(medieval Europe) a person who is bound to the land and owned by the feudal lord

Usage examples of villein.

He was no villein to be in awe of her, but a powerful warlord, a man no one would dare treat as they had done.

I may be your hostage, but I am no common villein that you may insult at your leisure.

At the Thursday court Matilda sat with Sigward on the dais and whispered into his ear as each villein came forward.

She made him give the name of every tenant, every villein, every rent, every customary right.

In the later middle ages, the word villein came to have a servile connotation, but in 1066 these men were the most numerous of heads of families in the countryside, and thought of themselves with pride as being their own masters: the word only came into use about that time, from the Latin villanus, and meant no more than villager.

These gifts or their equivalent were reclaimed by the thane when the villein died, but normally awarded again to his heir to renew the bargain.

Perhaps some of these duties were alternatives, but it looks as though the villein needed stalwart sons and daughters to help him, making the holding essentially a family affair.

It was true that in return they had fired stacks and barns, killed the odd villein, stolen horses and cattle, but all the border clans did that.

The four on this side are all workers, three of them in the service of the bailiff of Sir Baldwin Redvers, and the other, he with the sheepskin, is, as I hear, a villein from the midlands who hath run from his master.

The villein took the cruel blow without wince or cry, as one to whom stripes are a birthright and an inheritance.

Alleyne answered, and then as they journeyed on their way he told them the many things that had befallen him, his meeting with the villein, his sight of the king, his coming upon his brother, with all the tale of the black welcome and of the fair damsel.

Sir Richard stared, and his brows snapped together, and he stalked over to her as he might toward a villein who had displeased him.

The audacious boy could not be more than ten and four, was dressed no better than the meanest villein, which was about all Wulfric noticed about him, since he was in the process of dismounting so he could throttle the fellow.

She had just put the Red Knight in the same class as a unschooled freeman or villein, and she knew that he would not like it.

I find him in his own nest and at his own hearth, I can take him and tax him as my villein for the reason that his return brings him to the same condition as he was when he went.