How much of Europe's population were serfs?

• A. 30%
• B. 50%
• C. 60%
• D. 80%

Answer: (C)

Many people in medieval Europe lived under the manor system as serfs, meaning they were legally tied to the land and owed labor and rents to a local lord. Because this arrangement was the norm for farming households across most of the countryside, historians typically estimate that about six in ten people were serfs. In other words, roughly sixty percent of the population lived in this way, which helps explain why the feudal social and economic order was so durable for centuries.

There were regional differences: western Europe often had more free peasants and towns, while parts of eastern Europe maintained serfdom more heavily for a longer period. The figure around sixty percent captures the common pattern across much of medieval Europe, even though exact numbers varied by region and era.