serfage

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

We must beware of attributing this doctrine of Neifty to the Norman Conquest, which merely supplied names; in definiteness and cruelty nothing could exceed the practice of serfage under the Saxons.

From The Customs of Old England by Snell, F. J. (Frederick John)

Christianity finding men in serfage and degraded all over the earth, had arisen on the fall of the Roman Empire, like a mighty vengeance, though under the aspect of a resignation.

From History of the Girondists, Volume I Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution by Ryde, H. T.

The rural tenants found themselves in a mesh of legal claims—old services revived, old dues enforced, endless suits in the King's courts grinding them again to serfage.

From Stray Studies from England and Italy by Greene, John Richard

She has abolished slavery, villenage, serfage, political aristocracy, asserted the equality of all men before the law, vindicated the sovereignty of the people, and established universal suffrage, complete social and territorial democracy.

From The American Republic : constitution, tendencies and destiny by Brownson, Orestes Augustus

If serfage did not create that moral apathy and intellectual lethargy which formed, as it were, the atmosphere of Russian provincial life, it did much at least to preserve it.

From Russia by Wallace, Donald Mackenzie, Sir