the other hand, a war, or even a battle, can completely change the fortunes of a people or a kingdom overnight, and so for a moment to moment measurement their influence is far greater.
e.g. Twisting your ankle hurts and can ruin your day, so you will remember it, even if sleeping on a bad mattress for many years can disfigure your spine in a way that will change your entire life.
One of my history professors suggested that we think first about “coerced labor” instead of getting too beguiled by the differences between serfs, slaves, or peons.
We all do coerced labor. Unless you have people on hand to feed you, house you, and clothe you. Otherwise, even as a free person, you are coerced to work to pay for the necessities of life. Unless you are born to wealth, you are a wage slave.
Granted, wage slaves today have a lot of rights and privilege, but it's not complete freedom.
Nor should it be. I personally believe that you need to expend at least some effort to stay alive. You need to work to eat.
This man has taken the time to read the Manor rolls. They aren't hard to find, and really I wish, wish, wish that Fantasy authors would take the time to learn HOW the medieval period actually was. We have all these stupid misconceptions about the medieval world thanks to the lazy authors of the 80s.
They are fascinating (if a little boring!), same as the court records too.
While some of this is the writer's failure of education and failure of imagination, this often as not is actually a problem of the reader's failure of education and failure of imagination.
If you are writing your Fantasy novel or even your Historical novel, how much time do you really want to spend on technical exposition to explain a world that is so alien to the readers current norms? How much time do you really want to spend trying to get the reader to realize just how differently the characters see the world and think about the world, especially when in the end you just might end up making the reader relate less to your character?
When you start talking about modern Fantasy novels, quite often the writer's concepts were invented after exposure to modern Fantasy RPGs. But even in this situation, where you can really dig in and simulate an alien society, how much does it help the enjoyment of the game to dwell on the technical details of the game world. You run into problems if you make your game too realistically Medieval, that your players need a PhD in history in order to pretend successfully to be characters within that world. And if you add to that all the other things that make your game world unique, you find you are really demanding too much of the players and slowing the pacing of your rousing adventure story. So, even if you really know a lot about the real history, you usually accept anachronisms and simply things or push them aside to dole out in small amounts as color for the sake of the story.
Fantasy writers are often doing the same thing, even those in the 1980s.
@@celebrim1 you don't have to explain the intricacies to your reader, like everything else you show it to your reader. further, much like in your daily life you don't need someone to explain to you how the power grid, computers, or cars work, you just have know the rules, you pay your power bill, you need to know what a monitor keyboard and mouse is, but the rest is magic for most people, you buy gas maintenance and repairs for your car, but if i gave most people a screw driver and told them to work on it people who use these things every day would not know where to start.
the core problem is the authors don't know enough to make the worlds "real" or believable.
@@vidard9863 Imagine the situation reversed and you are trying to explain the life of a person in the modern world to a medieval person. You wouldn't necessarily need to explain how the power grid, computers, or cars work, but you would have to explain that those things exist, and then you'd have to explain that none of it was magic, that was is just a complicated application of natural philosophy no more mysterious than a grist mill - if you knew enough about the middle-ages to use terms like natural philosophy and grist mill.
So would you then choose as part of your story to explain what a mouse and keyboard were, sufficiently well that the medieval person would grasp the rudiments of them if he then encountered them, knowing for example enough to explain that when he was right clicking or left clicking? Would this really help your story?
In the same way, you might have in your medieval story that the yeoman's son goes to town to sell a cow on behalf of his father, and he falls into argument with a pair of drovers near the gate who complains that they ought to have the right of the road, but just then the Fuller's Guild led by a church father carrying the icon of their patron Saint , James the Less, because this being the 3rd of May is the feast day of James the Less, and therefore the Fuller's Guild is having a parade. And the Guild Apprentices are cavorting in their ceremonial sheep skin robes, and the masters are marching the the symbols of their trade, and behind them children are dancing and screaming and hoping to be thrown a present like a sweet roll or a pomegranate. And our protagonist sees his friend, who ran away from the master a year ago to make his fortune in the town among the apprentices. And a fight breaks out between the drovers and the fullers, and the priest is chastening them mightily their un-Christian behavior.
And at this point you might have to explain what drovers, fullers, saints, feast days, and guilds are unless your audience is particularly well read.
@@celebrim1 ok, now where do i get this fantasy book?
Part of it also depended on where you were. England apparently had some of greatest rights for serfs, but Russia's version was toeing the line of outright slavery.
Yes definitely. Reminded me a lot of sharecropping, which many people consider an extension of slavery.
Yes. The medieval era wasnt homogenous. You learn about medieval monarchy at school, normally centered on french or british feudalism. But these don't explain how the system works in places like the italian republics.
Probably depends on which part of the medieval period you were in and who owned the land you were on (predominantly church or nobility, I think)?
Toeing the line is perhaps a little conservative. Russian serfs that were not state serfs (belonging to the monarchy) could be bought/sold/gambled away, could not get married without their lord's permission, didn't have free right of travel, and could be abused and often times even murdered with no repercussions. They technically had some rights but I think it is hard to say that they amounted to much.
I'm pretty sure Russian version is just slavery 💀
My great grandmother, who was alive when I was a child in the 1970's (she, 106 or so - they didn't record births and deaths too well in Russia back then, for the lowest class).
She started life as a peasant in Russia (a serf ..by 'Russian' standards!)
When she escaped genocide and came to Britain (still really, just a child).
In the UK, she then became what was called an 'indentured servant'. However, this really meant you were 'owned' by the household you worked for (and a slave to whatever they decided).
Thankfully, because it was the 19th century in Britain. Her owners were kind (and against classic Slavery per se).
And so, like many other privileged families at that time, gave her a full education and treated her well (compared to anywhere, globally).
That education, allowed her to break a cycle. And, later start a family.
It allowed her to create stable generations going forwards (rather then future generations of poor and uneducated).
It'd hard for some to understand, but we still truly thank that family who saved our great grandmother.
It will be a debt MY family never forgets. Its why, as a family, we will always be proud of the British. And, to be British ourselves!
lovely history.
thats awesome.
what genocide were your granfma fleeing from exactly?
@@19374hklmaq The ones in Russia where ethnic minorities were either mass murdered or had to flee to the ports to look for safe passage to other countries. Given the wording of your comment, I trust you can research these massacres yourself. Russia though, aren't that big on remembering this history (and like to 'revise' it).
Peace.
@@19374hklmaq Most likely the Holodomor or a similar man made famine, they were quite common in Soviet russia around the time frame they specified or, if far enough back, the german invasion of the Soviet Union. Quite horrific events and the posters grandmother was very fortunate and likely strong of character to survive and later thrive.
That is incredible!
Abandoning land and buildings and allowing them to fall into disrepair without releasing title was injurious to the ville and to the manor. Land abandoned for a year and day is forfeit, and the rights of the serf to hold it are extinguished.
While the air of the town is free, and freedom, the *typical* lot of a 'free' serf with only the shirt on his back was one of a labourer, living in relatively cramped conditions, and in a location where (as the settlement size (minor) and density (major factor)) increased famine and pestilence were more prevalent than in less the rural environment at large.
A peasant here 'gains the freedom' to breathe town air, but at the cost of his rights to hold and use the land and messuage he inherited.
The land holder might want to hold a skilled tenant on the land, but also might want to clear up intent to leave, rather than sloping off in the night - the land in waste harms other tenants, the desmene and glebe lands, and risks the surplus which collectively can be produced. If farmed (rights to work the land passed to another), then another tenant can work the land to their profit and to the benefit of all. If the rights to the land are granted away, the land can be gifted to other hard working peasants who will remain. The serf is also 'stealing' the rents, the works due within that year and day, and perhaps other dues payable (including heriot) and may be seeking compensation for those losses.
It may have a lot more to do with contractual law and profits than it does with the *man*. At least in some cases.
On another note, isn't that last bit about Henry V translate closer to, "if you fight with me and win, I release you from your yearly dues so you can come pillage with me. Also, I'll probably settle things with your lord."
Yes. "The greater good" is the clarion call of tyranny and oppression.
So the free peasants are the medieval equivalent of a freelancer while serfs where similar to employees? Kinda makes sense, if you where a serf you wouldn´t have many rights, but at least you had some kind of protection in the land you worked unlike a free one. Plus back in the day nepotism was a common practice, people would rather hire a family member, even if there are bad at the job, way more than a complete stranger. Don´t forget this was a time where wars are rampant, and people usually where very cautious to anyone who doesn´t belong to their community. For someone of the Middle Ages being part of one it was a very big deal.
@@harrymills2770 everyone's got to eat in the winter
they were slaves, see I explained it in one sentence....
What a great video. No over the top editing, no obnoxious demands to "like and subscribe", no ridiculous attempts to inject modern day politics into the presentation- love it.
A few notes
One may contrast English freemen from the French. The former were taxed and made to pay rent, forced to learn learn archery, made to be ready to enlist as mercenaries in campaign, the latter were truly free.
Stabilis, a serf of Fleury on the continent, worked his way to marrying a noble lady (nobility pertaining to wealth and respectability than peerage in medieval times) and owning an entire freehold.
Society was more like a trifle than a sandwhich: visible layers yet overlapping and blurry borders, like the sherry seeping through a trifle's layers. Distinction between nobility and commoner mattered far less than servile vs free - a clerk in a royal household could be more "noble" than a rural judge.
Social mobility was strong and alive in Medieval times, with econometric estimates for Paris determining human capital to be the greatest predictor of income based on tax rolls.
Good reasings are Reynolds - Fiefs and Vassals, Epstein - A Social and Economic History of Latter Medieval Europe, Reynolds - Communities and Kingdoms in Western Eurooe 900-1300, Crouch - The Birth of Nobility: Constructing Aristocracy in England and France, 900-1300
Source for the last note is Income Inequality in Paris in the Heyday of the Commercial Revolution by Sussman
I really like that trifle analogy 👍
Do you have a channel?
@@stevenobrien557 I'm writing the script for my first video (about the Great Famine, 1315-1322). Taking a long time with the combined research (have to shift through studies not just about the Famine itself but also about socio-economic conditions in 1300s Europe), work, and graduate school.
@@viatorinterra I was half joking, you have a really good way of explaining for a midwit such as myself. I look forward to anything you end up posting to TH-cam.
TBH England was a proto Prussia and was in constant war with literally all its neighbors so they needed a constant supply of funds and men
Missed you! So glad to see you back. Always interesting content. Still wondering about the mule with no name. Can we see him again?
Yes, inquiring minds would like to know.
I could hear him braying in the distance late in the video LOL
Read: Mule with no name ...
Brain: Cue "A Horse with no name"
@@billmiller4972 Now you’ve got me singing that in my brain! Probably for the rest of the day. 😊
@@billmiller4972 Perhaps the mule was left in the desert?
Interesting to learn how they thought about social arrangements. So, yeah, a serf is tied to the land and he can't leave it, but he is also tied to the land and nobody can sell it without including him and his right to work it. Splitting the concept of ownership of the land and ownership of the right to work it is an interesting concept.
I suppose this is a bit like "landlords" today selling homes which have ongoing tenants in them. The rent paying tenants are passed from one landlord to the next.
Makes you realise, that today we might not be as free as we think!
I wonder how the labour of a serf compares to rent for a typical home today?
In this video it is described that you could buy your freedom or run away to a town. That is a bit like buying a home so that you no longer have to pay rent.
I suppose we have one area of freedom that definitely did not exist back then, which is the welfare state.
No, it's splitting the concept of nobles having to eat food with making someone else do the work of producing it.
Yeah, he is not "cattle" to be bought and sold to the highest bider. He's not an commodity.
I think it is like game sort of. Lowest level of people like farmers consume lowest resource and without any skills. Most civilization will try to make sure that they don't die of starvation, disease, robberies, and natural disaster. More resource will pour more into more skills people as carpenter, blacksmith, and so on. more resource will pour more into knight, smart people, and royals, as they will protect the land from attacks from aggressive outlanders, robbers, and thieves and decide where resource will pouring into to produce better plans for the civilization.
@JeffersonClippership Yes, nobles were human and needed to eat.
Incredible I know.
"Who knows why people wanted to be free?" I find the confusion here disconcerting. Freedom is a good in and of itself, with no additional motive required.
Freedom means different things. Is a homeless person more free than someone who pays a mortgage? Is someone who pays for public healthcare more free than someone who is not insured etc.
@@ModernKnight the homeless person can, legally, get a job and buy a home. The mortgagee can, legally, pay his mortgage or sell his home. Regardless of the practicality of their situations, these people are not bound, unable to change them.
The slave and the serf are bound to their situations, and have no right to change them. Their lack of freedom isn't a mere situational limitation, but a legal status. One that cannot be changed without outside interference.
These are not comparable.
One of THE best TH-cam channels out there. Just superb.
Metatron (who posted earlier) is also a great historical channel.
About church law and the death penalty : in France at least, the only "crime" the Church could condemn you to death for was for being "relapse" (no idea how to translate that), that is falling back into ill ways you had officially renounced (such as heresy - or being a woman in men's clothes as a certain saint was informed).
Most people who got condemned to death in relation to religious trials were so by the civil court, generally on grounds of disturbing the peace or rebellion.
It never ceases to amaze me how much power the church had at that time. (They still do but it's quite different now) I'm Protestant Christian myself but I feel terrible about things the church did. I also would have been screwed because I hate wearing dresses because they're so impractical to things I need to get done. Haha
I have some doubts about that because the trial that condemned that woman in men's clothes to death was later declared null after a (post-mortem) retrial. Even a relapse wouldn't have condemned her to death since it was merely about clothes.
With that said, I can see the rationale for executing someone relapsing into heresy, especially if rebellion charges are attached to it.
@@TheRisskee oh they are just much subtler now. Mossad is envious of the Vatican's spy system and acknowledged they are superior spys.
Joan of arc 'what its not my fault armor doesn't come in womans sizes' lol
@@Knoloaify Well that particular trial was not exactly the fairest ever, since there were important people (the English) who really really wanted "that person" dead.
It doesn't change the fact that the legal basis for her execution was her supposedly being relapse.
So much of history is about countries and the extremely wealthy. I really appreciate anything on the topic of the common people. Great stuff. Truly.
A big point often forgotten: servs had the right to be protected by their master. They did not have to fight themselves. But the master had to organize and pay for a protection force.
Thank you. I have some school work I reviewed with my kids about how literally all non-royals in the medieval period were serfs, and that's just a fancy way to say slaves connected to land. How they were stuck there, always mistreated, and weren't ever allowed to leave their backbreaking drudgery. Also, their food was bland and uninteresting, while the nobles eat Peacock and other things. I had to correct this. It drives me crazy how "experts" write books blatantly wrong.
It is an unfortunate fact that people suffer from a normalcy bias and most of us dont realize it. We like to look down on our ancestors and imagine that everything must have been worse back then. We like to think that the way they organized society must have been inferior to ours and that they were mistaken about what is right or wrong while we are so much better - smarter, wiser and more righteous. This kind of thinking is where the classic trope of the permanently shit-stained peasants in grey rags comes from.
Regarding this topic specifically, i believe the misconceptions you describe are common partly due to this mindset, which occurs naturally, and party due to intentional indoctrination. We in the west are taught liberal democracy and egalitarianism with all of their dogmas since childhood. Few of us ever really question and ponder this philosophy. We are subtly conditioned to think of democracy as a guarantee or synonym of freedom and righteousness. It does not surprise me in the slightest that schools teach kids to look at medieval societies the way you describe.
There was also a lot of protestant porpaganda which the enlightenment later doubled down on. Both factions were anti-catholic, so it was in their interests to make the catholic dominated medieval period seems as ignorant and miserable as possible - with historical revisionism to make things look much better in ancient greece.
Its entirely fabricated to attack the era where christemdom was mostly united and the catholic church "ruled the states". Look into an peasant or an slave during the classical era and you will find he lives the same or worse than medieval peasants, but for some reason they never bring it up. We have an glorified version of the classical era while the medieval era is vilified.
Just wait until you realise the inquisition wasn't some monty python sketch and that it was more lenient than the medieval secular courts or "vigilante" justice of the era and that there's no proof about "millions of people burned at the stake by the inquisition. Its incredible easy to create facts in the past if you have the media behind you, like the canadian "native kids mass graves in the homeschools", no real mass graves were found, not one skeleton was showed or even tested nor any proof of foul play was shown. They just went to cemeteries and concluded that there were bodies there(duh).
And some of it is just laziness. They learned back in 3rd or 4th grade that the nobility could do anything to the serfs and the serfs had no rights and no way out, and rather than doing proper research they just basically repeat what they were told.
They wouldn't have thought of themselves as slaves. They probably felt fortunate to be part of the community at all. In exchange for their labor, they would also get the benefit of living near the castle (or in the case of some privileged laborers like blacksmiths, they actually got to live in a lot of cases AT the castle) and their payment was literally just protection. Most of them would have been farmers, so in exchange for their crops they would get to live "under the umbrella" so to speak. Some lords probably took better care of their peasants than others, but generally speaking an attack on them was an attack on the vassal himself and would be treated as such. They weren't educated so their opportunities were limited as far as doing much else with their lives. I don't think the vast majority of them cared nor did they view themselves as slaves.
Those who lord it over others are invariably less loved by those they oppress and exploit than they'd like to imagine. Nobody wants to slave the fields to provide luxuries for some nob in a manor house.
Would they have even understood the concept? I mean considering the amount of uprisings and attempted uprisings I don't think their lives were particularly great. And expecting a lord not to abuse their positions...1 in a 1000 maybe.
i think they were well aware of how weak and powerless they were, and there's a good reason why peasants had revolts that killed lords.
On the other hand, if a lord just didn't feel like spending the time and effort protecting his serfs from bandits or whatever, there was nothing the serfs could do to make him. Same is true if the serfs were threatened by their own cruel or greedy lord. This idea of noblesse oblige only survives because serfs didn't have the ability or chance to leave records of their side of the story.
@@berilsevvalbekret772 There's a limit to that and most lords understood their position and weren't willing to abuse their power and contracts, you have to consider the amount of lords that existed compared to the amount of revolts and you'd notice how uncommon it was for your average lord to so anger his subjects that they'd be willing to revolt. Its similar to today in many cases, do most people revolt (peaceably or not) over slightly subpar work environments? Not really, only when you see exceptional cases of decrepit workplaces does that happen, usually when they have a way too much central power over too wide a swath that you start to see corruption and the allowance for more wicked actions for which people generally revolt over. Same happened in serfdom and feudal cases, a lord with a relatively small amount of serfs did not have much power and was incapable to just abuse them because they could go so far as to revolt and easily win, but a lord with a rather large amount of serfs would have a lot of power and over time would be more likely to become corrupt and abuse some serfs, which may cause revolts but wouldn't always result in a successful revolt.
About the military service...imagine you are a noble. You are expected to maintain a retinue of a certain size. Some of your men died during a war and you need replacements and the sons of your existing retainers are too young to join. It would make sense to look at the serfs who have followed you to war as part of their feudal obligation and offer the most well-performing and loyal ones a spot in your retinue, which would naturally lift them out serfdom. Though this is probably not the same becoming a freeman as the former serf would then become a retainer instead.
Freedom through military service is pretty common in many cultures from large swathes of asia (china and japan specifically) to Greek and Roman
Oh shut up
@@thebitsanpiecesman4423 Who are you talking to and why?
@@HiragamaIkunai
Service guarantees citizenship!
The right to bear arms is also complicated. You could be a Freeman but not have the right.
I don't know about other countries, but in mine it happened that peasants were sold or given as a "gift" to other nobles or they were simply thrown out of the land without anything, a peasant could not leave the lord's land without special permission, the penalty for escaping was death by saying and hunts were also organized for escaped peasants, the lord could beat them with a whip or even beat them to death for not taking off their hat or making a weak bow.... in addition to working for the lord, the peasant also worked on the parson's (church's) land, women were often given linen to carry and comb etc., a family of peasants had to give back a certain amount of ready-made material from this flax, if the quality was poor and there were a lot of losses, the peasants had to use their own resources to pay for the material, there was also a tax on owning various things, such as a chimney in a cottage, this tax was so high that people lived very primitively and instead of normal stoves they had fireplaces because they could not afford a regular chimney
Interesting. Where's this and what's the source?
half of what you said is a myth
@@Alainmontpellier1000 Bobrzyński M., Karta z dziejów ludu wiejskiego w Polsce, Akademia Umiejętności 1892.
Konarski M., Legal issues related to the flight of peasants in old Poland (14-th-19th century), „Review of European and Comparative Law”, t. 38 (2019).
Leszczyński A., Ludowa historia Polski, W.A.B. 2020.
Obrońcy chłopów w literaturze polskiej, cz. 2, oprac. M. Piszczkowski, Wydawnictwo M.Kot 1948.
Śreniowski S., Zbiegostwo chłopów w dawnej Polsce jako zagadnienie ustroju społecznego, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego 1997.
Świętochowski A., Historia chłopów polskich, Wydawnictwo Polskie R. Wegnera 1928.
Trzyna E., Wtórne poddaństwo [w:] Historia chłopów polskich, t. I: Do upadku Rzeczypospolitej szlacheckiej, red. S. Inglot, Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza 1970
@@Rauser142 Maybe in your country. Polish peasants were also the subject of trade. Their sale was carried out by means of donation (donation manualis) - such an act was drawn up between the parties and reported to the appropriate municipal office. Peasants were sold in various numbers, for example, the Smolensk voivode Piotr Sapieha gave Barbara Kwilecka 37 families, and as a result of an agreement concluded between Marianna Radońska and Jan Przebendowski, the latter obtained 68 people for the amount of 4,000 zlotys. From 1496 only one peasant family per year could leave the lord's village, but on condition of settling accounts with its owner. And escapes were punished. The punishment for escape was a brand on the forehead, tendons were cut, and collective responsibility was applied. Piotr Skarga even mentions the punishment of peasants by death by hanging.
I really enjoy your channel. I am an American and amateur medieval historian. Your channel is so very informative and I savour every episode. My family came from South Oxfordshire. All that to say thank you.
Thank you very much!
Hope you have or will come and visit your homeland Brother.
@@0Boogiee0 there’s no place in this world I would rather visit than England. 🏴 I want to see Stonehenge, the Tower, Hastings, the land of Edward I and III, Henry the Vth, and I could go on and on. That isle set in the sea, this land this realm this England. Thank you, I pray that I might visit soon. 🙏🏻🏴🇬🇧
l'm sorry l don't understand - when you say your family came from South Oxfordshire do you mean just one generation ago or was it further back than then? lf the latter then how much research did you make to establish that all your family came from that one location. l've done some checking on my family history and, in my family's case, came across far more diversity in the origins of them.
@@billythedog-309 hi, I understand. It was on my mother’s side of the family that came from England. My great grandparents came over in the 1880’s into Canada. My mother was the first American born child in Michigan. Her father was British in citizenship back then Canada was part of Britain still. I am adopted so I did a DNA search and found what areas we originally came from as well as getting in touch with my biological mother. It’s been a long haul. My great grandparents left the south of England and moved to the Isle of Man. From there immigrated to Canada. My father’s side is Native American. I hope I haven’t confused you.
In terms of the military service one, I believe the Roman Empire did something of the sort. It was some 20 years of service in a legion, and then you’d be granted ownership of land somewhere, and maybe a pension? Of course, there weren’t so many standing armies in the medieval period, so it couldn’t really be done in years of service, but it might’ve been a similar sort of idea.
Yeah I do as well recall something about that, a legionary would be granted a bit of land to live on, unless he wished to continue in service or was recalled post-service as evocati.
Yup, that particular topic of rewarding Veteran soldiers is pretty much what caused the Roman Civil war, Caesar had an obscene amount of soldiers he needed to pay after his Gallic campaigns (with Land or coin of equal value) and my history is a little fuzzy but as i remember. the Senate did not think to pay them as well as they; the veterans. thought they deserved, and also it was 'expected' that Generals had to pay their own men... (See Crassus's folly) and Caesar was not nearly rich enough, So Caesar argued that the Senate should pay them in a complicate legal contract.
Of course whether you think Julius used this as a plight and excuse to stage a civil war. or if he just genuinely wanted to provide for his veterans is up for the poets. point of the story being that Caesars veterans didn't just cross the Rubicon because they just "loved Caesar sooooooo much" no they did it because they wanted money & land and felt cheated.
@@marth8000 right. After 20 years of service, where is your land and where is your wife ? The land is probably not kept and the wife is probably remarried. Those issues did not begin with Julius Caesar to be sure.
How great would it be now if on leaving service after 20 years or so our military were given a house or plot of land to build on
Roman Empire had people with status similar to serfs but it is not about Legion service.
Terrific video! Always enjoy learning new goodies. After the medieval period early Englishmen & women who came to British America often signed contracts of indenture with land owners who paid their passage for a predetermined period of time. Temporary serfdom.
That continued up to the early 20th century for Irish migrants. Seven years for bed, board, work clothes and a little pocket money on top of the passage costs was standard. Many endured gross exploitation even by old standards. Once time had been served they were free to go.
@@michellebyrom6551 That's true. In the Atlantic coastal British colonies they also had headrights. Land was given to land owners for importing indentured workers. Guess who didn't get the land.
Lol still a better deal than the blackbirders in the Pacific gave at that time.
I was 'Indentured' as an Apprentice in the 1970's. My Father and the Company had to both sign the contract. There were rules. I had to get my manager's permission to either get married or get a personal loan. Funny how old school these things were even in a free country like Australia in the 70's.
There's still plenty of outright slavery too, sweatshops all over the place where the owners have to put up nets outside the buildings to prevent the slaves throwing themselves off the roof
This is my first MH video. I loved the personal nature of it; I felt like he was talking to me directly and certainly not giving me a boring lecture. Learned quite a lot they missed way back in grade school! It was also interesting to learn that you may have had a better situation if you were a serf rather than free. Which of course triggers a very complex and interesting philosophical question. Anyway, looking forward to lots more of these - going to queue them up!
Thanks for watching, and yes the subject is complicated and requires a shift in perspective from today.
Fascinating video delivered with great passion! The first scenes of you in the woods in medieval garb would look so different if you were in modern dress. Our eyes pick up on the cues of the clothes from those remote times and the woods behind you somehow suddenly feel like a place of mystery and adventure. That's the way I see it anyway. Probably played too much D&D as a kid and watched too many 80s fantasy movies :)
Such perfect presentation - it is so easy for videos on history to feel dumbed down & patronising. Thank you for your gentle, intelligent and inspiring videos. They are a window into the past.
The term slave is a broad term that is dependant on the historical frame, location and government. Sometimes slavery ended if you payed off debts, sometimes slaves had rights, and sometimes there were no rules allowed at all.
Serfs had no freedom of movement, had to work for a lord without pay at least part of their week, and could be bought with the land. This falls into parameters of slavery that were already established in the ages before serfdom.
Add to that that the amount of serfs able to write down what their lords did to them is minimal at best, plus the fact that their lord was usually an absolutist leader over it's land (controlling law, executive actions and their word counted as more legitimate in national courts) makes the idea that serfdom isn't slavery pretty strange to me.
It blew my mind when I found out our host here develops video games..
Wait what? Links please!
@@AdamJorgensen He's one of the CEOs or one of the founder members, I don't remember the details, of the game Dev of the Sniper game franchise. People talk about it sometimes here in the comments.
@@AdamJorgensen Jason is the CEO of Rebellion Developments Limited, famed for Sniper Elite, he is also CEO of Rebellion Developments the publisher of 2000AD, (Judge Dreed etc.).
Steam had the full Rebellion catalogue on sale recently and a bought it mainly out of support for Jason who seems like a great guy. Also especially with how the game and movie industry is so heavily infected with wokeness and run by absolute scum I feel it's important to back those who aren't like that.
10 types of comments that absolutely must appear under every video:
1. Compliments. They are always well deserved, so I mention them only for an equal account :)
2. Discovery. “Wow, so this is THIS Jason Kingsley? (here appears a list of Rebellion's flagship) Really? I had no idea!”
3. Curiosity. “What does OBE mean?”
4. Good advice. 172 suggestions on how to name a Mule With No Name.
5. Comparison. “This is better than Default History Channel!”.
6. Cogitation. “Why is it not on TV?”
7. Fiscal control. “I'm curious where he gets the money for it all” (the answers lead inevitably to point 2).
8. Manifesto.“Knights were robbers, rapists, fascists, sexists, carnivores, Christians, fetishists, philatelists, oppressed their subjects and enforced ius primae noctis!”
9. Ignorance. “How many is an inch, a yard, a hand, a mile, a stone etc.” Google bites!
10. Dunning Kruger Effect. “I saw once the horse/sword/bow/lance in the picture, so I know better.”
And as a bonus - "wow, he looks like Denethor" :)
Fabulous content!
From the composition, to the videography, to editing the final package, this is 18 minutes of condensed history for the history buff.
Sir Jason, your voice is nectar and honey!
More, please. 👏 👏
Thanks!
I can't remember, but maybe, I've read so many books!
Reading the comments, several said that this is one of your best videos. Couldn't agree more!
As I read it, the key difference between serfdom and chattel slavery is that a serf was at or near the bottom rung of society, but had some rights and autonomy. In contrast, a slave was not recognized as part of society; they were merely a commodity.
I clicked pretty fast when I saw the new episode. I wasn't disappointed. 👍
17:20 in medieval Romania, especially in the principalities of Muntenia and Moldova, peasants were awarded with land for their military service. Historical records show us that the vast majority of peasants were free, mostly thanks to this system, by the times of Vlad the Impaler and Stephen the Great, and that the backbone of the army were free peasants (called răzeși/părtași in Moldova, moșneni in Muntenia and Oltenia). The situation in Transylvania was similar up until 1438, when Ius Valachicum and Universitas Valachorum were removed and the romanian peasants became permanent serfs/slaves to the hungarians and later to the austrians.
Feudalism ended in Britain pretty much in the 14th century
@@999mi999 the Romans would give a piece of land to a soldier when he retired.
In regards to the Doomsday book the north of England was substantially depopulated by the Harrying, which was essentially a genocide.
What is harrying
@@cv4809 William the conqueror wiped out those who would not submit to him after the battle of Hasting due to massive popular revolts to drive the norman invaders away, extremely extremely common thing, people never did bow to foreigners easily, nationalism unlike many disingenous people and outright liars claim has always existed, and so you, if you were a foreign invader cannot take land without signficantly taking a toll on the population which will take arms against you. Machieavelli speaks of this aswell.
The commenter is mentioning specifically the "Harrying of the North"
@@cv4809 To Harry of Harrying, to carry out repeated and persistant attacks to wear somebody down.
Which leads to a stupidly maccho nickname which then becomes just a normal name.
@@alexmag342 I don't think Nationalism was a thing yet or at least not yet a popular belief, people were more concerned with local issues as the issue with William was less because he was Norman but because he was a conqueror and most of the Lords are Saxon. (thus endangering the Saxon nobility and because Will is also a Bastard.)
While people have an attachment to their people it was less because they believe in a rule of the people and thus the Nation but more who the next King would be (Monarchy is built on the Mandate of God while Nations are buit in the mandate of the people which wasn't really common back then.)
P. S people back then while yes have a love for their people that doesn't mean they believe in building a Nation with that people like how we see it.
Genoside is really not that uncommon back then especially when it comes to wars between people of different faiths and ethnicities, but its also rare as wars are usually on the small scale.
They were 'bound to the land', so legally I think they were regarded more as fixtures than chattel. They could garden for themselves, cut wood for fuel, draw water from streams and wells and raise certain livestock like chickens and pigs.
The divide between the Danelaw and southern England is interesting to me as an American. There's a work on the ethnographic origins and the folkways of settlers in the 13 colonies called Albion's Seed, and it traced the ancestry of the southern US States like Virginia to Cavaliers from Southern England. The work shows that the indentured servitude traditions of these colonists lead to the development of plantation culture in the south, and a heavier class stratification that eventually reified into chattel slavery. It's so interesting to see the sharp north-south cultural divide that served as one of the main fracture points of our own civil war reflected so clearly in much deeper English history.
Another major divide was in how different cultural groups decided the concept of "freedom". Basically each American cultural class had a different concept of what "liberty" meant, and as such this lead to fractions in the young nation and eventually war. The Coastal northerner's conceptions of "liberty" were based on the religious ideas of the Puritan, Quaker, and religious refugee stock who conceptualized their liberty as a means of practicing faith and self organization distinct from a hereditary monarch. In the South - which had become dominated by a landed aristocracy - the conceptualization of "liberty" was based on their rights as private owners of land, having a far more classicist view of freedom as their right to pursue their happiness and interest in the accordance with their station.
Eh that's not entirely correct. while the upper class of South was dominated by aristocratics from England majority of the colonists were from lower classes from the border regions of England and the Scots and Irish who were the indentured servants.
I've always heard the opposite. People from the north of England settled the American South and the Northern U.S. was settled by people from the South of England. This distribution is said to be reflected in speech patterns, however I am southern born and bred, but I find it easier to understand the English accents from the southern end of England. Northern English accents grate on my ears like people from New York, New Jersey and New England do.
@@purrdiggle1470 the north of England is the border region between England and Scotland. Speech patterns in both US and England have changed a lot since then.
@@purrdiggle1470 There is another ethnic group in the inland south - the Appalachians - these people originated in the far north of Britain, so that may be where the confusion comes from. New Englanders comes from East Anglia, and the 'Rust Belt' has its roots in the North Midlands.
Teachers/professors take notes; this is how you teach a subject.
Love these videos! Entertaining and educational. Bravo, Jason.
And...
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
A standing ovation for Kasumi's mad editing skills!
Superb, seamless transitions. 👏👏👏
Thank you both for this great video and great content.
Hope you're all keeping well.
Glad you enjoyed it!
@@ModernKnight Loved it!
calm down, dude's a video game CEO who's a history hobbyist, not some history professor
@@Chuubii where might we see your contributions to society? Can you please list your achievements or accomplishments?
@@Chuubii I'm very much aware of what Jason does for a living. My point is that he makes history interesting where as there are professors who will put you to sleep!
in central europe (holy roman empire) only freeman were mandatory to military service, with their own equipment, while Serfs were not part of a muster.
the equipment requiremnents dependet upon the wealth of each man. Many of the poorer free man transcended into serfdom because military service was to expensive to maintain.
from many (late) mediveal german towns are records avaible what equipment was required to maintain as part of your citizenship, depending on the individuel wealth. Most citys required an average craftsman to maintain a crossbow, a sidearm and some basic body armor, while master of a craft on average was required basic plate armor, a crossbow, a sidearm and sometimes a polearm. citizens with less income than a craftsman to maintain at least a spear. these average requirements varied over time and places.
For rural communities are less records avaible.
These armament requirments and military service were additional to taxes, to be free was an expensive endeavour.
I was looking for the difference between the rights and duties of freemen and serfs. Possibly same thing in england.
I am also reminded of the polish system, where freemen were exempt from taxation but were required to provide military service (schlahtia i think its spelt)
But i forget what the word for the taxed peasant is
@@dango470 "szlachta" was polish nobility.
@@aemeth5418 correct. And sometimes all these "nobleman" had to their name was a rusty saber passed from their grandad and a small cottage
@@dango470 yeah, the Polish nobility was a very large and very diverse part of the population compared to other countries. This is quite unique, the only similar situation I know was in feudal Japan.
@@aemeth5418 that's why it feels like their nobility is simply closer to tge idea of freeman, or patrician vs plebian
"If you were a serf, you usually worked 2-3 days a week..."
Damn, sign me up.
The 2 or 3 days were for your feudal lord. The other 3 or 4 days you took care of your own requirements.
@@GilmerJohnYeah, that was my understanding. They had a full time job subsistence farming and doing everyday chores, AND you needed to work for your “Lord” 2-3 days a week.
You worked 2-3 days for someone else, you still had to do your 7 days worth of work for survival.
So between 30 & 40% of your working time and produce was given to the load. That still equates to the 30-40% of the money we earn is given to the govt in tax. Nothing's really changed.
@@itsoktobebeige your lord had a larger vested interest in your well being than the modern government does so I don't know if it's the same.
Oh man that will be interesting,as it varies a lot all around Europe what rights and duties they had.
A thousand years of history in dozens if not hundreds of different communities is impossible to have simple answers for.
@@phodon129 Rightly so, also learned some stuff in this one, like the Normans actually getting ride of slaves (bondsmans, but baby steps).
It seems that in feudal kingdoms, the most important right was the right to use land which came with the duty to either pay rent to the landlord or become a servant for the landlord
Lovely to see you back...always learn so much from these
Me, too! I love watching and learning -- and thinking about how my great-grandparents lived and worked like medieval peasants. My grandparents started their lives like that, but eventually got electricity, indoor plumbing and tractors.
11:30-40 "As you can imagine with human beings, the situation is quite complicated.
Just like today status mattered to some people, but not everybody"
That is pretty insightful, this channel is legitimate history explanations.
You, Sir, are doing a great job at explaining this kind of stuff! I'm very passionate about history and always following your videos with excitement! Thanks!
Very true with the king making you a freeman from helping him in battle.
I myself am a freeman of Malmesbury. My ancestor had helped king Athelstan in the battle against the Danes and therefore was made a freeman and also given land.
Evwry in feudalism has someone on top of them...even nobles need to kiss the ass of their superiors
Yeah right and I'm Harry Houdini
@@harrynewiss4630I'm related to Johnny Appleseed on my mother's side. You'd be surprised who you are related to if you take the time to research.
@@matthewmcarthur8748 I have and anything beyond the 17th century is at best speculative except for a few noble families. And even they made things up
I for one am related to the great flighing cockman. My family is deeply proud of our ancestor for setting our line free, bringing great wealth and honor to our name, and slaying hot wet box where he found it.
This is one of the best History Channels on YT.
thanks
ITS THE LAD JASON
what up man hello from america. glad to see you havent stopped doing this. that tunic fit is lookin FRESH
I have to go to work every morning, sunrise to sunset. I want to be free. I need to save up a few coins and buy my freedom
Great to have you back! And with a specially interesting topic too!
Interesting side fact (at least for the HRE):
The transition from work to money was one part of the downfall of the nobility in the later medieval ages and Renaissance. Because they exchanged the work for a set amount of money, that was never to be changed again. And they did have inflation like today. So while someone working for 2 days a week was basically as useful in the 9th century as it was in the 17th century, the same want true for the buying power of whatever sum they were paying. Great idea in the short run, very bad in the long run
So you're saying, wages have to at a minimum track with inflation unlike what they've been doing for the last 60-80 years‽ 🤔😮
@@ThePlayerOfGames The transition of work to money improved the lives of everyone.. besides the nobility. Wages are supposed to change based on the value of the work. If you raise them you're causing inflation because the buying power is not effected. I have a feeling you might not understand economics. Are you a low skilled minimum wage worker or something?
@@JustinL614 I have a feeling that ExDee understands economics better than you do. Wages have not kept up with inflation for the middle and lower classes for the past few decades. Inflation happens whether wages go up or not.
It was financing the 100 Years War that drove the transition to cash in France and Britain.
Some people might not agree with me that the outbreak of widespread plague at the time was the result of inflation in the price of food, as it was being reserved for soldiers, but then a lot of people aren't smart.
@@rottenmeat5934 I would have thought financing the Crusades played a part in the transition to money. Mediterranean ship owners would want to be paid in something easily convertible and that would be coin.
I wish my landlord would allow us townhouse tenants to grow small gardens outside our doors! The lease that I signed says gardens are forbidden "for your safety" 🤔
Likely the safety reason is BS. The only danger I can imagine is neighbour pets poo or pee on your plants or someone dumps rat poison on the plants oblivious to the fact that you plan on eating parts of the plants. There have been cases where people have died or nearly died eating grass they harvested in their own back yards because some neighbour put pesticides on it.
Claiming that serfs “had rights” is a nominal stretch.
I always loved the medieval "and a day" measurement. I'm sure practically it was the baker's dozen of minimum time, one extra day to guarantee one year paid in full.
But as an American, it has a fey magical quality.
The power that landlords had over serfs varied across Europe, the idea of "rights" was strong in Britain, in theory if not in practice. I like the fact that you address some of the complexities, in the time you have quite a few.
That's an issue with the notion of "medieval Europe". And while a lot of people warn against the fact that it was a pretty long period of time with gigantic changes, people tend to forget that it's also a pretty big area with a BIG amount of cultural differences among dozens or even hundreds of cultural groups as well. A spanish peasant had almost nothing in common with a british or polish one. We know from chroniclers of the time that even nobles weirded each other out, and they married each other across borders. Try making any sense of the peasants who considered people from 5 villages over as foreigners in any united kind of way for the entire continent.
@@k.v.7681 it can be difficult in an age of constant communication and easy travel to remember that 2 villages 20 miles apart might have no direct contact among the peasants who were unlikely to have the inclination to walk 40 miles to say hi, and who couldn't spare a full day day to walk there and back even if they had the inclination.
Rights werent a thing until we can really consider the enlightenment age.
@@Jayremy89 rights were a thing but a very different thing. For example feudal lords were very big on their rights, as were kings. The idea of rights for an individual rather than rights as a consequence of rank were very much a later development. Magna Carta though very 0ver praised in its actual importance did include some idea of a right to justice (Though the main motive behind it was more about protecting privileges than rights.
@@Jayremy89 Ah yes, the drone of the indoctrinated masses.
17:32 what Shakespeare referred to seem to hold water since there were cases of men who served under him during that war who were caught by authorities breaking the law however were declared exempt from legal punishment because the King promised that they were free from punishment (because of that campaign), so it was common knowledge then that these men became not just free, but "equals with the King" (maybe in rights, as for instance legal punishment) at least while they were alive.
In one case of a trouble maker it seems that the King himself personally intervened on his favour during his trial. There was a documentary about that campaign where historians explained their bestowed perk into detail, really interesting stuff. Current politicians would just make promises and throw everyone under the bus.
17:40 "If you gave good military service, why wouldn't your lords and masters make you free?" Because it would cost them money to replace you, same reason military veterans have always been mistreated: treating them well is expensive. You're probably right that the king made the promise, but highly unlikely that he made good on it; that would be politically inexpedient
As a lover of England / medieval times I consider your channel the best. Every time I am going to watch your videos I sit down, take a plate of food and relax.
Much love and strong health from the Czech republic!
You should visit Czech republic sometime!
Take care, mr. Jason!
Sincerely,
John
Thanks for watching and subscribing too!
By far the best history channel on TH-cam! Keep up the great work!
Hi Jason, I recently discovered your channel and just want to let you know that it is incredible. Thank you for sharing your extensive knowledge in an interesting and digestible format! This episode on peasants and serfs is very well done. I would be very much interested in seeing future content that continues to expand upon your Medieval People and Society episodes, such as more on specific roles in medieval courts other than knights (e.g., kings & queens, household & servants, royal guard, other nobility & court appointments, musicians & entertainers, etc.) And on that note, perhaps the topic of medieval instruments and music as well. I love the episodes where you interview other people in their area of expertise and relate the discussion to medieval society. Keep up the great work!
Thanks for watching our work!
"It was possible to go down the social ladder to get better land".... ..as in mortgages nowadays creating "house poor" people.
Very educational. Puts in perspective different definitions of "slavery". Much different than what Americans think of slavery. Maybe the Egyptians had a similar sort of system?
I don't know about Egypt specifically but it seems it was somewhat similar in ancient Roman and Greek societies, many layers of social classes with more freedom and rights higher you went, and slaves simply being at the bottom of the ladder with neither freedom or rights.
@@IamOutOfNames romans had layers of slavery and many freed slaves were bound to their masters family like a serf
According to Genesis, "slavery" in Egypt originated as Pharaoh taking 10% of his subjects' future produce in exchange for access to his stored food during the 7 year famine. So by that standard we are all slaves for paying taxes. Of course, the slavery that later befell the Hebrews was of a much harsher nature.
The modern conception of slavery is that of the Ottoman empire which started the Iberian slave trade and later the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Other forms of indentured service had different amounts of rights and benefits, and were almost all notoriously more benign.
@@SepticFuddy I watched some history shows about Egyptian archaeology and paleontology where the Egyptian (and other nearby countries') accounts of the "slavery of the Hebrews" was a whole lot closer to indentured servitude or an exploitative communal work contract than 'whips and chains' slavery.
But that Charlton Heston movie pretty much jelled the Biblical version of "truth" in a the minds of a couple of generations.
'Freedom' in a medieval sense was a VERY dangerous thing. For most it meant 'freedom to starve'. The absolute lowest class in the medieval world was the urban day laborer. They were the first to starve in a famine and never earned enough wages to actually prosper. There was **security** in being a serf /peasant. You traded your farming skills and labor for a fair share of the village crop and what you could grow in your own garden, and protection from beasts and bandits from the village lord. A free unguilded day laborer in a city only lived on what few coins he would make that day or week.
Oh god, how austalopitecs, later on humans lived and thrived without being chained to a land by a guy who was born from a vagina chosen by some guy called himself "cool lord". No idea how humanity thrived without this system, probably leftie propaganda, in fact God created Lords and Slaves and we always lived like this hail God!
unfortunately by many evidences no one was really protected from bandits so yeah, kinda learn history and stop justification slavery
@@nerodominus7582 I'm not justifying slavery, ND. There is a a wide legal difference between feudalism and chattel slavery, though most modern interpreters have a hard time distinguishing between the two.
For one thing, 'Slavery' in a US and UK sense implies an element of racism that isn't present in feudalism. Yes, there was cultural bigotry [say, between the conquering Normans and the native Anglo-Saxons of Domesday-era England] but mostly it is a matter of social class distinctions. And class distinctions are not 'Slavery', either.
I'm certainly not arguing that net effect of feudalism wasn't very near chattel slavery, especially when the lords and church were squeezing their serfs for as much as they could get. But there are important legal and social distinctions between the two.
And it isn't as if you could form a democracy in Europe before the Protestant Reformation anyway.
@@carlhicksjr8401
Nah, it is just people applying connotations to words without caring about the underlying reality. The reason people historically didn't like to be slaves is because slaves 'died out'; that is they didn't have children or were worked to death so needed to constantly be replaced.
Unfree labor that doesn't have that downside isn't as unpopular, because you can have it work for generations so people get used and it becomes the normal state of affairs. There isn't a massive difference for most people between 'work or starve' and 'work or be beaten'. However since the connotations of the word are bad, people don't like having it applied to things they might experience. It is why people get upset when you call conscription slavery even though conscription is often worse.
"And it isn't as if you could form a democracy in Europe before the Protestant Reformation anyway."
The Ciompi Revolt (Florence) was in 1378 and temporary established what amounted to universal male suffrage.
@@samuelskinner7704 'Sufferage' meaning 'every male had a voice in leading the city' or 'sufferage' as in 'every male was no longer bound to a master'?
That's an important distinction.
In addition, you have the Catholic Church saying that everyone was born to their station as decreed by God, and one should not seek to improve upon it.
Lastly, I don't want to make feudalism sound like it was hippie cooperative. So long as the taxes were paid on time, a liege lord didn't give a damn what happened on a fief... including beatings! Oh, there's be low court, if the fief-holder was feeling formal about it, but literally the only punishment he couldn't put on an unlucky and ill-favored serf was death itself. The lord could do what he wished otherwise.
BUT a medieval serf DID have rights that an urban unskilled laborer did not have... including a right to his fair share of the harvest.
This is completely off topic but can you get your company to make you a henchman in evil genius 2? With the suit of armor lol
I'm definitely a Big fan of the game evil genius!!!
"Woe betide" is something we need to use more in everyday conversations.
Don't know how you do it, but you are amazing at humanizing the people of the past
Big thank you for this clarification. Thought provoking, as usual.
Very welcome
The 10c Bodmin Manumissions well predate the Norman conquest and actually occur at the end of fashion for Anglosaxon manumission of slaves in England and then Cornwall. So the process had already been ongoing for up to 200years before the Norman - Bretons turned up. It was infact the pagan Vikings in Ireland who maintained the slave trade.
4:34 Given how arbitrary Norman overlords could be, as compared to the Saxons, it's quite remarkable that they transformed slaves into serfs with rights.
Always a great day to see you post!
Thank you. It is interesting to note that the "year and a day" rule still applies to many contractual obligations.
In German we say "Stadtluft mach frei!", which literally translates to "city air sets you free!". Quite interesting that the same seemed to hold in different countries.
Well, I guesd the idea is the same. If your Lord hasn't missed you for years, he can't call you back now.
I think German territory also had that rule about hiding out in a city.
@F.W. You only worked in an city if you were part of an medieval corporation. They had several benefits and coupled with the christian ethos that permeated society they weren't inclined to create sub-par products to sell for overpriced prices, profit margins were small due to moral qualms about how much profit is just.
King William ended open slavery in 1066 but it was replaced by serfdom where instead of owning the person the land that person relied on to survive was owned thus effectively enslaving the serf. People were tied to the land and unable to travel which is why there was free masons, they were allowed to travel and ply their trade.
Great content. It’s far more interesting to learn about how real people lived than being able to recite a list of dates of the " important " stuff. Could you address how the numerous religious holidays played into this system? I’m glad you mentioned that it was difficult to just pull up stakes and move. We are accustomed to the free right of travel. Besides banditry there were inherent dangers in travel to places where you were not known.
The cramming of "important history stuff" literally is the reason I couldnt give a shit in school. Ever since discovering these channels that go into the daily lives of people surrounding these events is so much more interesting
It is fascinating how things can be called the same, but function completely differently depending on the country.
In Russian Empire serfdom was adopted right after the ban on slavery, all slaves automatically got renamed to serfs - but in practice the naming and some language around it was pretty much an extent of it. There were some fancy laws designed to make it look like it's not slavery, but most of them didn't make any difference, or weren't followed by serf owners (like Tolstoy once said, and i'm roughly translating, "the severity of Russian laws is compensated by them being optional to follow")
So, for instance, one could not sell serfs, but could sell a right for their labor - all the details of the sale made it esentially the same as selling a slave, just with a different language on the paper. There were different casts of serfs, "labor" of some could be sold with the land, "labor" of others could be sold on their own.
There were laws that restricted the ways serfs could be punished, but those were largely ignored. In practice, the only way a nobleman could get in trouble for beating or killing a serf was if said serf was not theirs and instead was owned by someone else - and in those cases it was treated in court just like any property dispute would, just like if said nobleman killed a cow or damaged some cropsbelonging to other nobleman.
Now here's where the real "fun" starts: the serfdom in Russian Empire was abolished four years before the US abolished slavery, but in order to keep the nobility happy about it the serfs had to buy out the land, the house and all of their property back from the nobility that owned them, with the price in most cases being assigned by the nobility themselves. What it meant was that while on paper Russian Empire got rid of what effectively was slavery four years befor the US did, in reality the now "free" serfs found themselves paying off huge debts that came out of nowhere - with records showing that some people were still paying those off as late as early 1900s-1910s.
It was either that, or going straight to the curb with all of your family, with no money and no means to sustain yourself: if you didn't pay up, you can't stay in your house or use your tools, cause those were still nobleman's property, and you can't just go to the woods and build a hut there cause the woods were a part of the nobleman's land, just like the land where your house is.
Slavery is a sliding scale. Liberty to oppression. Today everyone are slaves compared to their status in 1776
@@TheBelrick Uh. No, they're not. Ask anyone what'd they choose: be a literal slave back in the day in their corresponding country, with everything that comes with it; or a low wage job employee in 2021. I can bet everyone in their right mind would choose the latter.
Because in modern day even with worst of the jobs available you still have a choice to quit, actual human rights, and all kinds of benefits, like scheduled work hours, sick days and overtime pay - you know, things that a slave back in the day simply wouldn't have. Even companies that have pretty bad working conditions by modern standarts would do really well when compared to literal slavery - as much as you want to preach how it's worse these days, you won't see people being sold off as property, beaten to death by their boss cause they "underperformed" in their job, nor would you see any boss having a say on whether their employee gets to marry or not.
@@iamsatanjr Son, comparing apples, oranges and creating a strawman
The difference that you based your argument on is called technology
So lets compare without that factor
Then, keep all you earnt. Could build stuff without permission, could even collect rainwater
vs. now
Half of what you earn is taken, cannot build without pleading unelected bureaucrats for permission. thugs of supremacists running around with the laws consent pillaging and looting. Cannot advance in many careers because born the wrong skin colour. Cannot collect rainwater.
Must be on a big pharma drug regime or else lose even more liberty
@@TheBelrick Where do you live where you can't even collect rainwater?
@@OfficialCharles Im sorry that you are unaware that several states in USA dont allow rain water collection.
One of your best videos, sir. More in depth and informative.
Much appreciated!
Do less on weapons and more on the social aspect of the medieval world. I love these.