Category:Villanage

Vil"lan*age (48), n. Etym: [of. villenage, vilenage. See villain.]

1. (feudal law)

Defn: 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.