How to avoid / lessen feudalism (a more progressive Europe?).

Flocc, I've read that only free ceorls were worthy to fight in the Fyrd. Didn't fuedal societies have levies as well, what was their makeup? Were they filled with free men, or those in varying states of bondage?

How less free was a Norman serf compared to an Anglo Saxon slave?
 
Flocc, I've read that only free ceorls were worthy to fight in the Fyrd. Didn't fuedal societies have levies as well, what was their makeup? Were they filled with free men, or those in varying states of bondage?

How less free was a Norman serf compared to an Anglo Saxon slave?

Riain

Is that the right comparison? Surely its a Norman serf with an Anglo-Saxon cerol? Since those were presumably the majority of the community in each case.

Steve
 
I don't think so, afaik a ceorl was a freeman. The Doomsday book classes were Freemen 12%, Villiens 38%, Cottars/Bordars 32% and slaves 9%. The Freemen was not bound the soil the way the Villiens and Cottars/Bordars were, and didn't need permission from the lord to do things like marry off a daughter, put a son into preisthood to sell an animal. He had to bear arms even in Norman England, and could appeal to the Kings court. While Villiens often had similar land and comparable livilhood to a Freeman, they had to ask permission and pay a fee to do these things, couldn't bear arms or appeal to the Kings court.

I was probably being too harsh comparing serfs to slaves, but certainly the Cottars/Bordars were low status people with little chioce but do the lords bidding. Was there a class of people in the AS society similar to serfs, not free but not fully enslaved?
 
I don't think so, afaik a ceorl was a freeman. The Doomsday book classes were Freemen 12%, Villiens 38%, Cottars/Bordars 32% and slaves 9%. The Freemen was not bound the soil the way the Villiens and Cottars/Bordars were, and didn't need permission from the lord to do things like marry off a daughter, put a son into preisthood to sell an animal. He had to bear arms even in Norman England, and could appeal to the Kings court. While Villiens often had similar land and comparable livilhood to a Freeman, they had to ask permission and pay a fee to do these things, couldn't bear arms or appeal to the Kings court.

I was probably being too harsh comparing serfs to slaves, but certainly the Cottars/Bordars were low status people with little chioce but do the lords bidding. Was there a class of people in the AS society similar to serfs, not free but not fully enslaved?

Riain

Possibly we're slightly at cross purposes here. That was my point, that a ceorl was a freeman. But that before the Norman invasion they were far more numerous and probably I suspect in the majority. As such their the counter-point, population wise with a serf in Norman times. Conversely I think your comparing the bottom of the heap in both cases, the chattel slave in Anglo-Saxon England with the serf in Norman England.

Steve
 
No worries. I understand both the Villiens and Cottars/Bordars to be serfs, some 70% of the doomsday population, varying in degree but neither free nor chattel slaves. Freeman and Villiens apparently held sufficient land to support their families but Villiens, being serfs, also owed the lord labour and other obligations, that being the chief difference. Cottars only held enough land for a garden, they did most of their work for their lord and had even less rights than Villiens, and from my way of thinking were one step away from chattel slaves. So perhaps in a non-fuedal society the self supporting Freemen and Villiens would be ceorls (50%) while the Cottars would be lumped with slaves (41%)?
 
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