I am glad that on the history of serfdom we proceed in agreement , as they say in business. It is certain that serfdom and bondage are not a peculiarly medieval-feudal form, we find them everywhere or nearly everywhere where conquerors have the land cultivated for them by the old inhabitants e.g., very early in Thessaly. This fact has even misled me and many other people about servitude in the Middle Ages; one was much too much inclined to base it simply on conquest, this made everything so neat and easy. See Thierry among others. The position of the Christians in Turkey during the height of the old Turkish semi-feudal system was something similar.
Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1882