英文法律词典 V-18

VILL. In England this word was used to signify the parts into which a hundred or wapentake was divided. Fortesc. De Laud¹, ch. 24. See Co. Litt. 115 b. It also signifies a town or city. Barr. on the Stat. 133.

VILLAIN²., An epithet³ used to cast contempt and contumely on the person to whom it is applied⁴.

2. To call a man a villain in a letter written to a third person, will entitle him to an action without proof of special damages. 1 Bos. & Pull. 331.

VILLEIN, Engl. law. A species of slave during the feudal⁵ times.'

2. The feudal villein of the lowest order was unprotected as to property, and subjected to the post ignoble⁶ 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. Litt. Ten. s. 189, 190; Hallam's View of the Middle Ages, vol. i. 122, 124; vol. ii. 199.

VILLENOUS JUDGMENT⁷, punishments. In the English law it was a judgment given by the common law in attaint, or in cases of conspiracy⁸.

2. Its effects were to make the object of it lose his liberam legem, and become infamous⁹. He forfeited¹⁰ his goods and chattels¹¹, and his lands during life; and this barbarous judgment further required that his lands should be wasted, his houses razed¹², his trees rooted up, and that his body should be cast into-prison. He 'could not be a juror or witness. Burr. 996, 1027; 4 Bl. Com. 136.

VINCULO MATRIMONII. A divorce. A vinculo matrimonii, is one from the bonds of matrimony. Such a divorce generally enables the parties to marry again.

VINDICATION¹³, civil law. The claim made to property by the owner of it. 1 Bell's Com. 281, 5th ed. See Revendication.