villeinage

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.

The institution of villeinage is last mentioned in a commission of Queen Elizabeth, 1574, directing Lord Burleigh and others in certain counties to compound with all such bondmen or bondwomen for their manumission and freedom.

From Popular Law-making by Stimson, Frederic Jesup

Once elected, whether by the actual ceremony or by a survival of it, he assumed control over the tenants in villeinage and over the waste lands of the tribe.

From The Fijians A Study of the Decay of Custom by Thomson, Basil

In the new French possessions, villeinage and servitude were abolished, with a haste and recklessness which was intended to win the people to the new dominion.

From Pictures of German Life in the XVIIIth and XIXth Centuries, Vol. I. by Freytag, Gustav

In Poland, at this day, the peasants seem to be in an absolute state of slavery, or at least of villeinage, to the nobility, who are the land-holders.

From Dissertation on Slavery With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it, in the State of Virginia by Tucker, St. George

A plea had been set up that villeinage had never been abolished by law in England; ergo, the possession of slaves was not illegal.

From Toronto of Old by Scadding, Henry