Villenage

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Villanage \Vil"lan*age\ (?; 48), n. [OF. villenage, vilenage.
     See {Villain}.]
     1. (Feudal Law) The state of a villain, or serf; base
        servitude; tenure on condition of doing the meanest
        services for the lord. [In this sense written also
        {villenage}, and {villeinage}.]


        [1913 Webster]
  
              I speak even now as if sin were condemned in a
              perpetual villanage, never to be manumitted.
                                                    --Milton.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Some faint traces of villanage were detected by the
              curious so late as the days of the Stuarts.
                                                    --Macaulay.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Baseness; infamy; villainy. [Obs.] --Dryden.
        [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Villenage \Vil"len*age\, n. [See {Villanage}.] (Feudal Law)
     Villanage. --Blackstone.
     [1913 Webster]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  92 Moby Thesaurus words for "villenage":
     absolutism, adverse possession, alodium, bond service, bondage,
     burgage, captivity, claim, colony, control, de facto, de jure,
     debt slavery, dependency, deprivation of freedom, derivative title,
     disenfranchisement, disfranchisement, domination, enslavement,
     enthrallment, fee fief, fee position, fee simple,
     fee simple absolute, fee simple conditional, fee simple defeasible,
     fee simple determinable, fee tail, feodum, feud, feudalism,
     feudality, fiefdom, frankalmoign, free socage, freehold, gavelkind,
     having title to, helotism, helotry, hold, holding, indentureship,
     knight service, lay fee, lease, leasehold, legal claim,
     legal possession, mandate, occupancy, occupation, original title,
     owning, peonage, possessing, possession, preoccupancy,
     preoccupation, prepossession, prescription, property,
     property rights, proprietary rights, restraint, seisin, serfdom,
     serfhood, servility, servitude, slavery, socage, squatting,
     subjection, subjugation, sublease, tenancy, tenantry, tenure,
     tenure in chivalry, thrall, thralldom, title, tyranny, underlease,
     undertenancy, usucapion, vassalage, villein socage, villeinhold,
     yoke