Sunday, June 26, 2011

Question from Mary R - Outlawing of serfdom in England

Does anyone know when the practice of holding serfs was outlawed in England? I know that during the Wat Tyler rebellion, Richard II agreed to free them; but I think he reneged on this.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

According to this article, serfdom in England pretty much died out without special legislation; it was effectively recognized as dead by 1574:

http://www.1902encyclopedia.com/S/SLA/slavery-12.html

shtove said...

Worth keeping an eye on enclosures of common land, which accelerated in the Tudor period.

Wikipedia has a decent section on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#Tudor_enclosures

No more serfs, but the common people still screwed.