The name for a chattel, of whatever origin, is rab, raba, probably derived from rabota, "labor." Such rabs were employed in various kinds of labor, but principally in clearing the forests and cultivating the soil for their masters. Through contact with the Byzantine empire Christianity came into Russia, besides various other usages.
At this epoch, a new form of servitude appeared among the Russians; perhaps it was borrowed from the old society and civilization, or perhaps it originated from a new concatenation of circumstances: it was servitude by mutual agreement or kabala, by which one man gave up his person, labor, and liberty to another. This kind of bondman was called kholop. His servitude was usually contracted for a limited time, though sometimes for life; but was never inherited. Debts could be paid by the kabala writ.
The poor freeman could become a kholop by his own choice, or he could give up his children as kholops, as was then the custom among all nations, heathen and Christian. Such kabala-kholop, or servile person, could not be sold or disposed of in any way, as his servitude was limited in duration by specified time or by his death. Sometimes freemen choose servitude in order to escape worse conditions. Early in the domestic economy of the nation, free tenants are found who hired lands for a year or more, paying the rent (obrog) in money, or binding themselves to cultivate half of the land for the proprietor and half for themselves. A subsequent law prohibited any such free tenants from contracting any work or kabala servitude with the landowners. The contracts of free tenants were obligatory for a year from St. George's day (April 17); but otherwise they could change their domicile or land at pleasure. The laws of the tenth and eleventh centuries stringently prohibit the infliction of any kind of corporal punishment on such free tenants. In short, these tenants had full civil liberty and full civil rights; they could own lands, and could become members of any rural or urbane community, practice any handicraft, etc.
Probably it was the nobles, the rich, the higher officials, who first established chattels (rabs) on their lands as tillers. From these originated, beside the rab, the krepostnoi kholop, "a serf strengthened or chained to his master," krepok signifying "strong," "strengthened," "attached by force"—krepost, "stronghold," etc. According to the laws collected or enacted by Vladimir and Yaroslaw in the tenth and eleventh centuries, rab and krepostnoi kholop were the descendants of prisoners of war, or of those who were bought as slaves and imported as such into Russia, and also the descendants of those who unconditionally married a slave woman; while the public, grand-ducal slaves or rabs were condemned criminals.
Free tenants on the lands of the nobles, individual freeholders (odnodwortsy), etc., and the numerous rural communities owning land unconditionally and paying therefrom tribute—rather as public taxation—to the ducal treasury, constituted the rural population of Russia. From the time of Yaroslaw to the end of the sixteenth century, not one-tenth of the population was in the condition of rab, krepostnoi kholop, or serfs by writ or kabala.
The almost boundless extent of land constituting Russia was as yet unsurveyed, and no regular limits divided or marked the landed property. Thus it was easy for the strong to encroach on the lands of the rural communes, or on the new clearings made by individual freemen; and such annexations were often practised during the domestic wars between the numerous dukes, and during the time of Tartar domination. Iwan the Great (1462-1503) ordered, that whoever held a piece of land in undisputed possession for three years became its legal owner. But even the encroachments of the nobles did not transform the free laborers or tenants into serfs; and when a landlord was oppressive, whole villages abandoned him and contracted for land on other estates.
Chattels (rab, krepostnoi kholop) might be emancipated by the free will of the master; and a captive carried away by the Tartars, or a prisoner of war if a kholop, became free if he succeeded in escaping from captivity and returning to his country.
In the sixteenth century, all classes of the rural population began to be called Christians (krestianin), the Tartars having bestowed this denomination on them; and this name is now legally in use. Under Tartar dominion the rural communities paid tribute per head; and for this reason their members could not change their domicile without giving security to the commune. But after the overthrow of the Tartars by Iwan the Great, they recovered the freedom of circulation.
The primitive grand-dukes of Kief granted appanages to their younger children, and sometimes a free rural commune constituted such an appanage. Vladimir, and after him Yaroslaw, divided the empire among their children; and thus originated the rather independent dukedoms of Twer, Smolensk, Wiazma, etc. The number of appanaged princes increased; and when, after a long and bloody struggle, the grand-dukes of Moscow mediatized all these small dukes, appanages became private property, and the rural communes were owned by the dukes (kniazia), but under similar conditions of freedom as the communes constituting the public domains.