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Serfs

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Serfs 

a category of direct producers in medieval Western Europe. During the formative period of feudalism there were two types of serfs—those who constituted a stratum of late classical Roman society, occupying a position similar to that of Roman slaves, and those who constituted a stratum of Teutonic society, with their actual status determined by the relations of patriarchal slavery among the Germans. During the period of developed feudalism the serfs constituted a category of dependent feudal peasants extremely limited in their civil and economic rights.



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The occasional emergence of an Equilateral from the ranks of his serf-born ancestors is welcomed, not only by the poor serfs themselves, as a gleam of light and hope shed upon the monotonous squalor of their existence, but also by the Aristocracy at large; for all the higher classes are well aware that these rare phenomena, while they do little or nothing to vulgarize their own privileges, serve as a most useful barrier against revolution from below.
" Konstantin Levin broke in with still greater heat; "the emancipation of the serfs was a different matter.
What are the sinews and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession is the whole of the law?
 
 
 
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