Villein

In France: a rural or urban non-noble. A rural free-man in England: a peasant with enough land to support his family.

Engl. law. A species of slave during the feudal times.'

The feudal villein of the lowest order was unprotected as to property, and subjected to the post ignoble services; but his circumstances were very different from the slave of the southern states, for no person was, in the eye of the law, a villein, except as to his master; in relation to all other persons he was a freeman.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.