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.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) |