our whole realm aforesaid."

These FREEMEN were not created by the Norman Conquest, they existed
prior thereto; and the laws, of which this is one, are declared to
be the laws of Edward the Confessor, which William re-enacted.
Selden, in "The Laws and Government of England," p. 34, speaks of
this law as the first Magna Charta. He says:

"Lastly, the one law of the kings, which may be called the first
MAGNA CHARTA in the Norman times (55 William I.), by which the king
reserved to himself, from the FREEMEN of this kingdom, nothing but
their free service, in the conclusion saith that their lands were
thus granted to them in inheritance of the king by the COMMON
COUNCIL (FOLC-GEMOT) of the whole kingdom; and so asserts, in one
sentence, the liberty of the FREEMEN, and of the representative
body of the kingdom."

He further adds:

"The freedom of an ENGLISHMAN consisteth of three particulars:
first, in OWNERSHIP; second, in VOTING ANY LAW, whereby ownership
is maintained; and, thirdly, in having an influence upon the
JUDICIARY POWER that must apply the law. Now the English, under the
Normans, enjoyed all this freedom with each man's own particular,
besides what they had in bodies aggregate. This was the meaning of
the Normans, and they published the same to the world in a
fundamental law, whereby is granted that all FREEMEN shall have and
hold their lands and possessions in hereditary right for ever; and
by this they being secured from forfeiture, they are further saved
from all wrong by the same law, which provideth that they shall