The act of binding a person to the land in feudal society; or the state of being legally attached or bound to something.
From Latin 'adscriptio,' the noun form of 'adscribere' (to bind to). The term appears frequently in medieval legal and historical documents.
Adscription was the legal mechanism that kept medieval peasants trapped—essentially a bureaucratic way of saying 'you belong here now'—and studying this word reveals how law and language enforced social control.
Adscription in feudalism bound people to land; women's labor and bodies were controlled through adscription yet their bondage was often unmarked in law and history, making gender dimensions invisible.
When analyzing adscription, explicitly examine how it was gendered—women faced additional reproductive and sexual control—rather than treating it as gender-neutral servitude.
["serfdom (with attention to gender)","bound labor (gendered)"]
Historians including Silvia Federici have documented how women's adscription included control over reproduction and sexuality, foundational to understanding feudal power.
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