Peasants were tenant workers. Being able to live off their lords' land was what they were getting in exchange for the burden of serfdom. Not that it was a fair system by any means, but protection was at most a distant secondary consideration in the "contract" between a peasant and their lord.
mehvermore t1_isiq3z1 wrote
Reply to comment by Trackmaster15 in Anglo-Saxon hall where kings and warriors dined discovered in England by unheated1
Peasants were tenant workers. Being able to live off their lords' land was what they were getting in exchange for the burden of serfdom. Not that it was a fair system by any means, but protection was at most a distant secondary consideration in the "contract" between a peasant and their lord.