Skapetry Serfdom

With a deep grunt, Lily gave the leverage bar a hard yank, and the bolt finally became unstuck. Unfortunately, it became too unstuck; the bolt launched itself out of the power-wagon's wheel, and with a hard *thunk*, the wheel fell off, and the wagon tilted over with a shudder.
"Oh no." The mechanic picked the wheel off the ground. The wheel had a long crack running through the bolt plate. It would have to be replaced. She sighed, wiping the sheen of sweat off her forehead.
"You could have been a bit more gentle." Tarvo stepped through the door, holding a baker's bag. He handed her a cream pastry.
"I guess I don't know my own strength." Lily pulled off a glove and grabbed the pastry, taking a quick bite. "Must be my great grandpa's old serf strength."
"I'm pretty sure everyone's great grandpa was a skapet." Tarvo leaned down to inspect the wagon itself. The axle seemed no worse for wear; a bent wagon-axle would have been a chore. "You'll need another excuse for your bulging musculature."
Lily flexed, frowning. "Hard to really believe it now, right? That a hundred years ago none of this would be here, that we'd just be some poor peasant folk picking berries or reaping wheat to survive?"
"Would it be harder for us to believe what actually happened, or harder for the old skapets to believe how far Progress has taken us?" Tarvo took a bite of his own pastry, chewing thoughtfully. "I don't envy the old serfs, though. There's too much to see and do in Etoile to be stuck raking the same mud pile for fifty years."

Career

Qualifications

Skapetry was, by its nature, a profession that required no education or qualifications. Skapet serfs were instead 'qualified' for the role by their state in life - those born to serfs were likely to simply be serfs themselves, and anyone who had fallen into penury, or did not have the means to provide for themselves, were subject to impressment as skapets by the regional lord or local landsteader.

Career Progression

Skapet serfdom was not a profession in which progress was expected. The majority of skapets, without the opportunities to learn a skilled trade, tended the soil their entire lives. Though many may have been debt free and therefore legally able to leave their servitude, there were few opportunities for unskilled laborers in pre-Etoilean society, and the chances of re-entry into serfdom were high.
Those who had entered skapetry due to debts, however, typically returned to their prior profession once their skapet debts were cleared, though some debts were high enough to bind the debtor to skapetry for the rest of their lives.

Payment & Reimbursement

Skapet renumeration was poor. Skapets lived off the land that they tended and slept in housing provided by the owning landholder - room and board constituted the majority of payment, with perhaps a seasonal purse of spending coin depending on the generosity of the local lord. While the pay was never any more than mediocre, many long-time skapets were able to accrue small sums of wealth over time, and were able to use this wealth to allow their children an escape from skapetry.

Other Benefits

In modern eyes, skapetry is little more than a primitive social ill, a method in which the lords of the pre-Etoile petty kingdoms extracted nearly-free labor from the lowest of peasantry. A new school of thought, however, recasts skapetry serfdom as the era-equivalent of the modern Etoilean minimum-relief programme, a method to keep the worst-off of society fed and sheltered.
Two facts are used to reinforce this point - first, that offers of skapetry could not be refused by a lord. That is, if a peasant requested skapet status for themselves, the ruling lord or landholder could not (except under extraordinary circumstance) refuse, and would therefore be obligated to provide food and a bunk. Second, this arrangement created accountability for a lord against their subjects; lords that were publicly known to violate the minimum tenets of the skapetry system would quickly find themselves without serfs to work the fields, as rival landholders would simply lure the skapets away with promises of better conditions.

Perception

Purpose

The nature of pre-unification Saibh was largely pastoral. The great majority of the population of the pre-Etoilan kingdoms worked the land in agriculture, a contrast to the modern Etoile (707 was the approximate year of shift, where for the first time, more people worked outside agriculture than in it). There were no great Power manufactories and little in the way of mass industry as we know it - instead, there was a system of land use intertwined with the power structures of the old petty kingdoms.
Land ownership was significantly different prior to the rule of the Principality. In most kingdoms, the monarch themselves was sole owner of all the lands of the kingdom, with their lords and landholders merely given a set of rights and responsibilities to 'their' parcels of land. These lords in turn parceled out their holdings to the skapet serfs, with each skapet obligated to provide their lord with certain goods relative to the amount of land they had to tend.
Unlike the modern era, where workers are free to move to wherever they believe they may earn the most Florin for their time and skills, skapet serfs were not given freedom of movement except by permission of their lord or by invitation from another lord. This ensured a level of labor stability - outside catastrophe, there would always be a ready population of skapets to seed the fields and work the harvest, without needing to attract or pay itinerant labor. Roughly nine in ten farmers in this era were embedded in the skapetry system.
Though none were formally 'born' into skapetry, the children of skapet serfs often had little option in life other than entering skapetry themselves, alongside those who fell into debtor's penury and the occasional wave of refugees.

Social Status

Skapet serfs occupied the lowest rung of status in society. While they were not slaves and could not be bought and sold (indeed, the skapetry system was likely organized in an effort to eliminate the prospect of slavery, prior to written history), they were the only group of peoples that were not granted general freedom of movement. It was common for a skapet to be born in their village, live their entire lives tending the same plot of land, and die, having travelled no further than a few miles from their place of birth. Skapet serfs were rarely given opportunity for education or even basic literacy, and few managed to leave their serfdom.

Demographics

Prior to unification, roughly two thirds of the population outside the towns and cities were skapet serfs, though hard numbers are difficult to come by due to the lack of any central statistics. The majority of small farming villages would be skapets, with perhaps travelling traders and mythspeakers (ref: The Last Mythspeakers) as exceptions.

History

The origins of skapetry and serfdom are lost, but the skapetry system was in place from the beginning of recorded history. As an institution, it went largely unchanged and rarely challenged; petty kingdoms would come and go, and lands could change hands, but the skapets would continue in place, reporting to new lords and new monarchs.
It is well known that the King of Nasse found the system distasteful in the extreme; he considered it a major reason why Progress was slow to nonexistent over the centuries, as nobles benefitting from free and forced labor would have little reason to try new methodologies or systems. Upon his conquest in The War of Unification and the founding of the Principality of Etoile, the institute of skapetry was outlawed in its entirety, and skapets were granted ownership of the land they tended, ending the system permanently. Most of the former serfs sold their land and used the money to leave; farms now are worked by paid farmhands.

Operations

Provided Services

The services of skapetry were simple - a serf would work the land they were responsible for, growing what their lord desired. Each harvest, their lord would be entitled to a fixed amount, with the serf keeping what remained and selling it themselves (or, if the skapet missed their harvest target, entering crop debt). A lord would in turn provide housing to their skapets as a whole, typically raising small homes in the farming villages, and would also feed the skapets who were not growing food themselves.

Alternative Names

Serfdom, Debt Bondage

Type

Forced Labour

Legality

Skapetry has been banned across Etoile since the founding of the Principality of Etoile in 630, as are all forms of labor and service that are not principally repaid in cash wages.