Tracy Dennison

Serfdom is usually associated with the medieval period, and conjures images of an impoverished peasantry toiling under duress in the fields around the lord’s castle. This view is not so much incorrect as incomplete. In many parts of Europe, especially central and eastern Europe, there were still enserfed peasants in the 18th and 19th centuries. Serfdom disappeared from the European landscape gradually: first in England, in the decades after the Black Death, and last in Russia, by state decree in 1861.  

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