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Peasantry wasn't slavery, but they were serfs, and in the end serfdom didn't end up being very different to slavery.
by yxhuvud 11y ago
Peasantry wasn't slavery, but they were serfs, and in the end serfdom didn't end up being very different to slavery.
- throwaway1410 11y agoAFAIK (I'm not a historian): serfdom started disappearing from most of Western Europe around XV century. In XVII-XVIII it was mostly forgotten, and peasants were free men, who either owned land or rented it from the big land owners. Having said that, their standard of living was dismal (including starvation when prices or crops were low) - often actually lower than in countries which maintained serfdom, such as Poland or Prussia.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]