Frank Tenement (liberum tenementum), is land or tenement which a man holds in fee-simple, fee-tail, or for a term of life. Freehold is of two kinds, in deed and in lane. The first is the real possession of land or tenement in fee, fee-tail, or for life; the other is the right a man has to such land or tenement before his entry or seizure.

Freehold is sometimes taken in opposition to village. Lambard observes, that land, in the time of the Saxons, was distinguished into bockland, that is, holden by book or writing; and folkland, that is, 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 for the most part in possession of peasants, being the same with what we now call at the will of the lord.