A kholop ( rus, холо́п, p=xɐˈlop) was a type of

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...

serf Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which developed ...

Kievan Rus' Kievan Rusʹ, also known as Kyivan Rusʹ ( orv, , Rusĭ, or , , ; Old Norse: ''Garðaríki''), was a state in Eastern and Northern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical Atlas o ...

, then in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

between the 10th and early 18th centuries. Their legal status was close to that of

slaves Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

Etymology

The word ''kholop'' was first mentioned in a

chronicle A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and ...

for the year of 986. The word is

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical ef ...

with Slavic words translated as "man" or "boy" (modern Ukrainian: хлопець (''khlopets''), Polish: ''chłopiec'', Bulgarian: ''хлапе''/''хлапак''). ''Chlap/chlop'' (pronounced khlap/khlop) is a synonym for "man" in Slovak (''chlapec'' thus being the diminutive). Such transitions between the meanings "young person" and "servant" (in both directions) are commonplace, as evident from the English use of "boy" in the sense of "domestic servant".

Kholops

The ''

Russkaya Pravda The ''Russkaya Pravda'' (Rus' Justice, Rus' Truth, or Russian Justice; orv, Правда роусьскаꙗ, ''Pravda Rusĭskaya'' (13th century, 1280), Правда Руськая, ''Pravda Rus'kaya'' (second half of the 15th century); russian: ...

,'' a

legal code A code of law, also called a law code or legal code, is a systematic collection of statutes. It is a type of legislation that purports to exhaustively cover a complete system of laws or a particular area of law as it existed at the time the cod ...

of the late Kievan Rus, details the status and types of ''kholops'' of the time. In the 11th–12th centuries, the term referred to different categories of dependent people and especially slaves. A ''kholop''s master had unlimited power over his life, e.g., he could kill him, sell him, or pay his way out of

debt Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money or other agreed-upon value to another party, the creditor. Debt is a deferred payment, or series of payments, which differentiates it from an immediate purchase. The ...

with him. The master, however, was responsible for a ''kholop''s actions, such as insulting a freeman or stealing. Boevye kholopi 1556 Gerbersteyn

A person could become a ''kholop'' as a result of capture, selling oneself, being sold for debts, after having committed

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in C ...

s, or through marriage to a ''kholop''. Until the late 15th century, the ''kholops'' represented a majority among the servants, who had been working lordly lands. Some ''kholops'', mainly house

s, replenished the ranks of the

prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. ...

ly servants (including those in the

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

) or engaged themselves in trades,

farming Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peopl ...

, or administrative activities. Throughout the 16th century, the role of the ''kholops'' in the corvée economy had been diminishing due to the increasing involvement of

peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasa ...

exploitation (''see

Russian serfdom The term '' serf'', in the sense of an unfree peasant of tsarist Russia, is the usual English-language translation of () which meant an unfree person who, unlike a slave, historically could be sold only with the land to which they were "att ...

''). At the turn of the 16th century, the service class ''kholops'' (служилое холопство, ''sluzhiloye kholopstvo'') began to emerge and spread across the country. In the late 17th century, there were also ''kholops'' "chained" to their land (посаженные на землю, ''posazhenniye na zemlyu''), who took care of their own

household A household consists of two or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is i ...

and had to pay quitrent. Those ''kholops'', who had been house serfs, were subject to

poll tax A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments f ...

in 1722–1724 and were thereafter treated as ordinary serfs.

Combat servants

"Combat servants" ( rus, боевые холопы, boevie kholopi), also known as "military slaves" in literature, constituted an armed retinue and personal protection for large and medium-sized landowners in the 16th-18th centuries, and carried out military service together with noblemen, constituting a considerable part of the " Landed Army". They were equipped as mounted archers, usually wearing cheap quilted armor and caps.

References

*{{GSEncyclopedia Society of Kievan Rus' Economy of the Russian Empire Feudalism in Russia