Where political factors had led to a situation in which the obligations of serfs were
radically mitigated, where they became mere licensing fees, it made little economic sense
on the part of lords to perpetuate the system. Since the language of servile obligations
remained pejorative (“vile and unnatural” is what the records call serfdom), serfs sought
to be manumitted and lords frequently responded favorably for a price. The 13th and
early 14th centuries were the most active periods for manumission. King Louis X in 1315
freed all royal serfs. The demographic catastrophe of the middle decades of the 14th
century went farther to undermine traditional serfdom, as peasants whose labor was in
demand were able to escape the strictures of the system. On the other hand, the
conservatism of lords in several regions and the attempt to enforce servile obligations as a
hedge against the labor unrest of the 14th and 15th centuries ensured that in some areas of
France serfdom would persist until the end of the ancien régime.
It should be added, finally, that even where manumission was widely practiced or the
demographic crisis undermined traditional forms of dependence, serfdom vanished, not
lordship. Many obligations therefore remained in being that were not considered debasing
of status at all. The most important of these were the so-called banalities, the requirement
that rustics living in a seigneurie bake their bread for a fee in the lord’s oven, grind their
grain at his mill, press their grapes at his winepress, and perhaps concede a privileged
place in the market to the lord’s produce. Although often contested, these obligations
remained largely intact until well into the modern period.
William Chester Jordan
[See also: AFFRANCHISEMENT; BAN/BANALITÉ; FEUDALISM; FORMARIAGE;
MAINMORTE; SEIGNEUR/SEIGNEURIE]
Bernard, Pierre. Étude sur les esclaves et les serfs d’église en France du Vle au XIIIe siècle. Paris:
Sirey, 1919.
Bloch, Marc. Rois et serfs: un chapitre d’histoire capétienne. Paris: Champion, 1920.
Dockès, Pierre. Medieval Slavery and Liberation, trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1982.
Sée, Henri. Les classes rurales et le régime domanial en France au moyen âge. Paris: Giard et
Brière, 1901.
SERGEANT
. The word “sergeant” (Lat. serviens/OFr. sergent) described people of various types and
duties. In the military context, sergeants were lightly armed fighting men who served and
supported knights. In other contexts, sergeants acted as guards, ushers, policemen,
messengers, process servers, jailkeepers, all-purpose functionaries of administrators in
provincial districts like bailliages or sénéchaussées, and simply as servants within noble
households. Mounted sergeants charged with executing judgments, levying fines,
confiscating property, or apprehending malefactors were perhaps the governmental
officials most frequently encountered by ordinary citizens. Understandably, they were
unpopular, and sometimes the king responded to demands that their number be reduced.
John Bell Henneman, Jr.
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