Bondage

Also 5 bondeage, 6–7 boundage. [ME. bondage, a. AF. bondage, or ad. Anglo-L. bondagium, f. BOND sb.² (in AF. bond, bonde, in Anglo-L. bondus) + -AGE. The natural English formation was BONDEHEDE, or bondescipe, BONDSHIP. In later times associated in thought with BOND sb.¹, as of a man ‘in bonds,’ or constrained by a bond: see esp. senses 2 c, 3.]

  † 1.  The tenure of a bonde or BOND after the Norman Conquest; tenure in villenage; the service rendered by a bonde. Obs.

[a. 1300[?].  Leges Baron. Scot., lvi. 3. Si autem nativi domino suo negent nativitatem suam, sive Bondagium, tunc attachiabuntur per Ministros Domini Regis.

1381.  Charter of Rich. II., in Walsingham 254 (Du Cange). Et eorum quemlibet ab omni bondagio exuimus, et quietos facimus. Ibid., 270. Quod nulla acra terræ quae in Bondagio vel servitio tenebit, altius quam ad 4 denarios haberetur.]

1651.  Proc. Parliament, No. 126. 1951. Set free from their former dependencies and bondage services & shall be admitted as Tenants, Freeholders.

  b.  Sc. ‘Services due by a tenant to the proprietor, or by a cottager [rather cotter] to the farmer.’ Jam. c. esp. The service of the BONDAGER.

  (These are relics of sense 1 surviving to modern times in Scotland and adjacent parts of England.)

1818.  Edin. Mag., Aug., 126/2 (Jam.). The farmer … holds his farm from the landlord … for payment of a certain sum of money;… a certain number of days work with his horses, carts, and men…. The very name that this service gets here, bondage, indicates the light in which it is viewed by the tenantry.

1845.  New Statist. Acc. Scotl., XII. 1004. What was termed bondages to the heritor, which embraced the labour of man and beast, long and short carriages, and the yearly payment of poultry, and in some cases of sheep, butter and tallow, are now abolished.

  c.  1872.  E. Robertson, Hist. Ess., 99. The bondage-system, entailing … the necessity of finding extra labour in field work.

1872.  J. Thomson, Peter Plough, 8. The bothy system there, like our bondage system here, is not as it should be.

Mod.  The hind’s daughter does the bondage work for the house.

  † d.  Arbitrary or tyrannical impost. Obs.

c. 1650.  2nd Narr. late Parl., in Select. Harl. Misc. (1793), 416. Appearing and standing … for right and freedom, against the bondages, which, contrary to engagements, covenants and promises, were put upon the good people of this land.

  2.  The position or condition of a serf or slave; servitude, serfdom, slavery.

c. 1330.  R. Brunne, Chron., 71. In þat bondage, þat brouht was ouer þe se, Now ere þei in seruage fulle fele þat or was fre.

1398.  Barth. De P. R., VI. xv. (1495), 199. Some seruauntes ben bonde, and bore in bondage.

1460.  Capgrave, Chron., 30. That wretchid bondage of the Hebrew puple in Egipt.

1593.  Shaks., Rich. II., I. iii. 89. Neuer did Captiue with a freer heart, Cast off his chaines of bondage.

1671.  Milton, Samson, 270. What more oft in Nations grown corrupt, And by their vices brought to servitude, Than to love Bondage more than Liberty.

1830.  Mackintosh, Eth. Philos., Wks. 1846, I. 52. Those who purchased them, nor those who hold them in bondage.

  † b.  Applied to the condition of being bound apprentice. (Cf. service, servitude.) Obs.

a. 1577.  Sir T. Smith, Commw. Eng., III. x. (1609), 129. Another kind of seruitude or bondage is vsed in England … which is called apprenticehood.

  c.  transf. The condition of being bound or tied up; that which binds. poet.

1597.  Shaks., Lover’s Compl., 34. Some [hair] in her threaden fillet still did bide, And true to bondage would not break from thence. Ibid. (1611), Cymb., V. v. 306. Cym. Binde the Offender…. Bel. Let his Armes alone, They were not borne for bondage.

1728.  Thomson, Spring, 649. The callow young Warmed and expanded into perfect life, Their brittle bondage break.

  3.  fig. Subjection to some bond, binding power, influence or obligation.

a. 1450.  Knt. de la Tour (1868), 55. One synne puttithe her … into this seruage and bondage.

1540.  Coverdale, Old Faith, Prol. (1844), 4. The bondage of sin and vice.

1651.  Calderwood, Hist. Kirk (1843), II. 21. Subject to death, and to the boundage of the same.

1676.  South, Serm. Col. iii. 19 (1720), I. 115 (J.). He must resolve … by no means to suffer the Liberty of his Conscience to be enslaved, and brought under the Bondage of observing Oaths.

1866.  Argyll, Reign Law, vii. (ed. 4), 362. The bondage under which all true Science lies to fact.

  † b.  Binding force, obligation. Obs.

1611.  Shaks., Cymb., II. iv. 111. The Vowes of Women, Of no more bondage be, to where they are made, Then they are to their Vertues.