s. After describing the assemblage which
encamped in the plains around Salisbury, he says:

"In this great meeting a decree was passed, which is one of the most
memorable pieces of legislation in the whole history of England. In
other lands where military tenure existed, it was beginning to be held
that he who plighted his faith to a lord, who was the man of the king,
was the man of that lord only, and did not become the man of the king
himself. It was beginning to be held that if such a man followed his
immediate lord to battle against the common sovereign, the lord might
draw on himself the guilt of treason, but the men that followed him
would be guiltless. William himself would have been amazed if any vassal
of his had refused to draw his sword in a war with France on the score
of duty toward an over-lord. But in England, at all events, William
was determined to be full king over the whole land, to be immediate
sovereign and immediate lord of every man. A statute was passed that
every FREEMAN in the realm should take the oath of fealty to King
William."

Mr. FREEMAN quotes Stubbs's "Select Charters," p. 80, as his authority.
Stubbs gives the text of that charter, with ten others. He says: "These
charters are from 'Textus Roffensis,' a manuscript written during the
reign of Henry I.; it contains the sum and substance of all the legal
enactments made by the Conqueror independent of his confirmation of the
earlier laws." It is as follows: "Statuimus etiam ut OMNIS LIBER HOMO
feodere et sacramento affirmet, quod intra et extra Angliam Willelmo
regi fideles esse volunt, terras et honorem illius omni fidelitate cum
eo servare et eum contra inimicos defendere."

It will be perceived that Mr. Hallam reads LIBER HOMO as "vassal." Mr.
FREEMAN reads them as "FREEMAN," while the older authority, Sir Martin
Wright, says: "I have translated the words LIBERI HOMINES, 'owners of
land,' because the sense agrees best with the tenor of the law."

The views of writers of so much eminence as Sir Martin Wright, Sir
William Blackstone, Mr. Henry Hallam, and Mr. FREEMAN, are entitled to
the greatest respect and consideration, and it is with much diffidence I
venture to differ from them. The three older writers appear to have had
before them the LII of William I., the latter the alleged charter
found in the "Textus Roffensis;" but as they are almost identical in
expression, I treat the latter as a copy of the former, and I do not
think i