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 king or the prince who is enslaved by his conscience oweth the duties of villeinage to the worst and hardest of masters.

From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 16 by Various

And the pretence at proselytising, with its mongrel mixture of Christianity and superstition, did not make this Transatlantic villeinage a whit less irksome to endure.

From The Death Shot A Story Retold by Reid, Mayne

Their inhabitants, in spite of ascetic regulations, found that life was none so hard—at least in comparison with that of serfdom or villeinage; luxuries were not less available than to the laity.

From England under the Tudors by Innes, Arthur D. (Arthur Donald)

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

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