<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> 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> <P> The decline of serfdom in Western Europe has sometimes been attributed to the widespread plague epidemic of the Black Death, which reached Europe in 1347 and caused massive fatalities, disrupting society . The decline had begun before that date . Serfdom became increasingly rare in most of Western Europe after the Renaissance . But, conversely it grew stronger in Central and Eastern Europe, where it had previously been less common (this phenomenon was known as "later serfdom"). </P>

In feudal europe a serf was a person who