Serfdom

Labor shortages created a demand for workers that empowered peasants to negotiate better wages.

Serfdom declined in various regions, as people were less willing to give up their freedom.

It might also be said that after the plague, people felt more willing to challenge authority.

An example of this is the Peasants' Revolt, which took place in England in 1381.

First of all, if you look at Russian history, you go back hundreds of years, they've never really cut a break in that country.

They've had the Tsars and the Serfs, and they had the Russian Revolution, and everybody was poor, and then they had Perestroika and the breakup of the Soviet Union, and then the oligarchs took over, and now you have this, what I call this sort of criminal revolution.

slash police state, which is a Russian thing.

It's also kind of a Putin FSB thing.

And there are merchant guilds which organize trade and religion is the defining force shaping life and your duty as a human being.

Serfdom starts to decline in the 14th century, partly after the bubonic plague kills so many serfs.

And they're like, the landlords need laborers.

And there's also a physical transformation that's happening to European land because wool has become an extremely profitable commodity.

So the church began immediately elevating their condition and essentially transforming the slave class into serfs.

Serf's four-letter word today, perhaps.

But he had many more rights than the slave.

He only had to work a few days a week.

first driven out of hungary and russia during the eighteenth century the turks lost nearly all their european possessions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the subject peoples had kept their national traditions and customs and from time to time they aimed at independence the turkish rule was oppressive and at times its methods were barbarous if there had been no jealousies among the great european powers it is probable that russia would have occupied constantinople long ago the other powers fearing this might make russia too strong interfered on several occasions to prevent such an occupation but the powers could not prevent the smaller nationalities from attaining their independence from turkey greece serbia romania bulgaria and albania were freed from the rule of the unspeakable turk and erected into independent kingdoms at various times between eighteen twenty nine and nineteen thirteen of her great empire in europe turkey retained at the outbreak of the great war an area of less than eleven thousand square miles less than the area of the state of maryland and a population of one million eight hundred ninety thousand which was almost altogether resident in the two cities of constantinople and adrianople russia in nineteen fourteen russia was an empire occupying one-seventh of the land area of the world and inhabited by about one hundred eighty million people during the nineteenth century the country was ruled by absolute monarchs called czars under whom political and social conditions were corrupt and oppressive However, some progress was made during the century.

Serfdom, or slavery, was abolished from 1861 to 1866.

Restraints upon newspapers, publishers, and schools were partially withdrawn.

Natural resources were developed, factories established, and railroads built.

You get a performance review where someone sits across from you with a form and judges you and scores you.

Is there a form for you to score them? The SERF had the manor court and you've got the performance review.

Even the language would have been familiar on the manor.

In America, nearly every state runs on what's called at-will employment.

it stretched across two continents and gathered within its borders dozens of peoples and languages it was on paper one of the great powers of the world with a mighty army and a glittering court and yet beneath the surface it was straining The vast majority of its people were peasants like Grigori's family, poor, illiterate, and bound, until quite recently as serfs, which is to say as men and women who could be bought and sold along with the land.

Serfdom had only been abolished in 1861, less than a decade before Rasputin was born, and the freedom it offered was thin.

The land hunger remained.

The poverty remained.