villanage

[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.

Some faint traces of villanage were detected by the curious so late as the days of the Stuarts.

2. Baseness; infamy; villainy. [Obs.] Dryden.