Serfs Up: The Life of a Serf from Beginning to End in the Middle Ages

Feudalism came to dominance as a form of governance and social contract in the years following 1066 AD, when after defeating Harold at the Battle of Hastings, William I introduced feudalism to England, and it remained a way of life there for many centuries. Under feudalistic rule, the population was divided up into social classes who had their own designated jobs and lifestyles. In a form of dissipated monarchy, “feudalism in practice meant that the country was not governed by the king but by individual lords, or barons, who administered their own estates, dispensed their own justice, minted their own money, levied taxes and tolls, and demanded military service from vassals.” The lowest class in English Feudalism was the serf, peasants who were legally tied to the land that they worked, and the lord who owned it.

A Medieval English serf was the lowest social position in the feudal structure, but had more rights than a slave. The word ‘serf’ originated from Middle French, and ultimately can be traced back to the Latin word “servus,” meaning slave. Medieval English serfs were not literally slaves, but they were required to work the land they occupied for the lord of the manor and lived a state somewhere between a slave and a freeman. . The English serf community and family structure was developed around the land that they were attached to. The daily life of a Medieval English serf, although very labor intensive, was fulfilling in spiritual, recreational, and other interesting ways. From birth to death, serfs toiled in the service of their lords, forming a source of agricultural and general labor which powered the economy during the middle ages.

Birth was a less complicated affair than it is today, and also posed additional risks to both mother and child, as there were no modern medicine and remedies in the middle ages. Medieval mothers faced double the risk of dying during childbirth than do mothers in the third world do today. Taking place in bed at the mother’s home, and without the involvement of a doctor, as the birth process was a woman’s domain in the middle ages, childbirth generally took place with the help and assistance of female relatives and neighbors and with limited support from the husband. Although complications were the exception and not the norm, many children perished during birth, and if they survived, they faced poor odds of survival in their youth, compared to children today. Children in the middle ages had a high rate of mortality, “during the thirteenth century, about one child in six may have died in the first year, one in four by age five; perhaps two-thirds lived to age twenty.”

Because of the high rate of child mortality, though many mothers had 5 or more births, most families only consisted of parents with two or three surviving children. Unlike nobles who had important family names which were transferred in a formal process, peasants were often appended surnames according to birthplace, origin (“Fleming”), occupation (“Smith”), or other facets of character, including being small (Petit) or especially poor (“Sans-Argent”). The birth of a child was heralded by the ritual of baptism, a celebration both spiritual and social. A baptism was viewed an opportunity for the community to host a festival in the new child’s honor.

Babies were nursed, either by their mother or a wet nurse, and then given water, honey, milk, soaked bread, and even beer in order to slowly introduce them to soft foods. Today, doctors do not recommend giving honey to infants due to allergic and immunologic concerns, and beer is also out of the question as a baby food. Medieval society considered the first seven years of a child’s life to constitute a discrete stage of human life. Children were expected to sleep, eat, and play, with little-to-no formal education, save for parochial matters such as memorization of scripture and prayers. Older children were generally apprenticed outside the home or put to work alongside their parents.

Serfs were normally expected to work for an average of three days a week. Serfs were an essential, although not respected, part of the Medieval English social structure. Because a serf was not a slave, they could not be bought and sold, and were fixed to the soil that they worked. Unlike freemen, serfs could not marry outside the manor. The reproductive and political aspects of serfs’ lives were thus regulated by government authority.

A serf’s possessions were also under the control of the authorities, as they were barred from giving away goods without their lord’s permission. This, along with marriage and birth order, tied into the complex questions of inheritance and leaving a material legacy to one’s offspring among serfs in the Middle Ages. Most nobles, and many agrarian serfs, employed a patriarchal system of ownership transference upon death which gave land and possessions to the eldest son, leaving daughters and younger siblings to fend for themselves.

The serfdom actually contained different social stratification within itself. Most serfs were born, but in some instances one could become a serf. Within the serf class, there were further categories which entailed different rights and responsibilities. Peasants were made up of freemen and villeins. Freemen were essentially rent-paying tenant farmers and had a greater amount of independence than serfs. Villeins were the most common serf, and this nomenclature is actually the root from which the modern word ‘villain,’ which has a more negative connotation, derives. One lord might hold the fate of “ten thousand villein folk” in his hands. They usually had a small house, sometimes with land, and many times serfs only had to work for the lord during harvest times. The rest of the time they were able to farm their own lands. But in all cases, whether an indentured freeman, a villain, or a serf by birth, they were all tied to the land that they lived on, and in service to the lord of the manor.

The daily life, clothing, and living quarters for Serfs were all very standard and simple. For the most part though, the Lords were not too harsh on their Serfs, and supplied them with the means to live. The standard clothing and living quarters of a Serf were very simple and utilitarian. They usually had a blouse made of cloth or animal skin, and it would be fastened with a belt. An overcoat would keep them warm. Both coat and trousers for men were often made of wool. They would only wear hats when the weather was bad, and would use gloves when it was necessary for their work. The average Serf home was windowless, one room, and had a dirt floor. They usually had very simple furnishings, sometimes the animals had the run of the house, and they were dark and drafty.

Where the daily life of the lord of the manor was filled with prayer, business matters, and weapons practice, serfs usually worked in the fields most of each day. At the manor, the lords and ladies would rise at dawn, head to mass for prayers, and then have a comfortable breakfast meal. There would be discussions about politics, time for mid-morning prayers and another meal, as well as hunting, hawking, and other entertainment throughout the day. The ladies of the manor spent most of their time discussing social happenings of the area, supervising the manor, and working on embroidery and dance practice. The middle ages progressed in Europe, “the culture changed becoming more refined and elegant,” with wealth citizens spending their time on “arts, poetry, music etc.” The noble lifestyles of the manor’s lords and ladies were very different from those of the serfs. Serfs would normally rise before dawn, eat a simple breakfast of bread, onion, cheese, and beer, and then go to work in the fields for the day. Bread was the lifeblood of the peasant workforce, and “the most basic component of the medieval diet.” Both men and women worked the fields, while the women also took care of the household chores.

Romer discusses some important historical discoveries concerning the diet, farming products, and manufacturing processes of byzantine peasantry. Syrian peasants made wine which was furnished to their lords and also used for daily and special celebration.

Serf children helped with their parent’s duties, and usually carried a full workload by the age of fourteen. The boys would learn to work in the fields, and the girls would learn some field work as well as housework and gardening. The life of a serf was not merely dreary and difficult. Although they certainly had less by way of rights and material possessions compared to the higher classes, serfs knew how to have fun. Serfs would have loud and boisterous dances with the aid of much liquor. Using contemporaneous death records as an important source of information on the life of medieval peasants, Hanawalt depicts a number of strategies that peasants used to cope with the material and social stresses of life and death, including prayers and funeral processions. Death was a part of life which affected all members of medieval society, including the serfs. Serfs did not have the same access to elaborate funerary rites as the noble class, but celebrated with modest religious and social ceremonies. Death, during the middle ages, “was a familiar occurrence, and although an object of fear, it was…less a matter of mystery than it is today” with newborn babies, as well as corpses, common sights due to the lesser sense of privacy afforded to peasants of the era.

Although the feudal system existed in Europe for many centuries, it was not destined to last forever. The Black Death and the peasant revolt were some contributing factors to the death of feudalism and a serfdom-based society. But while the feudal system ruled, serfs held a very important, if not highly respected, place in society. Their duties and restrictions were numerous, yet their lives were simple, and they were able to raise their families, recreating and procreating as the seasons passed. Because of their betrothal to lords with knights, serfs were not required to fight, and were protected, allowing them to grow crops in order to feed themselves. The role of the English serf was well defined in medieval society: though their main purpose was to labor in the fields, serfs spent much of the week, and a significant part of the year, attending to other personal, social, recreational, and spiritual matters. The serfs lived fascinating, if humble lives, in the service of their lord and kingdom.

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