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

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

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 feudal times.'

2. 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. Litt. Ten. s. 189, 190; Hallam's View of the Middle Ages, vol. i. 122, 124; vol. ii. 199.

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

2. 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. 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.

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