Definition of "villainage" []

• Variant of villeinage. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Christian emperors after Constantine exempted the clergy from the obligation of undertaking municipal offices, trusteeships, guardianships, and all public functions, from military service, quartering, and the other personal munera sordida (later called villainage), and in part also from personal taxation (Cod."
• "They who were born in villainage, were born to an inheritance of labour, but not of inevitable depravity and wretchedness."
• "The lord of the manor could still of course enforce his claim to the various payments and restrictions arising from the villainage of his tenants, but their position as payers of money was much less servile than as performers of forced labor."