Extracted From:
  A LAW DICTIONARY ..., SIXTH EDITION, 1856
  by John Bouvier
  CHILDS & PETERSON, PHILADELPHIA

VILL. In England this word was used to signify the parts into which a hundred or
wapentake was divided.... It also signifies a town or city....

VILLAIN., An epithet used to cast contempt and contumely on the person to whom
it is applied. 
   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....

VILLEIN, Eng. 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....

VILLENOUS JUDGMENT, punishments. In the English law it was a judgment given by
the common law in attaint, or in cases of conspiracy. 
   Its effects were to make the object of it lose his liberam legem, and become
infamous. He forfeited his goods and chattels, and his lands during life; and
this barbarous judgment further required that his lands should be wasted, his
houses razed, his trees rooted up, and that his body should be cast into prison.
He could not be a juror or witness....

WAPENTAKE. An ancient word used in England as synonymous with hundred....

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