Free Services

[L. Lat. libera servitia.] In feudal and old English law. Such feudal services as were not unbecoming the character of a soldier or a freeman to perform; as to serve under his lord in the wars, to pay a sum of money, and the like.

2 Bl. Com, 60, 61.

Bracton makes a wide distinction between holding freelg and holdinff by free sfrvice. Est longe aliud tenere libere, et aliud tenere per liberum servitium; quia, quamvis quis teneat per liberum servitium, non tamen propter hoc tenet libere, quia tenementum quod conceditur villano, tenendum per liberum servitium, non facit villanum liberum, nisi teneat libere, non magis quam v Ulenagium facit liberum hominem villanum, si liber homx> teneat per villanas con^ suetudines; quia tenementum nihil confert nee detrahit persona, dtc. It is one thing to hold freely, and a far different thing to hold by free service; because, though one may hold by free service, yet he does not on this account hold freely; because a tenement which is granted to a villein to hold by free service, does not make the villein a freeman, unless he hold freely, any more than villeinage makes a free man a villein, if a freeman hold by villein customs; because the tenement neither adds to noi* takes from the person, <&c. Bract, fol.

24 b.