Definition of "esne"

To an esne, therefore, I refer the entry in Doomsday-book, that at Chester, if a male or female slave shall do any […]

1818, Samuel Heywood, A dissertation upon the distinctions in society

[…] of British extraction captured or purchased, — or of the common German stock descended from the slaves of the first colonists: the esne or slave who works for hire; […]

1875, William Stubbs, The constitutional history of England, in its origin and development

[…] insist that in the event of the death of an esne his full value had to be paid.

2011, David Anthony Edgell Pelteret, Slavery in Early Mediaeval England