Ancient and Medieval Social Systems

AVI linked a post by Earl Wajenberg that examines the treatment of slavery in various parts and eras of Biblical society. While his thrust is chiefly moral rather than historical, the treatment of pre-Roman Biblical society reminded me of my historical studies into feudalism and vassalage. 

There is a word which is contextually translated ‘slave’, but it means just a ‘worker’ or a subordinate. This word is ‘ebed’.... In Near Eastern Bronze Age societies, everyone was the subject of someone, and everyone except the lowest tier had someone else as their subject. The ‘lord’ was the ‘adon’ (in Hebrew—other languages had the same system but different words). The ‘subject’ was the ‘ebed’.

Normally, the adon took on obligations in regard to the ebed, typically of protection and advancement, and the ebed took on obligations in regard to the adon, typically in regard to services rendered and honour due, though it might be taxes or profit-sharing.

High status was conferred by having a high-status adon, and by being given a high role in his entourage....

There is a careful breakdown of different types of this relationship, with very different levels of honor and status. In later, post-Roman society slavery was a legal institution governed by Roman law. He details this as well.

The relationship he describes between the 'adon' and 'ebed' is roughly analogous to the relationship in feudalism between the 'suzerain' and the 'vassal.' When reading chivalric romance from the High Middle Ages, our own cultural assumption that freedom is the most desirable state is often called into question. In England, there are free men of various sorts; they are often of Anglo-Saxon heritage and not very high up at all in the social structure; the most prestigious are the "franklins," formerly thanes, who inherited knightly levels of privilege from the Norman Conquest and its subsequent peace.

Yet you frequently read of knights addressing men as "Vassal," and are mistaken if you think they are talking down to them as servants. Rather, they are acknowledging that -- rather than a mere freeman, who can come or go as he likes but has no secure social position -- this person has established a prestigious relationship with a nobleman. A vavasour, in the literature, is generally a figure of quite high respect: he is a vassal who also keeps his own subordinate vassals, and outranks the knights he encounters socially. 

Also, just as he describes marriage as a special case of the adon/ebed relationship, in feudal society the marriage relationship among the nobility increasingly took elements from the homage ceremony between knights and their lords. This was partly because of the increased prestige of knighthood resulting from the chivalric literature: nobles, who cleanly outranked knights, increasingly found themselves being knighted or seeking to join knightly orders (like the Order of the Garter) established by the royalty. 

Much as the society depicted in Starship Troopers elevates those who serve -- "Service Guarantees Citizenship" -- ancient and medieval societies often found themselves valorizing services of certain kinds, especially of course military services. Even nearby societies that did honor freedom still honored service to clan and kin -- as in Lawrence of Arabia where the sheikh rejects the idea that he is a 'servant' who is paid 'a servant's wages,' but proclaims instead that he is paid well but is poor "because I am a river to my people!" He does not 'serve' the Turks, and is free to pursue what he calls 'his pleasure,' yet his honor is entirely tied up with the service he provides to his tribe.