serfdom

serfdom, a term indicating the social condition of a tenant, servile by birth. Serfdom on manors in Ireland was neither imported nor necessarily the consequence of the depression of formerly free tenants by their conquerors. Instead the Anglo‐Normans appear to have taken over the food‐rendering clients (betaghs) of former Gaelic lords. In the largely Gaelic bishopric of Cloyne a more arbitrary servile regime prevailed than in Anglo‐Norman areas, where the force of custom moderated conditions. Although many small Anglo‐Norman tenants probably fled serfdom in England, they were treated as free in Ireland.

As with other classes of tenants, the serf's status was determined by tenure rather than by the nature of the labour services he rendered. Free tenements, especially those held by gavillers and cottars, were burdened with labour services too. Even burgesses were sometimes obliged to render limited services. What distinguished the free from the unfree was the liberty to plead in free courts. In theory the serf was a slave, subject to the arbitrary will of his lord, but in practice he was protected by the custom of the manor. The serf attended the manor court, where customary law, not the will of the lord, was declared by the suitors, both free and servile. The lord, as much as his servile tenants, was bound to respect that law. Moreover, if a freeman inflicted injury on a serf, he was liable to prosecution by the serf's lord; the serf thus had some protection from the free courts. In Ireland the manorial regime was fairly benign. On the manor of Lisronagh, Co. Tipperary, in 1333 serfs were required to perform basically seasonal services on the demesnes: ploughing an acre of wheat and oats; one day of reaping in the autumn; providing carriage for grain; making hay and stacking it. In certain cases they were paid for such work, and were also entitled to receive food and drink at the lord's expense. Even their animals and corn were protected: the lord and his bailiffs ‘shall have the right to purchase such for money at a reasonable estimate’. These services were significantly lighter than those imposed on the villein in England. Serfdom disappeared in the later Middle Ages, no doubt because the commutation of services to rent had the effect of rendering serfs indistinguishable from other classes of rent‐paying tenant.

Revd Canon C. A. Empey