VILLEINS, serfs who grew up along with the feudal customs of Europe. A feudal lord received from his superior, on condition of military service, a grant of conquered land, which he distributed among his dependents on two distinct 'tenures or classes of tenure. The freemen, who were the kindred or followers of the conqueror, received their land on the same condition of military service as himself. The conquered or the serfs who were not di rectly employed in domestic or personal service were allowed to cultivate the land on the tenure of menial or non-military services, either deter minate or indeterminate. Such is the simple origin of villenage. In some cases the villeins were at the absolute disposal of their lord, who could sell them or deal with them as he pleased. In others they were attached to the soil, and formed part of its movable wealth. Sometimes they held by defined services, such as making and repainng roads, felling timber, or culti vating the lord's domain; but even then the control of jnstice was commonly in the hands of their lord, against whose oppression they had no redress. Hallam says that in England they were incapable of property; yet even in England, when the laws began to extend their protection to personal rights, the association of villeins with the soil established a good tenure of property, subject to customary services, which were finally commuted into money rents. Villenage appears to have died out in England, without special legislation to abolish it. The
system of agricultural labor under yearly con tract, with violation of contract on the part of the laborer punishable by imprisonment, which continued in England down to the latter part of the 19th century. partook essentially of villenage, as the laborers had either to face prosecution as vagrants, or renew each year the obligation of servitude, which might fairly be called involuntary. Villein is the progenitor of the modern word villain, and has degenerated in meaning.
Villenage — if the involuntary servitude of white persons not convicted of crime comes within that term—has never existed in the United States, except in the form of indentured apprenticeship, which in colonial days was prac tically serfdom, and of the form of servitude known as "redemption,° when inunigrants were sold and bound out for a term of years to pay the expenses of their passage. ((Redemption° servitude existed long after the United States became independent, and many respectable and even prominent families are descended from ((redemptioners.° Consult Page, T. W., 'End of Villainage in England' (New York 1900).
The peons of Mexico and New Mexico were essentially villeins attached to the soil. Peon age was abolished in the United States, 2 March 1867. See PEONS AND PEONAGE ; SERFS ; SLAVERY ;