villein

How To Use villein In A Sentence

• Vinogradoff and others have conclusively established that there was not a real difference in status between the so-called villein regardant and villein in gross, and that in any case the villein was not properly a slave but rather a serf. [ The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920
• I can think of three explanations for the “villein” claim in the Triads: Cadafael, King of Gwynedd
• Cruel reaction ensued: Richard and Parliament annulled the charters; terrible repression followed, and a deliberate effort was made to restore villeinage. 1377-89
• Even in villeinage we would have married and been thankful. A Rare Benedictine
• Could she truly be so shallow as to be drawn to a weak-minded, contemptible villein better suited to walk behind an ox plowing fields than dare to lift his eyes to a queen? Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer
• Rents had been low, too, on peasants' customary holdings; labour services had been commuted, and servile villeinage had virtually disappeared by 1485.
• Well, they happen, the lightning-strokes of God, the gifted or misfortunates who are born into a world where they nowhere belong, the saints and scholars who come to manhood unrecognized, guarding the swine in the forest pastures among the beechmast, the warrior princes villein-born and youngest in a starving clan, set to scare the crows away from the furrow. The Virgin In The Ice
• The manor of Countisbury rendered geld for half a hide, of which the lord held one virgate and four ploughs, and the villeins held one virgate and six ploughs. Lynton and Lynmouth A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland
• The villein, halfslave as he was in some respects, held lands of his own which he tilled on those days of the year when his lord had no claim upon him or his oxen.
• Thus it was that toward 1215, or pretty nearly contemporaneously with the epoch when men like Grosseteste began to show restlessness under the extortionate corruption of the Church, the villein was discovered to be able to defend his claim to some portion of the increment in the value of the land which he tilled and which was due to his labor: and this title the manorial courts recognized, because they could not help it, as a sort of tenant right, calling it a customary tenancy by base service. The Emancipation of Massachusetts