askchapo

Not to be a medievalist here, but there is no single "feudalism" system with any sort of consistency. The stereotypical "feudalism" we're taught about only really applies to England and Northern France for a period of about 300 years. To answer your question simply, it didn't really give many benefits for most serfs other than the nominal protection from raids and the fact you were technically more free than a slave.

If your question is "was there ever any benefit to having being a serf and having a Lord", there are some rare cases. My best example is in Southern France/Aquitaine before the Albigensian Crusades of the 13th century. While Northern France in the 11th-12th tightened their control over landed peasants with the "every land a lord" policy, Southern France had it's own system. While Aquitaine and Toulouse were part of the kingdom of France, they had their own local laws and administration which made them fairly autonomous. Specifically, landed yeoman were not obligated to serve militarily or serve on their lord's farms (at least not to the same extent as in the north). Townfolk had even more protection via their communes. There was no unified system, every Lord and tenant could have different arrangements which generally made it better for lower classes. Southern lords also permitted more religious freedoms, which is why the Albigensian Crusade began.

Essentially peasants and townfolk in Southern France and Northern Italy felt disconnected from the increasingly bureaucratic church, so commoners started preaching about wealth inequality the way they imagined Jesus did. Soon these lay preachers began performing holy sacraments, which the Church would not stand for because that was how the Church made their money. Although this movement was not unified, the Church labeled it a "heresy" and called for an inquisition to get to the bottom of it. Soon it became a full on Crusade where Northern French lords invaded Southern hotspots of religion. Southern lords, first the Count of Toulouse and then later the Lord of Aquitaine, defended their lands and people and got labeled heretics themselves. After decades of back and forth fighting, the King of France eventually toppled Southern lords, grabbed land, and systematically eliminated the privileges commoners enjoyed and instituted their own form of feudalism. However it's worth noting that southern lords were invested in protecting their tenants from Northern incursion on their rights.

All of this is to say "feudalism" was no set standard and was constantly changing. If your question is "were there things medieval peasants enjoyed that modern proles do not", there are some things. It's hard to say exactly, but it's likely that pre-modern peasants "worked" fewer total hours in a year than modern proles. There were intense periods of work in the sewing and harvest seasons, with much less work to be done in the winter (mainly maintaining your house and animals). Peasants worked with the sun and could take breaks as they needed (assuming they were working their own land). In times of good harvest, they were able to profit from any extra produce. They also enjoyed many religious holidays which were so sacred, peasants would frequently rebel to protect those privileges. Lords were also supposed to donate surplus food to those festivals (but since that came from the peasants anyways it's hard to count it).

If you compare them to proles of the 19th century who worked 12 hour days, 6 days a week the comparisons are even more stark.