FREEHOLD is also sometimes taken in opposition to villenage.
Lambard observes, that land, in the Saxons time, was distinguished into bockland, i. e. holden by book or writing; and folkland, held without writing. The former, he says, was held on far better condition, and by the better sort of tenants, as noblemen and gentlemen; being such as we now call freehold: the latter was mostly in possession of peasants; being the same with what we now call at the will of the lord.
In the ancient laws of Scotland, freeholders are called milites, "knights." In Reg. Judicial. it is expressed, that he who holds land upon an execution of a statute merchant, until he hath satisfied the debt, tenet in liberum tenementum sibi et assignatis suis; and the name of a tenant per elegit: the meaning of which seems to be, not that such tenants are freeholders, but as freeholders for the time, till they have received profits to the value of their debt.