Corvée

Sez the OED:
corvée korve.. Feudal Law. [Fr. corvée, in 13th c. also corowée:-Romanic corvada, coruada (in a capitulary of Charlemagne):-late L. corrogata: corrogata opera requested (i.e. requisitioned) work: f. L. corrogare, f. cor- together, and intensive + rogare to ask, request. Mediæval Latinized forms of the Fr. were corruweia, corrua, croata.] A day's work of unpaid labour due by a vassal to his feudal lord; the whole forced labour thus exacted; in France, extended to the statute labour upon the public roads which was exacted of the French peasants before 1776: see quot. 1877.

1340 Ayenb. 38 Kueade lordes..þat be-ula3eþ þe poure men.;be tayles, be coruees [printed tornees], be lones, be kueade wones.
1794 J. Gifford Reign Louis XVI, 184 The abolition of the Corvée, in kind, which had for ages been a source of constant oppression to the country people.
1796 Morse Amer. Geog. II. 219 The peasant, altho' personally free..is nevertheless restrained by limited corvees and some pecuniary contributions.
1877 Morley Crit. Misc. Ser. ii. 202 When, in the early part of the [18th] century, the advantages of a good system of high roads began to be perceived by the Government, the convenient idea came into the heads of the more ingenious among the Intendants of imposing for the construction of the roads, a royal or public corvée analogous to that of private feudalism;
1882 L. Oliphant Khemi 138 The canals were kept up by a corvée of the inhabitants;