Freeholders
group · 2 works · 5 mentions · 10 anchored passages
freeholders · freeholder · freeman · barons of the Hundred · freehold tenants · liber homo · ordinary layman · the freeholders
in the texts
An Essay on the Trial by Jury
Landholders who, under the old common law, held land by virtue of civil freedom; later the term narrowed to fee-simple owners and became a property qualification for jury service.
As the tenures of lands changed, the term freeholder lost its original significance, and no longer described a man who held land of the state by virtue of his civil freedom, but only one who held it in fee-simple—that is, free of any liability to military or civil services.
, that the statutes cited require the jurors (except in London and a few other places) to be freeholders.
It is true, the ancient common law required the jurors to be freeholders;
Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John
Free landholders who participated in the county court and were subject to (or protected by) the provisions on intestate succession.
They were appointed by the whole body of freeholders assembled in the county court, and the nature of their duties is explained by the oath of office sworn in the same words for many centuries, “ad custodienda ea quae pertinent ad coronam.
If any freeman shall die intestate, his chattels shall be distributed by the hands of his nearest kinsfolk and friends, under supervision of the church, saving to every one the debts which the deceased owed to him.
Magna Carta in this chapter, treating of the amercements of freeholders, merchants and villeins, makes no reference to the part played by the King’s justices, but only to the functions of the jury of neighbours.