| 释义 |
▪ I. serf|sɜːf|
[a. OF. serf:—L. serv-um slave; cf. Sp. siervo, Pg., It. servo.
Not in Johnson. Todd 1818 has ‘Serf, a slave. Not in use’, with quot. from Hume 1761 (see 2 b).]
†1. A slave, bondman. Also fig. Obs.
1483Caxton Golden Leg. 101/2 Who so loueth the rychessys of thys world he is..bonde and serf in kepyng the rychesse. Ibid. 243/2 There was a yong man which was serf and bonde to a yonge lady. 1484― Chivalry 15 Yf thou be wycked thou aughtest to be put under a serf or bonde man.
2. A person in a condition of servitude or modified slavery, distinguished from what is properly called ‘slavery’ in that the services due to the master, and his power of disposal of his ‘serf’, are more or less limited by law or custom.
In most of the typical examples of serfdom, the serf was ‘attached to the soil’ (adscriptus glebæ), i.e. he could not be removed (except by manumission) from the lord's land, and was transferred with it when it passed to another owner. This feature is often assigned as the distinctive mark of ‘serfdom’ as opposed to ‘slavery’, and is popularly apprehended as an essential part of the notion.
a. In the 17–18th c. used (after Fr. example) with reference to the contemporary condition of the lower class of cultivators of the soil in various countries of Europe, esp. in parts of Germany, in Denmark, Poland, and Russia. Now used Hist. with the same application; chiefly with reference to Russia, where the serfs were not emancipated until 1861, while elsewhere in Europe serfdom ceased to exist early in the 19th century.
1611R. Johnson Kingd. & Commw. 75 [France], As for Serfes, Slaues or Villaines, they are Domesticke, and serue vppon baser condition, for Wages and Victuals. Ibid. 76 Neither the Subiect nor the Serf are bound to go to the warres, but only the vassall. 1761Hume Hist. Eng. (1762) I. App. i. 151 There were two kinds of slaves among the Anglo-Saxons; household slaves,..and prædial or rustic... These latter resembled the serfs, which are at present met with in Poland, Denmark and some places in Germany. 1784W. Coxe Trav. i. viii. I. 129 The peasants in Poland, as in all feudal governments, are serfs or slaves. 1797Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XVI. 571 The subordination of ranks was more complete [among the Russians] than in any other European nation; but with this simplicity peculiar to them and the Poles, that they had but three ranks, the sovereign, the noblesse or gentry, and the serfs. 1845Disraeli Sybil iv. v, Lower than the Portuguese or the Poles, the serfs of Russia, or the lazzaroni of Naples. 1861Bright Sp., Amer. 4 Dec. (1876) 90 [In Russia] twenty-three millions of human beings, lately serfs, little better than real slaves, have been raised to the ranks of freedom. 1880‘Ouida’ Moths II. 381 You have no serfs now, even in Russia.
b. Used by modern writers with reference to mediæval Europe.
In English Law Latin the terms corresponding to the modern use of serf were nativus (native n. 1, neif), villanus (villein), and occasionally servus. The OE. theow, and the servus of Domesday Book, are usually rendered ‘slave’.
1761Hume Hist. Eng. (1762) I. App. ii. 404 A great part of them were serfs, and lived in a state of absolute slavery or villainage. 1805Scott Last Minstr. iv. v, A half-clothed serf was all their train. 1874Green Short Hist. v. §4. 240 By this entire detachment of the serf from actual dependence on the land, the manorial system was even more radically changed than by the rise of the serf into a copyholder. 1895W. J. Corbett in Soc. Eng. v. (1902) II. 140 As the tone of society became gentler, the lords naturally had a tendency to free their serfs;..in the eyes of the law the villeins remained serfs.
c. gen.
1908G. A. Smith in Expositor Sept. 268 The people they [the Israelites] conquered became their serfs.
d. transf. and fig.
1847Helps Friends in C. i. ii. 22 The serf to custom points his finger at the slave to fashion. 1854Lowell Keats Wks. 1890 I. 245 As soon as we have discovered the word for our joy or sorrow we are no longer its serfs, but its lords.
3. attrib. and Comb., simple attrib. and appositive, as serf-class, serf-girl, serf-population, serf-system, serf-tenant; objective, as serf-emancipation, serf-owner.
1860Forster Gr. Remonstr. 43 The rebellion of the *serf-class.
1887Encycl. Brit. XXII. 143 The chief committee for peasant affairs to study the subject of *serf-emancipation.
1878M. A. Brown tr. Runeberg's Nadeschda i, Then..would I Brightly hide the *serf-girl's sombre garb.
1860Gen. P. Thompson Audi Alt. III. clxxvii. 213 The mortifications and sufferings which might have been brought on aristocratic *serf-owners.
1852Grote Greece ii. lxxiv. IX. 423 The *serf-population which tilled the fields.
1885Mabel Collins Prettiest Woman v, There are still the remains of the *serf system.
1887Encycl. Brit. XXII. 136/2 Under the developed regime of feudalism,..the *serf-tenant has become simply a tributary under various appellations.
▪ II. serf
obs. form of serve v.1 |