Serfdom Sentence Examples

The notion of serfdom is distinct from those of freedom and of slavery.

We mean the regime of serfdom.

Not very long after the disappearance of serfdom in the most advanced communities comes into sight the new system of colonial slavery, which, instead of being the spontaneous outgrowth of social necessities and subserving a temporary need of human development, was politically as well as morally a monstrous aberration.

In 1722 serfdom was abolished in the case of all peasants in the royal estates born after his accession.

The great beauty and fertility of the country, as well as the charm of its climate, undoubtedly attracted, even in early ages, successive swarms of invaders from the north, who sometimes drove out the previous occupants of the most favored districts, at others reduced them to a state of serfdom, or settled down in the midst of them, until the two races gradually coalesced.

The lay subjects of the Order consisted of two classes; on the one hand there were the conquered Prussians, in a position of serfdom, bound in time of war to serve with the brethren in foreign expeditions; on the other hand there were the German immigrants, both urban and rural, along with the free Prussians who had voluntarily submitted and remained faithful.

The object he and his associates had then in view was gradual abolition by establishing something like a system of serfdom for existing slaves, and passing at the same time a measure emancipating all their children born after a certain day.

Serfdom is against God's word, " since Christ has delivered and redeemed us all without exception, by the shedding of his precious blood, the lowly as well as the great."

The serfdom which had sprung up in Russia in the 16th century, and became consecrated by law in 1609, taking, however, nearly one hundred and fifty years to attain its full growth, was abolished in 1861.

As soon as the march of conquest had reached its natural limit, slavery began to be modified; and when the empire was divided into the several states which had grown up under it, and the system of defence characteristic of the middle ages was substituted for the aggressive system of antiquity, slavery gradually disappeared, and was replaced by serfdom.

This system, by diminishing the freeman's mastery over himself and his power to determine his occupation, reduced the interval between him and the slave; and the latter on the one hand, the free domestic servant and workshop labourer on the other, both passed insensibly into the common condition of serfdom.

The influence of the Northern invasions on the change from slavery to serfdom was, in all probability, of little account.

The system of serfdom attained its fullest development in the reign of Catherine II.

Accordingly during 1858 a committee was created in nearly every province in which serfdom existed.

The plan was formed, and, in spite of some opposition from the nobles, which was suppressed, it became law, and serfdom was abolished (19th February 3rd March 1861).

Later on serfdom, religious persecutions and conscription were the chief causes which led the peasants to make their escape to Siberia and build their villages in the most inaccessible forests, on the prairies and even on Chinese territory.

It always remained a characteristic feature of serfdom, but was limited and fixed, either by contracts or concessions from the lord (taille abonnee), or by the customs.

At Mile End the king met Wat Tyler; a lengthy and tumultuous conference, during which several persons were slain, took place, in which Tyler demanded the immediate abolition of serfdom and all feudal services, and the removal of all restrictions on freedom of labour and trade, as well as a general amnesty for the insurgents.

His Schiavitic e servaggio (Milan, 1868-1869) gave an account of the development and abolition of slavery and serfdom.

The abolition of serfdom without cancellation of the peasants' prerogatives as to pasturage and timber rights served to accentuate classantagonism.

Serfdom was abolished in 1819, but the peasants remained under the jurisdiction of their landlords.

Serfdom was mitigated, preparatorily to its entire abolition; absolute religious toleration was established, and every citizen declared equal before the law.

The nobles who dominated the diet did nothing to remove the most crying evil of the country - the miserable state of the peasants, who had been freed from personal serfdom by Napoleon in 1807, but were being steadily driven from their holdings by the landlords.

The object of this ordinance was to secure revenue, but it led to the institution of serfdom in its most grinding form.

Some of these were essays, such as his Baptized Property, an attack on serfdom; others were periodical publications, the Polyarnaya Zvyezda (or Polar Star), the Kolokol (or Bell), and the Golosa iz Rossii (or Voices from Russia).

In place of the old system of privileges and exemptions were set equality before the law, universal liability to taxation, abolition of serfdom, security of person and property, liberty of conscience and of the press.

A column of Liberty (FrihedsStotte) rises in an open space, erected in 1798 to commemorate the abolition of serfdom.

Serfdom was abolished in 1807; but the liberated peasants received no allotments of land, and the old patrimonial jurisdictions were retained.

From this centre Spanish adventurers pushed east to La Guayra, beyond the Parana, and west into the Gran Chaco; and before long vast numbers of the less warlike natives were reduced to serfdom.

She abolished serfdom, granted municipal rights to the cities, established an admirable system of elementary and secondary education, and invited all classes to compete for civil offices; and ample means were provided for the approaching struggle by drastic military reform.

In Jutland, too, after the repression, in 1441, of a peasant rising, something very like serfdom was introduced.

On the 17th of September the burgesses introduced a bill proposing a new constitution, which was to include local self-government in the towns, the abolition of serfdom, and the formation of a national army.

Nor was the reforming principle limited to the abolition of serfdom.

He did much too for the economic development of Prussia, especially for agriculture; he established colonies, peopling them with immigrants, extended the canal system, drained and diked the great marshes of the Oderbruch, turning them into rich pasturage, encouraged the planting of fruit trees and of root crops; and, though in accordance with his ideas of discipline he maintained serfdom, he did much to lighten the burdens of the peasants.

The feature of personal serfdom is also noticeable, but it provides a basis only for the comparatively small group of servi, of whom only about 25,000 are enumerated in Domesday Book.

Certain services, especially the payment of merchet- the fine for marrying a daughter - were considered to be the badge of serfdom.

Merchet was regarded, as has been stated already, as a badge of serfdom in so far as it was said to imply a " buying of one's own blood " (serous de sanguine suo emando).

But even those who had migrated into a town with their lords' consent could not very well for long continue in serfdom.

In no country is there such a clear grouping of the towns on geographical lines as in France, these geographical lines, of course, having in the first instance been drawn by historical causes Another feature is the extent to which, in the unruly times preceding the civic movement, serfdom had spread among the inhabitants even of the towns throughout the greater part of the country, and the application of feudal ideas to town government.

It was the principle of rural serfdom applied to social functions.

From that time for nearly six hundred years or more the Esthonians were practically reduced to a state of serfdom to the German landowners.

Serfdom was abolished in 1817 by Tsar Alexander I.; but the condition of the peasants was so little improved that they rose in open revolt in 1859.

To him is attributed the foundation of Stockholm; but he is best known as a legislator, and his wise reforms prepared the way for the abolition of serfdom.

After the conquest of Peru by the Spaniards in the 16th century the natives were subjected to much tyranny and oppression, though it must in fairness be said that much of it was carried out in defiance of the efforts and the wishes of the Spanish home government, whose legislative efforts to protect the Indians from serfdom and ill-usage met with scant respect at the hands of the distant settlers and mine-owners, who bid defiance to the humane and protective regulations of the council of the Indies, and treated the unhappy natives little better than beasts of burden.

A decree of 1 4 87 practically established serfdom in Bohemia, where it had hitherto been almost unknown.

The peasantry had ceased to be dangerous since the establishment of serfdom; the power of the cities was now thoroughly undermined.

Serfdom is very often conceived as a perpetual adherence to the soil of an estate owned by a lord, but this praedial character is not a necessary feature of the condition.

Hereditary serfdom may sometimes assume the shape of a personal relation between servant and master.

Such being the general features of serfdom, it is sure to appear in very different ages and countries.

The regulation by the state of the duties and customary status of peasants on government domains turns out to be one of the roots of serfdom in the Roman world, which in this respect as in many others follows on the lines laid down by Hellenistic culture.

Thus the ascription to the soil, although originally a consequence of ascription to the tributes (adscriptio censibus), became the mark of the legal status of serfdom.

And yet serfdom became the prevailing condition for the lower orders during the middle ages.

The direction of events towards the formation of serfdom is already clearly noticeable in Celtic communities.

In Wales and Ireland the greater part of the rural working classes was reduced not to a state of slavery, but to serfdom.

In the eyes of a Roman observer, however, even downright slavery was turned into serfdom by the force of circumstances.

After the conquest of the provinces by the Germanic invaders the Roman stock of coloni naturally combined with German tributary peasants to form medieval serfdom.

The dualism characteristic of medieval serfdom, its formation out of debased freedom and rising servitude, may be traced all through the history of the middle ages.

A very instructive example of the formation of serfdom is presented by the history of Russia..

The state insisted to a certain extent on the public character of this subjection and drew distinctions between personal slavery and serfdom.

But, in fact, serfdom naturally took the form of an ugly ownership of live chattels on the part of a privileged class, and all sorts of excesses, of cruelty, ruthless exploitation and wanton caprice, followed as a matter of course.

The fabric of a state built up on the basis of serfdom proved inadequate to meet the tasks of modern times.

If we turn back from this course of development to the history of serfdom and emancipation in the West striking contrasts appear.

As we have already noticed, medieval serfdom in the West was the result of a process of customary feudal growth hardly interfered with by central governments.

The evolution of serfdom in Germany was effected by the working of somewhat more complicated causes.

Personal serfdom (Leibeigenschaft) was abolished first, hereditary subjection (Erbunterthanigkeit) followed next.

On the whole serfdom appears as a characteristic corollary of feudalism.

In 1747 he decreed the abolition of serfdom, but this enactment was not carried 1 One of these, with the legend " Constantinvs Bassaraba De Brancovan D.G.Voevoda Et Princeps Valachiae Transalpinae," and having on the reverse the crowned shield of Walachia containing a raven holding a cross in its beak between a moon and a star, is engraved by Del Chiaro.

Nevertheless serfdom continued to decline mano in!

The influences which by the 13th century had abolished serfdom in western Spain were all at work before the reign of Ramiro II.

This mode of colonization was especially favourable to the peasantry, who seem in Brandenburg to have retained the disposal of their persons and property at a time when villenage or serfdom was the ordinary status of their class elsewhere.

Moreover, many proprietors contrived to curtail seriously the allotments which the peasants had possessed under serfdom, and frequently they deprived them of precisely the parts which they were most in need of, namely, pasture lands around their houses, and forests.

In a primitive, Begin- thinly populated, agricultural country, in which the flings of demand for agricultural labour greatly exceeds the serfdom.

To him the peasants' attempt to abolish serfdom was wholly unchristian, since it was a divinely sanctioned institution, and if they succeeded they would " make God a liar."

He wished to abolish serfdom and throw open state employments to all.

In Russia, a country which had not the same historical antecedents with the Western nations, properly so called, and which is in fact more correctly classed as Eastern, whilst slavery had disappeared, serfdom was in force down to our own days.

The government interpreted the application as implying a wish for the abolition of serfdom, and issued a rescript authorizing the formation of committees to prepare definite proposals for a gradual emancipation.