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villenage

villenage


  2  definitions  found 
 
  From  Webster's  Revised  Unabridged  Dictionary  (1913)  [web1913]: 
 
  Villenage  \Vil"len*age\,  n.  [See  {Villanage}.]  (Feudal  Law) 
  Villanage.  --Blackstone. 
 
  From  Webster's  Revised  Unabridged  Dictionary  (1913)  [web1913]: 
 
  Villanage  \Vil"lan*age\  (?;  48),  n.  [OF.  villenage,  vilenage. 
  See  {Villain}.] 
  1.  (Feudal  Law)  The  state  of  a  villain,  or  serf;  base 
  servitude;  tenure  on  condition  of  doing  the  meanest 
  services  for  the  lord.  [In  this  sense  written  also 
  {villenage},  and  {villeinage}.] 
 
  I  speak  even  now  as  if  sin  were  condemned  in  a 
  perpetual  villanage,  never  to  be  manumitted. 
  --Milton. 
 
  Some  faint  traces  of  villanage  were  detected  by  the 
  curious  so  late  as  the  days  of  the  Stuarts. 
  --Macaulay. 
 
  2.  Baseness;  infamy;  villainy.  [Obs.]  --Dryden.