(02-17-2023, 01:11 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote: Serfs were property. Just because it's institutionalized, doesn't mean it's not the same concept. They just put a pretty bow on it. And even then, you have the same question. What VALUE or VALUES in the west caused them to rebrand? You love to not answer questions.

Serfdom is when you are tied to the land.  You are only bought or sold when the land is bought and sold.  They had more legal rights than slaves.  It was bad, but it's an improvement over chattel slavery.

As for why serfdom ended, first in England then westward and finally into Russia, that's very complicated.  Spain, Portugal, and Italy never had very many serfs in the first place.  By the time you get to the Germans and Austrians considering an end to serfdom, they were doing so because the English and French had already demonstrated that abolition vastly helped with raising, feeding, and equipping armies.  It was material, not spiritual.  And the French did it to imitate the English and White and Native Americans, again because they saw it would make them more materially prosperous.  Why did the English get that train going in the 1300s?  That's much less clear.

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