villainage

Definitions

Examples

• Vinogradoff, Villainage, 149, gives a few instances of its occurrence; but it seems to be very rare.

• Villainage as an institution continued to exist and to characterize the position of the mass of the peasantry.

• They who were born in villainage, were born to an inheritance of labour, but not of inevitable depravity and wretchedness.

• The minor law books of the thirteenth century follow Bracton in this identification of villainage with slavery.

• As to the general aspect of villainage in the legal theory of English feudalism there can be no doubt.