A smerd ( orv, смердъ) was a free
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 peasant ...
and later a
feudal-dependent
serf in the
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
Slavic states of
East Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...
. Sources from the 11th and 12th centuries (such as the 12th-century ''
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: ...
'') mention their presence in
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 of ...
and
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
as the ''smardones''. Etymologically, the word ''smerd'' comes from a common Indo-European root meaning "ordinary man" or "dependent man".
In Kievan Rus', ''smerdy'' were peasants who gradually lost their freedom (partially or completely) and whose
legal
Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. ...
status differed from group to group. Unlike
slaves, they had their own
property
Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
and had to pay
fines Fines may refer to:
* Fines, Andalusia, Spanish municipality
* Fine (penalty)
* Fine, a dated term for a premium on a lease of land, a large sum the tenant pays to commute (lessen) the rent throughout the term
*Fines, ore or other products with a s ...
for their delinquencies, legally the ''smerds'' never possessed full
rights
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory ...
; killing of a ''smerd'' was punished by the same fine as killing of a ''
kholop
A kholop ( rus, холо́п, p=xɐˈlop) was a type of feudal serf in Kievan Rus', then in Russia between the 10th and early 18th centuries. Their legal status was close to that of slaves.
Etymology
The word ''kholop'' was first mentioned in ...
'' (similarly to a slave). The property of the deceased was inherited by the ''
knyaz'' (prince). The ''Russkaya Pravda'' forbade torturing ''smerds'' during court examination without consent of the ''
knyaz''.
During the 12th and the 13th centuries a number of sources mention the ''smerdy'' while narrating events in
Halych-Volynia and in
Novgorod. It appears that during this period the term ''smerd'' encompassed the whole rural population of a given region. Sources of the 14th and 15th centuries refer to ''smerds'' of Novgorod and
Pskov as peasant-
proprietor
Ownership is the state or fact of legal possession and control over property, which may be any asset, tangible or intangible. Ownership can involve multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different ...
s, who possessed lands collectively (communes) or individually and had the right to freely alienate their own allotments. However, their personal freedom was limited: they were forbidden to seek a new master or princely
patronage. The ''knyaz'' could not accept complaints from ''smerds'' against their master. Also, ''smerds'' had to provide labor services and to pay tribute (''dan) to the benefit of the city as a collective feudal master.
In Russia from the 14th century the word ''smerd'' as a denotation for peasants and other commonfolk was replaced with the word ''krestyanin'' (''
крестьянин''), meaning
Christian. The change was connected to the dieout of
Slavic paganism by that time, as well as to the
Islamization of the
Golden Horde
The Golden Horde, self-designated as Ulug Ulus, 'Great State' in Turkic, was originally a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. With the fragme ...
under
Öz Beg Khan (ruled 1313–1341), which fostered the rise of Christian self-identification in the vassal Russian lands that were under
Mongol yoke
The Mongol Empire invaded and conquered Kievan Rus' in the 13th century, destroying numerous southern cities, including the largest cities, Kiev (50,000 inhabitants) and Chernihiv (30,000 inhabitants), with the only major cities escaping destr ...
.
The old word ''smerd'' continued to be used in the pejorative meaning, often in a situation when a lord spoke to dependent people or even lesser nobles. Also the word acquired a meaning of "one who stinks", with the related verb smerdet' '' (''смердеть'', to stink).
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%81%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B4#Russian
]
Notes
External links
The Smerd in Kievan Russia"Smerdy" in The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition
Society of Kievan Rus'
Peasants
{{Poland-hist-stub