31 8Chapter 17
the Habsburg government. The same lord arrested
draft evaders or tax delinquents and punished them,
and peasants could not appeal his justice.
Variations within the Peasantry: Serfdom
The majority of Europeans during the Old Regime
were peasant farmers, but this peasantry, like the aris-
tocracy, was not a homogeneous class. The foremost
difference distinguished free peasants from those
legally bound by virtual slavery. Outright slavery no
longer existed in most of Europe by 1700, although Eu-
ropean governments allowed slavery in their overseas
colonies. Portugal (the only country to import African
slaves into Europe), the Ottoman Empire, and the
Danubian provinces (where 200,000 gypsies were
enslaved) were exceptions.
Multitudes of European peasants still lived in the
virtual slavery known as serfdom, a medieval institution
that had survived into the Old Regime (and would last
into the nineteenth century in parts of Europe). Serf-
dom was not slavery, but it resembled slavery in several
ways. Serfs could not own land. They were bound to
the soil, meaning that they could not choose to migrate
from the land they farmed. In addition, serfs might be
sold or given away, or gambled away. Entire villages
could be abolished and relocated. Serfs might be sub-
jected to corporal punishment such as flogging. One
Russian count ordered the whipping of all serfs who did
not attend church, and the penalty for missing Easter
Communion was five thousand lashes. A Russian decree
of 1767 summarized this situation simply: Serfs “owe
their landlords proper submission and absolute obedi-
ence in all matters.”
The distinction between serfdom and slavery was
noteworthy. Unlike slaves, serfs were not chattel prop-
erty (property other than real estate). Serfs were rarely
sold without including the land that they farmed or
without their families. Serfs enjoyed a few traditional
legal rights. They could make a legal appeal to a village
council or a seigneurial court. They could not press
charges or give evidence against nobles or their bailiffs,
so their legal rights protected them within the peasant
community but not against their lords.
Serfdom survived in some portions of western Eu-
rope and became more common as one traveled east.
East of the Elbe River, serfdom was the dominant social
institution. In parts of France and the western German
states, vestigial serfdom still restricted hundreds of
thousands of people. In Prussia and Poland, approxi-
mately 20 percent of the peasants were free and 80 per-
cent serfs. In Hungary, only 2 percent of the peasants
were free; in Denmark and in the Slavic provinces of
the Austrian Empire (Bohemia and Silesia), perhaps 1
percent; in Russia, less than 1 percent.
Variations did exist within serfdom. In Russia, a
peasant family typically belonged to a noble land-
owner, but 40 percent of the serfs were state serfs
farming the imperial domains. These state serfs had
been created by Peter the Great when he seized lands
belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church. Those
who labored for the nobility experienced conditions
as diverse as did their seigneurs; more than 30 percent
of landowners held small farms with fewer than ten
serfs, while 16 percent of the Russian nobility owned
estates large enough to encompass an entire village of
one hundred or more serfs. The great nobility pos-
sessed so many souls that many served as house serfs,
domestic servants whose life differed significantly
from their counterparts who labored in the fields.
The basic legal obligation of serfs was compulsory,
unpaid labor in the fields of landowners. This obliga-
tory labor, called robotin much of central and eastern
Europe, was defined by law but varied from region to
region. In Prussia serfs owed the Junker aristocrats two
or three days of unpaid labor every week and more dur-
ing the harvest. Junkers, however, needed more labor
than their serfs provided and therefore hired some free
peasants. The feudal labor laws of Bohemia specified
three days per week of robot,plus harvest labor “at the
will” of a noble. A law of 1775 defined a day of labor as
eight hours during the winter, twelve hours during the
spring and summer, and fourteen hours during the har-
vest. Russian serfs commonly worked six days per week
for a landowner (see document 17.2). In some regions,
however, a different system applied: Serfs farmed an al-
lotment of land and gave the landowners a large per-
centage of the harvest.
A study of the serfs in the Baltic provinces of Russia
reveals how these obligations added up. A family of
eight able-bodied peasants (including women) owed
their master the following: two field workers for three
days per week, every week of the year; ten to twelve
days of miscellaneous labor such as livestock herding;
four trips, totaling about fifty-six days of labor, carting
goods for the seigneur; forty-two days of postal-relay
services; and twenty-four days of spinning flax. In addi-
tion to such labor, European peasant families owed feu-
dal payments in kind, such as grain, sheep, wool,
chickens, and eggs. Even then they could not keep
their remaining production. They had to guard 20 per-
cent to 25 percent of a harvest as seed for the following
year. Peasants also usually owed a compulsory tithe to