Peasants

thumb|upright=1.5|Young women offer berries to visitors to their izba home, 1909. Those who had been serfs among the Russian peasantry were officially emancipated in 1861. Photograph by [[Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky.]] A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants existed: non-free slaves, semi-free serfs, and free tenants. Peasants might hold title to land outright (fee simple), or by any of several forms

Serfdom was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery. It developed during late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century and became the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism and similar systems.

A commoner, also known as the common man, commoners, the common people or the masses, was in earlier use an ordinary person in a community or nation who did not have any significant social status, especially a member of neither royalty, nobility, nor any other part of the aristocracy. Depending on culture and period, other elevated persons (such as members of clergy) may have had higher social status in their own right, or were regarded as commoners if lacking an aristocratic background.

Nicaraguan farmer and activist

dishes eaten by peasants

organization of farmers and rural labourers affiliated with the Communist Party of India

A villein is a class of serf tied to the land under the feudal system. As part of the contract with the lord of the manor, they were expected to spend some of their time working on the lord's fields in return for land. Villeins existed under a number of legal restrictions that differentiated them from freemen, and could not leave without his lord's permission. Generally, villeins held their status not by birth but by the land they held, and it was also possible for them to gain manumission from their lords. The villeinage system largely died out in England in 1500, with some forms of villeinag

A smerd () was a free peasant and later a feudal-dependent serf in the medieval Slavic states of East Europe. Sources from the 11th and 12th centuries (such as the 12th-century Russkaya Pravda) mention their presence in Kievan Rus' and Poland as the smerdones. Etymologically, the word smerd comes from a common Indo-European root meaning "ordinary man" or "dependent man".

Chinese university student in the 1970's admitted for their class background rather than academic qualifications

novel by Vasyl Stefanyk