CORVEE: 1: unpaid labor due from a feudal vassal to his lord 2: labor exacted in lieu of taxes by public authorities expecially for highway contruction or repair
In 1155, the French king ordained that no inhabitant "is to render us the obligation of corvee, except twice a year, when our wine is to be carried to Orleans, and not elsewhere." The crovee in question was the feudal kind, and the French word traced back to the Latin corrogare, meaning "to collect." English borrowed that word and used it in the same sense until the early 18th century, when, according to British Viscount John Morley (1838-1923) , "the advantages of a good system of high roads began to be perceived by the Government" and "the idea came into the heads of the more ingenious....of imposing for the construction of the roads a royal or public corvee analogous to that of private feudalism."
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