villeins
Medieval tenant farmers
Villeins were medieval peasants bound to a lord's estate, occupying a status between free tenant and slave.
They owed labor and dues to the lord in exchange for working strips of land.
Unlike slaves, villeins had legal rights and couldn't be sold apart from the land, but they couldn't leave without permission.
The term is historical, confined to discussions of feudal society: The villeins worked three days a week on the lord's fields.
Feudal bound laborers
- peasantsLow-ranking agricultural workers
- manorialOf a lord's estate
- bondsmenPersons in servitude
- tenantsProperty renters
lords · demesne · copyholders · freemen · fiefs · vassals · servitude · landholders
Without liberty
- boundSecured or destined
- chattelsMovable personal property
- manumissionFormal freeing of enslaved
- freedomAbsence of constraint
birthright · status · runaway · courts · fines · surrender · inheritance · customs
serfs
Feudal bound laborers
tenants · lords · demesne · copyholders · freemen · fiefs · vassals · servitude · landholders · tenure
unfree
Without liberty
- boundSecured or destined
- chattelsMovable personal property
- manumissionFormal freeing of enslaved
freedom · birthright · status · runaway · courts · fines · surrender · inheritance · customs · servile
plowing
Turning earth for crops
fields · crops · gleaning · threshing · haymaking · fallow · strips · tillage · manure · scythes
- medieval societyserfs, noble lineage, peasants, serf, heir
- old occupationsblacksmith, carpenter, miller, farmer, shepherd
- feudalismfief, vassal, fealty, homage, lord
- medieval economyfiefs, manors, serfs, vassals, lords
- English historyNorman Conquest, Domesday Book, Magna Carta, King Alfred, Henry VIII
- Norman EraNormans, William the Conqueror, Norman conquest, Domesday Book, Battle of Hastings
villeinslords
Men of high rank
nobles · freemen · lords of the manor · free men · aristocrats