What is "villeinage"

Usage examples of "villeinage".

Draper, otherwise Sir Simon de Wynton, granted a plot of land to the north-west of the Manor House to Adam de Lecke in villeinage, and later in freehold to John de Otterbourne, reserving thirteen shillings rent.

None the less it was a formidable matter to rouse the hostility of a body which included not only all the religious world, but all the educated classes, and penetrated even to the despised villeinage and the poor freemen whose sons pressed into its lower ranks.

Though aware of the dissatisfaction of the frontiersmen those serfs wanted to become part of the Military Frontier because villeinage service and the constantly growing taxes were becoming increasingly difficult for them to bear.

For one thing, the poll-tax was stopped, and the end of villeinage was hastened.

Through various grades of slavery, serfdom, villeinage, and through various organizations of castes and guilds, the industrial organization has been modified and developed up to the modern system.

During the mayoralty of John Blount, Thomas le Bedelle, Robert le Bedelle, Alan Undirwoode, and Edmund May, butchers, lost their franchises, because they acknowledged that they held land in villeinage of the Bishop of London and dwelt outside the liberty.

Economic forces were already propelling the decline of villeinage, and commutation continued, despite the crushing of the revolt, until the unfree peasant gradually disappeared.

In Scotland, villeinage lasted much longer, and as late as 1774, in the reign of George III, men working in coal and salt mines were held in a species of slavery, which was finally abolished the following year.

Now well I wot that men having once shaken themselves clear of the burden of villeinage, as thou sayest we shall do (and I bless thee for the word), shall never bow down to this worser tyranny without sore strife in the world.