Bound or attached to land as an adscript; legally or permanently assigned to a position.
Past tense/participle of 'adscript' (from Latin 'adscribere'). The word maintains feudal-era meaning of being bound to servitude or obligation.
If someone was 'adscripted' in the Middle Ages, they couldn't just leave their farm and start a new life—their labor belonged to the landowner, making this word a grim reminder of how unfree most people once were.
Derived from Latin adscriptio, related to serfs bound to land; feudal systems encoded gendered control over bodies and labor that was rarely explicitly gendered in legal documents.
Acknowledge that women adscripts faced distinct harms including sexual coercion and reproductive control; avoid generic 'serf' language that masks gendered dimensions.
["bound to the land (with gendered analysis)","serf"]
Feminist legal historians have restored visibility to women's adscription and its reproductive/sexual dimensions, previously omitted from standard accounts.
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