Answer: The serfs were slaves. Explanation: The serf in Russia empire is an unfree peasant who likes a slave could be sold to with the land he or she was attached to.

Serfdom, condition in medieval Europe in which a tenant farmer was bound to a hereditary plot of land and to the will of his landlord. The serf provided his own food and clothing from his own productive efforts. A substantial proportion of the grain the serf grew on his holding had to be given to his lord.

Peasants, Serfs and Farmers Peasants were the poorest people in the medieval era and lived primarily in the country or small villages. Serfs were the poorest of the peasant class, and were a type of slave. Lords owned the serfs who lived on their lands.

A serf is a person who is forced to work on a plot of land, especially during the medieval period when Europe practiced feudalism, when a few lords owned all the land and everyone else had to toil on it. The Latin root of the word is servus, which literally means “slave,” but serf and slave are not synonyms.

Under the feudal contract, the lord had the duty to provide the fief for his vassal, to protect him, and to do him justice in his court. The vassal owed fealty to his lord.

How could a vassal become a lord? If a vassal gained enough land, he could give some to other knights and become a lord himself. What led to the creation of feudalism? Nobles needed to defend their lands from invaders and from other nobles or kings.

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• Service for Land.
• The Manor.
• Hierarchy of Rulers.
• King – The top leader in the land was the king.
• Bishop – The Bishop was the top church leader in the kingdom and managed an area called a diocese.
• Barons and Nobles- The Barons and high ranking nobles ruled large areas of land called fiefs.

During the High Middle Ages, knighthood was considered a class of lower nobility. By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior.

Royalty. The Royalty were the highest of the Social Classes in the Middle Ages. The Royalty included Kings, Queens, Princes, and Princesses.

In the Middle ages society was conposed by three orders of people: the nobles, the clergy, the peasants.

The Germanic groups lived in small communities and lived by unwritten rules and traditions. There were no large governments or educational provisions for the communities. The educated middle class practically disappeared during the Middle Ages. School all but disappeared and few people were able to read or write.

After the fall of Rome, no single state or government united the people who lived on the European continent. Instead, the Catholic Church became the most powerful institution of the medieval period. Kings, queens and other leaders derived much of their power from their alliances with and protection of the Church.

During the beginning of the 13th Century, the Pope Innocent III was the highest ranking person in Europe (as the representative on Earth of God Himself, he was above kings and emperors), considered the most powerful man alive, “Vicar of Christ” and master of the World.

What the Church got in tithes was kept in huge tithe barns; a lot of the stored grain would have been eaten by rats or poisoned by their urine. A failure to pay tithes, so the peasants were told by the Church, would lead to their souls going to Hell after they had died. This is one reason why the Church was so wealthy.

Church in Daily Life. The lives of the people of the Middle Ages revolved around the Church. People, especially women, were known to attend church three to five times daily for prayer and at least once a week for services, confession, and acts of contrition for repentance.