Liber

adj. Free; exempt from the power or authority of another; exempt from a charge or burden. Liber homo. A free man. 1. In the Roman law, every man not a 2. In early English law, a man competent as a juror. The term subsequently used was liber et legalis homo, and the modern equivalent is "good and lawful man." In London, a man could be a liber Tiomo either by service, as having served his apprenticeship; or by birthright, being a son of a liber homo; or by redemption, i.e. allowance of mayor and aldermen. There was no intermediate state between villein and liher homo; but a liber homo could be vassal of another. Bouvier. 3. In old European law, an allodial proprietor, as distinguished from one holding under a superior, as a vassal or feudatory.

In a wider sense, one not under any superior other than the state, whether an owner of allodial land or not. Liberos et legales homines are the terms which have always been used in the venire facias, and their legal import and signification is freeholders, without just exception. State v. Glasgow, Cam. ^ iV. 38. Liberum maritagium. Frank-marriage. A peculiar tenure of lands, in the nature of a tenure in tail special, where a man seised of land in fee-simple gives it to another, with daughter, sister, &c., in marriage, to hold to them and to their heirs. Iiiberum servitium. Free service. A tenure of lands by service not unbecoming a freeman; as military service, payment of a certain sum of money, &c. A villein might hold by this kind of service, and did not thereby become a free man. Iiiberum tenementum. Frank tenure; freehold. An estate in fee, or for life or dther indeterminate period, held by a freeman, as distinguished from the tenure of a villein, termed villena gium. Also, a plea of freehold. Where the defendant in an action of trespass to real property pleads in justification that the locus in quo is his freehold, or the freehold of some third person by whose command or license he acted, his plea is termed a plea of liberum tenementum; and this is the proper plea where defenddefence. The plea admits the possession of the plaintiff, and the commission of the trespass as alleged; but compels the plaintiff to make a new assignment, setting forth the further facts on which he relies.