Manorial Serfdom

Timeline

1. c. 900–1100Western Europe · Western EuropeFrom the ninth to eleventh centuries, land distribution and military feudalization in Western Europe drove the expansion of the manorial economy; free peasants gradually became serfs subject to the lord's jurisdiction, forming a dependent relationship combining labor rent with customary obligations.
2. 1181England and France · FranceIn the 1180s, Western European manorial courts widely recorded rules on serf inheritance, migration, marriage, and commutation of labor services; lords strengthened their hold over the persons and lands of serfs through customary law, and manorial serfdom entered a stage of high institutional formalization.
3. c. 1350–1500Western Europe · Western EuropeAfter the mid-fourteenth century, labor shortages and commercialized agriculture drove the commutation of rents and the emancipation of serfs; in most of Western Europe, manorial serfdom gradually gave way to tenancy and wage labor, though in parts of Eastern Europe serf bonds actually deepened.