I came across this really good article about Serfdom. Very informative read.

“While both slavery and serfdom are designed to place a certain category of people at a fundamental disadvantage in terms of rights, slavery primarily concentrates on denying rights altogether, whereas serfdom is, instead, fundamentally geared towards charging for access to them instead.”

“There are also a number of features that make serfdom look especially similar to slavery. A villein had no freedom of movement. If he wished to spend an extended time off the manor, he had to pay for a license to do so; doing so without a license made him a fugitive. He could be hunted down by one of the lord’s officials. A writ of naifty from the king also enlisted the king’s officials in the hunt and retrieval of fugitive serfs. Both Glanvill and Bracton explain that a fugitive at large, breathing town air for more than a year and a day, obtained his freedom; although Alsford’s remarkable study demonstrates how rarely officials adhered to this tenet.”