How Europe Transitioned from Slavery to Serfdom - Middle Ages DOCUMENTARY

Kings and Generals animated historical documentary series on medieval history and economic history continue with a video on how Europe transformed from Slavery to Serfdom during the middle ages. We will try to deduce when the slavery practice started to decline, how it was mostly banned, what was the difference between slavery and serfdom, and how the church and feudals reacted to interacted with these 2 practices.

#Documentary #Feudalism #Medieval

[KingsandGenerals]

Fun fact: It is very important to properly hydrate during the cold months. Dew it, drink some water. Like the video, share it with your friends. Tell them to drink water.

[starwarsnerd]

Slaves: “We’re free!”
Lords: “Oh I wouldn’t say free. More like under new management.”

[Blauboad]

Looking forward for part two: How Europe Transitioned from Serfdom to Internships

[Mrkabrat]

Lord: So, what are you qualifications?
Peasant: Well, I used to be a slave for 20 years
Lord: Splendid, you'll make a great serf!

[Stmm]

To be honest the serfdom differed around Europe considerably. At least in Estonia and Livonia the serfs were bound to the land, but they were still tradeable entities between lords. Traded for hunting dogs etc. The families were separated as well in the process. Not going very detail of the differences.

[slipstreamxr]

Interesting fact about serfdom. The Czech and Polish words for a worker/serf are were we get the word Robot from.

[lancejacksage]

Honestly explained the transition so much better than what was taught in high school. Whenever they teach about the fall of Rome and the medieval period it’s taught as if it goes from magnificent buildings of marble and granite to straight castles and plague and then byzantines get a mention but that’s it. No one actually talked about the transition period and this channel has fed my curiosity of that time.

[princepscivitatis]

Fun fact: the 'Sentencia Arbitral de Guadalupe', issued by King Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1486 to bring about an end to the Wars of the Remences (a war fought between the Nobility and the Peasantry of Catalonia over property rights and the abolishment of the "evil laws") is the first 'emancipation proclamation' of Europe.

The edict basically granted the Peasants:
•the ability to own/lease land in perpetuity with the additional ability to draw up contracts, which in turn are upheld by the newly established Catalonian General Court.
•personal freedoms that cannot be infringed upon by neither the Crown, the Nobility nor the Church.
•the abolishment of the "evil laws" (it's a thing of its own)
•liberation from serfdom (the King, who was described by many including Machiavelli, as frugal, paid 30 sous per head for their freedom out of his own pocket)

Such rights would not be seen in Europe for another 3 centuries, until the French Revolution.

Despite all this; modern-day Catalans see Ferdinand as a exploitative opportunist. Ironically, he really was one...to everyone but the Catalans.

[QuantumHistorian]

The introduction isn't quite accurate. Slaves in Roman society had some _very_ limited rights. There are a few cases of people being prosecuted for punishing their slaves too harshly. The reasoning wasn't about the welfare of the slaves per se, but a fear that it would spark slave revolts. The outcome is the same: owners were more restricted as to what they could do to their slaves than to their animal livestock.

[the_metamancer]

Hey so Established Titles is actually a scam... Their company is not based in the UK, you are not legally a Lord or Lady, and you don't actually own the land. You're paying $50 for a pdf please do not buy from established titles!

[JonatasAdoM]

Slave: "I am finally free!"
Lord: "Be free somewhere else, I'm not hiring you"
Free man: "Wait, what?"
Lord: "I could hire you, if you're willing to work for barely enough to afford food and shelter"
Serf: "The more things change, the more they stay the same"

[JohnnyElRed]

"You know what else stinks about being a slave? The hours."

[jdet]

FYI - Established Titles is a scam. The Scottish Parliament ruled in 2012 that one can't own souvenier plots of land - which is what Established Titles is selling.

[williamkline]

Loved the video. The way people lived daily lives is sorely misunderstood in most people’s understanding of history. Would you all consider making a comparison of serfs and peasants in Europe with other similar positions in places like China Japan and/or the Caliphates states? It’s easy to gloss over them as merely feudalism with different characteristics but I think it would be really enlightening to really understand how different they were and weren’t.

[BelleDividends]

@Kings and Generals
0) Great video, I learned a lot!
1) Small Correction: in Classical Greece (Athens, Sparta, etc.) slavery existed, but did not form the core basis of the economy. The Silver Mines of Athens was the only place of mass-slavery.
2) I argue the shift from the slavery to serfdom started already in the early Roman Empire era (1st century CE/AD). This shift was in practice and treatment, and did not yet constitute any legal changes. Let me explain: 

The essence of a slave economy is mass slavery to work the land and in the mines. By whatever means, trade or conquest, the slaves come from outside the own community. The slaves, arriving from different communities and cultures, often not sharing any language, have a very difficult time working together and posing a collective threat to their owners, which enables their owners to treat them so bad as they do. When there slaves share youth, language and culture, they are better capable of working together and forcing certain rights to be obtained. That is one reason why class differences in local communities tend to take various forms of serfdom, rather than slavery.

Another important difference is inner motivation. With mass slavery, slaves have nothing and slaves get nothing. Wether the land they till blossoms or deteriorates, they go equally hungry. The only motivation these slaves get is the whip, but the whip can't be everywhere all at the same time. This is also the reason why Roman society mostly used wooden tools and metal tools in agriculture. Metal tools are only better if they treated with some form of respect. It is also the reason why the Roman's didn't use work horse in agriculture, but only oxen. Oxen survive maltreatment better than horses.

Serves, on the other hand, have a higher inner motivation. If their lands do better, they do better as well. And so, from the early middle ages on, great technological leaps were made in agriculture which increased productivity. 


The Roman Empire, after Emperor August, more or lass peaked in expansion and did not conquer as much territory anymore as previously during the republican and earliest imperial era. One can suspect a lower influx of new slaves and henceforth a rise in slave prices. Although I myself haven't found literal evidence of this yet, I do see some logical effects that would follow such a development. Slaves gradually were treated better and the lifes of slaves were not so easily spent anymore. The survival ratio of losing gladiators increased massively, which on its turn led to an influx of gladiator volunteers. In the cities, househeld slaves were given more and more freedom. They were allowed to run a personal business besides their daily obligatory chores. This leads to a change from slave's lack of motivation to a serf's form of inner motivation. Legally they still had no rights, and the masters could take away all their gained riches at a whim. But in practice, the treatment of slaves had started to change. The number of slaves set free after years of faithful servitude rose as well.

For all of these reasons, I argue the change from slavery to serfdom already started in the first century CE, albeit not yet in legal terms. But as you explain in your video, the change was gradual with lots of ups and downs. I also believe slavery lasted longer in Italy, the former Roman Empire's core land, than in parts of Europe.

[andrewkhan]

Love all this channel's content, but these big picture social change/development videos always come out on top. Keep up the great work guys. You are the golden age of history content!

[free_at_last]

This channel covers such a wide array of topics, and all so well. Great job, keep it up.

[kanealoha]

I’ve always enjoyed learning about world history. I’m 52 now and to this day I listen to podcasts about it -watch shows on different platforms, read books, etc. It engages my mind.

Recently, there has been a part of me that has become sad and burned out as I can’t get over the awful way that people have treated each other throughout history. Regardless of culture, physical location, era, etc, the patterns repeat over and over again on various scales. Slavery, murder, war, a powerful lack of kindness; it is all there as a part of who we are as humans. It continues unabated today. I can understand why these behaviors might exist for any number of reasons, but that knowledge doesn’t make them any more palatable.

I know that I won’t stop learning about and being interested in history as the future unfolds. However, I’m not sure how this particular perspective will change or remain static and am wondering if that feeling of pain is a stop along the way or something to be begrudgingly embraced for the future road.

[HistoryOfRevolutions]

"When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery"

- Maxim Gorky

[aaronmarks]

I'd love to see a whole series on the institution of slavery throughout history. What was slavery like in the Islamic World? In China? In sub-Saharan Africa? And there definitely needs to be some videos on the Atlantic slave trade and slavery in the United States, the Caribbean, and Brazil, as well as the "blackbirder" slavery in 18th/19th century Oceania