Free

[Sax. /reo; Lai. liber; L. Lat. franetu; L. Fr. fraunc,fraunckt/raunche.] Not bond or servile; not subject to servitude; as & freeman, (q. v.) Certain or honorable; the opposite of base; as free service, ^^< socage, (qq. v.) Privileged or exclusive; the opposite of common; as a. free chapel, njree fishery, a free warren, (qq. v.) The word free^ as used in the old common law, imported something very dififerent from its prevalent modem meaning. Thus, as applied to persons, it had not the sense of absolute independence now generally annexed to it; no person, though distinguished as a freeman, being exempt from service of some kind or other. See Idber homo. So, in its application to rights, it had by no means its present popular sense of common, unrestricted, open to all, but directly the reverse, — importing either an exclusive right, as in the case of a free fishery and a free warren, (qq. v.) or a special exemption from some general duty or burden, as from a tax, toll, tribute, (&c. This very strikingly appears in the use of the word franchise itself, which, though properly translated freedom or a freedom, always denoted, as it still does, either an exempt jurisdiction, or an exclusive privilege, and it has the latter sense even in American law. So, in Eaglish law at this day, a liberty is a place of exclusive jurisdiction; a district exempt from the sheriff of the county. 2 Steph. Com. 14, 16. This technical meaning, (as it may be called) of the word free seems more aptly expressed by the L. Latin francus, and L. Fr. fraunck, than the pure Latin liber.