Question

Which of the following describes the rights and legal standing of a European villein?

They could farm a plot of land for a landlord, but they didn't own it.

They were forced to give up all of their labor, but they received food from the landlord.

They could buy land from a landlord, but they had to provide the lord with military service.

They were forced to sell all of their land to the landlord, but their house was provided for them.

Answer 1

A villein was an early form of serf. His relationship to his lord was classically fuedal, in that the villein owed the lord labor, which might be rendered on the lord's land, as military service, or possibly as crops from the land he (the villein) farmed. The villein's relationship to the land was complicated: he did not precisely own it, because he could not sell it, nor leave it - he was 'bound' to the land he farmed. But on the other hand, he had a traditional right to it, and the lord was generally constrained not to sell the land without the villein in possession. So A.