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.

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