Feudal System. [a. OF. bordage (still in local use in France), = med.L. bordāgium, f. OF. borde, med.L. borda cot + -AGE: see BORDAR. (Erroneously connected in Eng. dictionaries, from Manley and Blount downwards, with bord ‘table,’ but clearly explained and illustrated by Du Cange, and in French use by Godefroy.)]
The tenure by which a bordar held his cot at the will of his lord; the services due from a bordar. (As an Eng. word only in modern historians.)
a. 1300. Coust. de Norm., I. iii. 15 (Du Cange). Tenure par bordage, si est comme aucune borde [later edd. add loge ou maison] est baillie à aucun pour fere les vils services son Seignor: ne poet lomme cel fiement ne vendre, ne engagier ne donner, et de ç’en n’est pas homage fet.
1664. Spelman, Gloss., s.v. Bordarii, Bordage.
1771. Antiq. Sarisb., 29. From the Grand Customer of Normandy we learn, that Bordage was a base tenure, where such a house or cottage was obliged to thresh, draw water, grind corn, and do such other servile work.
