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.

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

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

In the new French possessions, villeinage and servitude were abolished, with a haste and recklessness which was intended to win the people to the new dominion.

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

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

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