banality

Etymology

From French banalité, from banal.

noun

1. (uncountable) The quality of being banal.
   The concept of the banality of evil came into prominence following the publication of Hannah Arendt's 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, which was based on the trial of Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem. 1997, Edward S. Herman, Triumph of the Market: Essays on Economics, Politics, and the Media, Black Rose Books Ltd., page 97
2. (countable) Something which is banal.
3. (rare, historical) A feudal right or obligation, especially the obligation for a peasant to grind grain at the lord's mill, or the profits accruing from such rights.
   The law of banality, one of the most oppressive products of feudalism, was revived for the advantage of the nobility. 1892, William Klapp Williams, The Dawn of Italian Independence: Italy from the Congress of Vienna, 1814, to the Fall of Venice, 1849, volume 1, page 176
   Other banalities included the lord's exclusive right to hunt over the land, his monopoly over fishing, and his right to keep the dove-cote whose feathery occupants ate a peasant's standing crops. 1984, Sheldon J. Watts, A Social History of Western Europe, 1450–1720: Tensions and Solidarities among Rural People, page 106
   In fact corvées, champarts, and rights of banality not only continued but had been increased in the course of the seventeenth century. 1986, Pierre Goubert, translated by Ian Patterson, The French Peasantry in the Seventeenth Century, page 218