villein


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vil·lein

also vil·lain  (vĭl′ən, -ān′, vĭ-lān′)
n.
One of a class of feudal serfs who held the legal status of freemen in their dealings with all people except their lord.
[Middle English vilein; see villain.]

villein

(ˈvɪlən) or

villain

n
(Historical Terms) (in medieval Europe) a peasant personally bound to his lord, to whom he paid dues and services, sometimes commuted to rents, in return for his land
[C14: from Old French vilein serf; see villain]

vil•lein

(ˈvɪl ən, -eɪn, vɪˈleɪn)

n.
(in the feudal system) a member of a class of persons who were serfs with respect to their lord but had the rights of freemen with respect to others.
[1275–1325; see villain]
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.villein - (Middle Ages) a person who is bound to the land and owned by the feudal lordvillein - (Middle Ages) a person who is bound to the land and owned by the feudal lord
helot, serf
Europe - the 2nd smallest continent (actually a vast peninsula of Eurasia); the British use `Europe' to refer to all of the continent except the British Isles
cottier, cotter - a medieval English villein
thrall - someone held in bondage
Dark Ages, Middle Ages - the period of history between classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance
Translations

villein

[ˈvɪlɪn] N (Hist) → villano/a m/f

villein

n (Hist) → Leibeigene(r) mf
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References in classic literature ?
The four on this side are all workers, three of them in the service of the bailiff of Sir Baldwin Redvers, and the other, he with the sheepskin, is, as I hear, a villein from the midlands who hath run from his master.
View in context
For that matter, the professional men and the artists are at this present moment villeins in everything but name, while the politicians are henchmen.
"I spoke of the professional men and the artists as villeins. What else are they?
View in context
The author of the late twelfth-century Treatise on the Laws and Customs of England, commonly known as Glanvill, stated that a runaway villein, though legally obliged to stay in his native settlement, could earn his personal freedom if he remained unchallenged for a year and a day in a privileged town (one which held a royal charter) and was admitted as a citizen into the townsmen's commune or gild.
BRITAIN 1200
Gray, "The Commutation of Villein Services in England before the Black Death", Eng.
England in the aftermath of the Black Death
Excavation of the home of the reeve - the villein who acted as general overseer for the manor court - revealed oil lamps and glazed French pottery.
Terry's tales of the unexpected
The freedom to conclude a civil contract between peasant and landowner paradoxically extended the villein service system.
Napoleon and Polish identity
Any male slave or villein (no cases involving women have survived) who could demonstrate that his father was of Latin descent automatically gained his freedom.
Women under Venetian colonial rule in the early Renaissance: observations on their economic activities
better than a just and lawful seigniory," makes "his will and comaundment a lawe vnto his owne vassall," whom he treats as "a very slave and villein."(42) Spenser thus concludes that "the chefest abuses which are now in that realme [Ireland], are growne from the Englishe, and the Englishe .
Irishmen, aristocrats, and other white barbarians
court noted Coke's maxim that a villein freed for an hour is free
OF BRUTAL MURDER AND TRANSCENDENTAL SOVEREIGNTY: THE MEANING OF VESTED PRIVATE RIGHTS
(3.) The Oxford English Dictionary defines a villein as "a feudal tenant entirely subject to a lord or manor to whom he paid dues and services in return for land."
Old haunts
It is doubtful that there was any real public' to speak of at the time, given that the main differentiation in personal status was whether one was an unfree villein bound to the land, or a freeman.
The public right to fish and the triumph of colonial dispossession in Ireland and Canada

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