Hypertext Webster Gateway: "villenage"
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.
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