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 villeinage into which the peasants had been thrust back could not, indeed, endure long, because service unwillingly rendered is too expensive to be maintained.

From A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII by Gardiner, Samuel Rawson

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

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 Scotland they had just been emancipated from the status of villeinage.

From Recent Developments in European Thought by Various

The facts are all against them; these showing it a scheme of villeinage, more oppressive than the European serfdom of the Middle Ages.

From The Death Shot A Story Retold by Reid, Mayne