<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> Serfdom is the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism . It was a condition of bondage, which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century . </P> <P> As with slaves, serfs could be bought, sold, or traded, abused with no rights over their own bodies, and could not leave the land they were bound to . 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 to maintain their own subsistence . Serfs were often required not only to work on the lord's fields, but also in his mines and forests and to labor to maintain roads . The manor formed the basic unit of feudal society, and the lord of the manor and the villeins, and to a certain extent serfs, were bound legally: by taxation in the case of the former, and economically and socially in the latter . </P>

Knight - vassal - serf - peasant these terms are most associated with which period in world history