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.

Thus, in the first half of the sixteenth century, the old serfdom which still existed in a very harsh form in many provinces was mitigated, and villeinage substituted.

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

The fathers early enacted that there should be neither bond slaves nor villeinage amongst us except captives taken in just wars and those condemned judicially to serve.

From Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of Slavery to the Present Time by Dunbar-Nelson, Alice Moore

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

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

But when villeinage ceased, various and opposite courses seemed to have been pursued in different boroughs.

From The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860 by Yonge, Charles Duke