Serfs

Serfs who occupied a plot of land were required to work for the lord of the manor who owned that land. In return, they were entitled to protection, justice, and the right to cultivate certain fields within the manor for their own subsistence. Serfs were often required not only to work on the lord's fields, but in his mines and forests and to labour to maintain roads. The manor formed the basic unit of feudal society, and the lord of the manor, the villeins, and to a certain extent the other classes of serf, were bound legally: by taxation in the case of the former, and economically and socially in the latter.