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.

By these provisions both villeinage or land-serfdom and the slavery of debtor classes to capital were to be prevented in the new nation.

From The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible by Newton, R. Heber

In spite of the prayers and resolutions and acts of the early fathers, a form of slavery grew up here, but it was milder than the English villeinage: it resembled apprenticeship except in the duration.

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

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.

From What Social Classes Owe to Each Other by Sumner, William Graham

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

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