ABSTRACT
Deterioration in social conditions had been taking place during the political disintegration of the centralized monarchy. The new and weak principalities were shared out in seignories (G. satavado) where ungoverned lords had increased their
feudal rights over other classes. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the class of individual free farmers disappeared. The term glelehi which originally meant a farmer, whether free or not, became synonymous with qma, serf. In documents of the period, serfs are designated by various names according to the nature of their obligations. There were med'{hinihi, stablemen; med'{hogore~ kennel-men; moinale~ literally, serving men; me'{utkhe (from the word '{utkhe, a sturgeon) who caught sturgeons for the lord; and moagape, who were dedicated to the preparations for funerals and other chores connected with the service of the church.
