properly signifies the same with slavery, but in old law books is used for villenage (see VILLENAGE). Tenants in bondage paid kenots, and did fealty; they were not to fell trees in their own garden, without licence of the lord. The widow of a tenant in bondage held her husband's estate quam diu vixit erit sine marito, "as long as she lived single."

BONDAGE by the Forelock, or Bondagium per anteriores crines cupitis, was when a freeman renounced his liberty, and became a slave to some great man; which was done by the ceremony of cutting off a lock of hair from the forehead, and delivering it to his lord; denoting that he was to be maintained by him for the future. Such a bondman, if he reclaimed his liberty, or were fugitive from his master, might be drawn again to his servitude by the nose, whence the origin of the popular menace to pull a man by the nose.