serfs

They became villeins, in short -- serfs bound to the soil by a living wage.

The Iron Heel Jack London 1896

As the ‘upper’ class began to lose financial dominance the corporates took over meanwhile the public remain as always subservient to their ‘betters’ in other words serfs by another name.

One out of three isn't so good 2008

Alexander realized that emancipating the serfs was a precondition for wider reforms, but feared (rightly, as it turned out) that such a move would alienate the nobility, taking away both their property and their source of cheap labor.

The '60s That Really Counted William Anthony Hay 2007

For the Jews and the serfs were the two most oppressed classes under the feudal system still surviving.

The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 Various

They were serfs, that is to say, practically slaves, who had to give up to their masters the greater part of the crops that they raised.

The World War and What was Behind It Or, the Story of the Map of Europe Louis Paul B��n��zet 1919

’ Konstantin Levin broke in with still greater heat; ‘the emancipation of the serfs was a different matter.

Chapter III. Part III 1917

A considerable proportion of them were gradually transformed into serfs, that is, instead of being obliged to expend all their labour for the benefit of the master, they were enabled to work a part of the time on their own account on land which they rented from him.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 8: Infamy-Lapparent 1840-1916 1913

That in many such medieval codes citizens were still called serfs is no more final than the fact that in many modern capitalist newspapers serfs are still called citizens.

The New Jerusalem 1905

They were members of the lords 'courts, and there the serfs were their peers; but they were also members of the old national courts of hundred and shire, and there they were the peers of knights and barons.

The History of England from the Norman Conquest to the Death of John (1066-1216) George Burton Adams 1888

All three categories have melted together into a common class, called serfs, who are regarded as the property of the landed proprietors or of the State.

Russia Donald Mackenzie Wallace 1880