Eigen
Or, the Hainish serf
An Eigen is a serf from Northern Stildane: an unfree peasant farmer, not enslaved but with heavily restricted rights.
Eigens are "gardeners" and "bound folk", legally bound to either a plot of land or a noble title. Eigens are entitled to protection by their lord and are guaranteed a plot of land to farm (often coming with a cottage). In exchange, they must pay extensive rents to their lord, are subject to their lord's legal judgments, must provide levy-work for their lord when called upon, and cannot freely leave their assigned job/plot of land.
Like captivity and slavery, serfdom is both highly variant and culturally bound. Even between Stildanian kingdoms, the Eigen's rights and experiences change from place to place. North Stildanian cultures share common language, concepts, and rituals around the Eigen, but specifics in law differ. All kingdoms, Kivish and Uvaran, have a shared interest in subjugating the Eigen.
It would be inaccurate to say that all Eigens yearn for freedom. Even more than kingdom-by-kingdom legal distinctions, the lives of eigens are determined by the benevolence and power of their lord. Individual lords have immense discretion in which fees and restrictions they wish to set, but they are limited by custom in how far they can set taxes and in what restrictions they can impose. A generous lord or a lord that lacks the power to reliably enforce their will might not demand that much. And eigens are legally protected from outside threats and from eviction - if an eigen fails to pay taxes, that is added to their family as a debt. Theoretically an eigen can pay off their blood-debt and pay for their freedom in coin, but this is rather uncommon.
Legally, an eigen cannot be freely abused by their lords - they are free people, not slaves. However, most lords have the right to handle their eigen's criminal cases and legal cases in their own court or household, making it difficult for eigens to get fair trials against their lords (and giving lords a powerful tool to punish eigens for perceived crimes).
Duties
Generally speaking, the most important ritual and fee for an Eigen is chevage. Chevage is an annual head-tax on all eigens in a fief, that also acts as a census. Each chevage, eigens renew their oaths of obedience to their lord and present a small tax of goods (such as a wax cake, spun wool or cotton thread, brewed alcohol) or a small quantity of coin (typically ranging from 5 copper to a silver piece), though many eigens lack direct access to coinage. More importantly, the eigen must ritually swear obedience, present any new children to their lord (or lord's representative), and be assigned to an Eigenchup.
An Eigenchup is a group of ten eigens, often representing family units, who swear to watch one another for criminal behavior. If one of their group commits an obvious crime, breaks their lord's rules, poaches, or flees, the others in the eigenchup are expected to report the crime. If they do not, they and their families may be punished depending on whether the lord (or lord's representative) deems them to be obstructing justice.
If an eigen seeks to leave their assigned post for more than a year, they can pay leave-chevage: a fee in goods or coin, often much greater than annual chevage. The eigen is expected to send chevage back to their lord every year they are absent by courier or kin. Some lords expected leave-chevage to be paid in full each year, while other lords only expect it for the initial permission to leave. Some lords who seek coin or have too many eigens for their lands actually make their initial leave-chevage low, to encourage their eigens to leave for work in towns. This can be dangerous for the lord, though, as full incorporation into an urban community may see the eigen freed to become a Cherl depending on the laws of the kingdom.
Eigens who do not pay leave-chevage and simply run become fugitives. Fugitives who have family or friends that are free commoners, or Cherls, have a reasonable chance of becoming free. Others may be trapped as status-ambiguous day laborers, jumping between contract-work and barred from the skilled trades by guilds. Day laborers either manage to be initiated into a guild of some kind (typically gaining community status of some kind in the process) or they end up in debt and become Tunrokken: bound day laborers.
On top of chevage, an eigen must give a work-levy each season. This is typically either working the lord's fields or performing a certain number of days worth of assigned labor. Winter and spring are known as the lightest work seasons. During winter, eigens must harrow (break apart soil) and carry goods. During spring, they must hoe and plant. Summer and autumn work picks up more. Summer is a time of haymaking and mowing. Autumn is a time of reaping and harvesting. Autumnal levy-work is a rather stressful thing, given the amount of harvesting eigens must do for their own farms. Given this, extended autumn work is often boon-work, in which eigens are given food, beer, and sometimes other rewards. Adventurous lords are known to distribute small amounts of Questing loot among their eigens as boon-work when they return from great victories abroad.
Work levies are per-household or per-plot, meaning that eigens can have some family members stay to do the work-levy while others venture out to market or work seasonal jobs. As long as these people return by chevage, they are free to move.
Military levies may offer eigens a chance to raise their status. When a martial levy is called, eigens are offered a chance to take up arms and join their lord's army. In doing so, they are offered the chance to earn wages, win war-loot, and potentially be raised from eigen to Dienstmann: the class of warrior-commoner. Martial levies are only rarely called, though, as they are seen as disruptive to a lord's tax base.
Formarriage or Merchet is the right of a lord to restrict the marriage of their bound eigens. Eigens have a right to marry other eigens of their lord, but marrying beyond their fief or social class typically means paying the Formarriage fee - marrying beyond one's lord is seen as a potential threat to the lord's property rights over their descendants. Formarriage fees vary from lord to lord and depending on who is being married. Leywrite fees are similar: they are fines for any eigen who has a child out of wedlock.
Gersuma, or Inheritance fees, fine eigens when the assigned plot is passed generationally from parents to children. These are often small fees, but they do come with a bit of ceremony, as the new generation swear their oath of obedience and is formally granted primary control over their plot and cottage.
Eigens also must pay fees (often in goods or labor) to gain access to the lord's hunting grounds and fishing grounds, the lord's mill, and to collect wood for fires and home repairs. If a local school exists, there is often a fee associated with that as well.
Mobility
Work-Levies
Restrictions and Dues
History
The idea of the agricultural-dependent is an old one in Stildane. The Empire of Andrig had hereditary occupations and many land-bound farmers; the Kingdom of Hain has long divided people between dominant "warriors" and subordinate "gardeners"; the ancient Empire of Kizen had Somsebreks or semi-enslaved low-caste agricultural laborers.
The eigen class as it currently stands first emerged in the late 1500s ME, following the end of the Fourth Kivish Scouring. In the peace that followed, Kizen and Hain formed a new land-based social order favoring constant expansion into the Ederstone wastelands - and created some shared terminology to enforce social orders across the imperial borderlands. The Eigens were seen as "freedpeople": former slaves, former low-caste people, former refugees, given a place in the world. Over the late 1400s and 1500s, Eigens were just one of many land-labor classifications, but these labor classes were increasingly homogenized over the 1600s ME. The political decentralization of Hain in 1603 (empowering landlords and dissolving royal courts) and the 1630s land-crisis in Kizen (forcing many free-farmers to become renters) essentially lumped all renter-farmers into a similar legal class.
The Fifth Scouring, an apocalyptic war between Hain and Kizen from 1680 - 1750, formalized the eigen class as a homogenized legal category, with all its rituals and restrictions. The war essentially redistributed lands into the hands of the nobility, undermining the Hainish peasant freeholders. At the same time, Kizen saw mass land redistribution to their military elites and mass enslavement of the poor. When Hain freed the people of Kizen, they "manumitted into obedience": they offered freedom at the cost of serfdom.
For a time after the Scouring, in the late 1700s, freeholders fought to maintain pockets of control from territory taken during the war. Over the 1700s and 1800s, these freeholders were largely crushed in a series of small "peasant revolts".
Type
Civic, Citizenship
Alternative Naming
Serf, Muntmen, Villein, Loblu
Equates to
Serf
Reports directly to
Related Locations
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments