villein's Usage Examples:

The number of families settled on the former is not given, but attention is called to the market which had been removed thence by the count to the neighbouring castle of Dunheved, which had two mills, one villein and thirteen bordars.

A portion of the manor, generally about a third, constituted the lord's demesne, which, though sometimes separate, usually consisted of strips intermingled with those of his villeins.

The thrall had a house of his own and was rather villein or serf than slave, having rights and a legal price by law.

Their aim was to abolish all villein-service, and to wring from their lords the commutation of all manorial customs and obligations for a small rentfourpence an acre was generally the sum suggested.

By the common law, if a villein were made a knight he was thereby enfranchised and accounted a gentleman, and if a person under age and in wardship were knighted both his minority and wardship terminated.

Still, even at that time it might happen that a freeholder owned some land in villenage by the side of his free tenement, and that a villein held some land freely by agreement with his lord or with a third person.

The Council of Clermont prescribed that the oath of adherence to the truce be taken every three years by all men above the age of twelve, whether noble, burgess, villein or serf.

(2) Politically the villeins were not eliminated from the body of citizens: they had to pay taxes, to serve in great emergencies in the militia, to serve on inquests, 'c.

At the latter date besides seventy-three villeins, bordars and serfs there were forty cervisarii, a species of unfree tenants who rendered their custom in the form of beer.

The villein was in this sense emphatically the man holding " by the fork and the flail.

The royal courts refused to entertain suits of villeins against their lords, although there was a good deal of vacillation before this position was definitely taken up.