!!!Leibeigenschaft

Serfdom (Bondage), a term which came into use in the high Middle Ages 
for a type of personal dependence differing form late Roman slavery. 
As a rule, serfdom included personal rights and limited ownership 
rights. People became serfs through subjugation, abduction, purchase, 
inheritance (through the marriage of partners of unequal social 
status, whereby the lower status was taken on by the partner, or when 
the mother was a serf). In the eras of the Carolingians and the 
Ottones, unfree persons living on the estates of their lords 
("servi casati") worked for their own livelihoods but also 
were required to give labour and produce to the "villa" of 
their lord. "Servi manentes" were (usually young, unmarried) 
servants and maids on large estates. Unfree women worked in large 
workshops ("Gynaezeen"). In the high Middle Ages persons of 
this status were called "proprii" ("own people"). 
In the course of the expansion and colonisation which took place in 
the high Middle Ages, an independent peasantry developed out of former 
members of the agriculturalist proprii. From serfs employed in special 
services (as bailiffs or knights), "ministeriales" developed 
within the respective estates of the lords; these were special groups 
of followers who bore arms and from whom a large part of the 
aristocracy of the late Middle Ages developed. Numerous serfs were 
freed in the 11%%sup th/%  to 13%%sup th/%  centuries and, for a 
certain payment, put into the service of clergymen 
("Zensualen"); these persons with freedom of movement are 
considered to have been significant in the development of the class of 
townspeople. In the 13%%sup th/%  century, as far as the agricultural 
sector was concerned, the boundaries between freed men, serfs, and 
Zensualen became quite fluid. Serfdom existed later in the region that 
is now Austria only as a form of punishment after peasants' revolts. 
In Bavaria and southwestern Germany, serfdom as a personally dependent 
condition remained in existence up into the 18%%sup th/%  century. In 
the vernacular and in certain academic interpretations, an intensified 
dependence of the peasantry from the 16%%sup th/%  century, 
particularly in the regions east of the Elbe and in Poland, Bohemia, 
and Hungary, is called the "second enserfment". This is 
valid inasmuch as Emperor Joseph II spoke of "serfdom" 
when transforming this dependent condition into a more moderate form 
of hereditary vassalage similar to the Austrian prototype by means of 
the "Leibeigenschaftsaufhebungspatent" ("serfdom 
abolishment charter") for the Bohemian countries, dating from 
1 September 1781. Since then, as set down in the  Allgemeines 
Buergerliches Gesetzbuch (General Austrian Civil Code of Law) of 1811, 
serfdom has no longer been allowed in Austria.

!Literature
E. Bruckmueller, Sozialgeschichte Oesterreichs, 1985.


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