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Serfs paying up. From northumberlandarchives.com

A serf’s guide to feudalism

Feudalism is back in fashion. With that in mind, here’s a handy rhetorical rough guide for beginner serfs. While nobody can teach you to serf, history can be a guide, showing you what to expect. Once you get started who knows? Maybe it won’t seem so strange after all.

A serf’s role in a feudal system is simple. The serf is granted access to a small piece of somebody else’s productive resource on condition they use it to generate a surplus for the owner. In return they may retain a portion of their production for their own subsistence. Back in medieval times, we are told, the owners – granted tracts of productive land or other assets by virtue of a cascading system of favours with the crown at its head and a hierarchy of aristocrats forming the layers above the hard-labouring serfs at its foot – paid their share of the serf-created surplus back up the chain, with the crown the ultimate beneficiary.

Apart from having to generate surpluses for those above them on the socio-economic ladder, serfs also had to “know their place”. Whether or not they were happy with their lot in life, they were expected to at least pay lip service to the official religion, submit to the laws created by the higher-ups, pay due respect to their social superiors and – very importantly – go to war without question whenever and wherever required by the crown.

Freedom? Of course serfs were free! They could harbour whatever thoughts they wished in the privacy of their carefully uneducated and indoctrinated minds. Provided they did nothing to disrupt the system or disturb the placid productivity of their fellow-serfs this freedom was unquestionably theirs. They could gather with other serfs and form little communities, have regular sing-songs, drink themselves into a stupor and amuse themselves as they saw fit, provided none of it interfered too much with their productivity. As long as the value of their sweat and blood flowed upwards – the tiny trickles from every person joining into rivulets and streams past the grinding mills of the lords and barons and into a broad torrent to the crown with its castles and jewels, its carriages and estates and its armies and armouries then all was well.

God and my Right, Gott mit uns, In God we trust, etc, etc. Ferocity and fantasy guaranteeing freedom, justice, truth and mercy. Get back to work.

Justice? Serfs had access to justice, for sure. Trusted magistrates and judges were appointed by the higher-ups to settle arguments between serfs and maintain the stability of the system, keeping the flow of sweat and blood moving in the right direction. The awesome majesty of the lion and the unicorn stood above it all in a marvellous marriage of ferocity and fantasy, wielding the sword with the blessing and imprimatur of a great invisible deity who looked upon this great system and found it good.

Truth? Truth is the heritage of all, even serfs. Truth is out there, whether one finds it or not. And since nobody can define it then let us blunder on with a broad consensus where none of us really believes but where that doesn’t matter anyway. The serfs might know they are no more than livestock on the farm of a criminal bully but that doesn’t matter so long as the system stands. The criminal bullies – the lords or barons – might know the monarch is a drunken lunatic, that the wars they send their serfs to fight under proud flags and trumpets are nothing but pillage and theft and that justice is bought and sold when and as required. It doesn’t matter as long as the system stands. The priests might be black-hearted, child-abusing monsters, so long as they ring the bells and stand solid with the system. It doesn’t matter so long as the system stands.

Mercy? Always a given, for serfs. Freedom, justice and truth are guaranteed by an all-seeing, all-knowing invisible deity who will murder you painfully forever, long after you and all your children are dust, if you dare step out of line. In return for believing this, you may also believe that the criminal bullies who siphon your blood and sweat while you live and breathe will be humbled in hell by the invisible deity who blesses the sword of the system in your lifetime.

Just as the blood and sweat of the serf must flow upwards, so must trickle down, for the good of the system, freedom, justice, truth and mercy.

And so we bow our heads and know, in our hearts, that this is good and right.

That’s feudalism, for beginners.

Now go and find a gig, get some debt, go to church, cast a vote, watch the news and prepare for war. So that the system may stand.


Really want to know actual truths about medieval serfdom? Better off reading this.


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