Ah crap, you said the F-word and described it as a 'system'; take cover. To distract the slavering Medievalists, here is the relevant section of the FAQ about the whole debate around the F-word.

There will be much difficulty on the question of what serfs' lives were like, as very little material survives that examines the lives of the common folk (if you hear a historian talking about 'subalterns', that's what they mean), and so we can't really make that good a picture. We do have something for your reading, though:

• u/chevalier-sans-peur looks at serfdom in Medieval France and England;
• and because this is Medieval, u/sunagainstgold of course has something examining this as well. On the matter of rebellions, she also looks at protests and revolts.