Vil"lan*age (?; 48), n. [OF. villenage, vilenage. See Villain.]
1. FeudalLaw
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.
© Webster 1913.