© Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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This change led to the gradual disappearance of tenants in villeinage - the villeins and cottiers - and the rise on the one hand of the small independent farmer, on the other of the hired labourer.
VILLENAGE (VILLAINAGE, VILLANAGE, VILLEINAGE), a medieval term (from villa, villanus), pointing to serfdom, a condition of men intermediate between freedom and slavery.
The rebels at first demanded no more than that Richard should declare villeinage abolished, and that all feudal dues and services should be commuted for a rent of fourpence an acre.
The rebellion, therefore, had failed either to abolish villeinage in the countryside or to end municipal oligarchy in the towns, and many lords took the opportunity of the time of Decline of reaction in order to revindicate old claims over their ~be bondsmen.