What makes you free-born?

The British are a free people. It has long been a proud boast of the British that they are free to do what they like without interference from the state, so long as they do not indulge in criminal behaviour. The concept of the ’free-born man’ is an old one in Briton and goes back many years.

In origin the term comes from the English medieval period. At the time when not all people were free. Some were slaves, others servants tied to their employers by unbreakable contracts. Many more, however, were serfs tied to the land which they worked. For the great landowners their wealth derived from the agricultural produce of their property,( not from the land itsel Take out?). That produce was created by the farm workers who tilled the soil, so it was vital for the landowners that there were men to do the work. These serfs were forbidden to leave the farms, to work for anyone else or even to marry or pass their property on to their children without the permission of their lord.

It can be seen that in such circumstances to be free, instead of tied to the land, was  a great benefit for anyone with a bit of ambition. The majority of the people who were free in medieval England were townsfolk. Earning their living through a trade, such as weaving or tanning, these people had the liberty to search for work wherever it could be found. There were freemen in the country as well. These were families who paid cash rents for lands instead of performing service or doing work for the lord. They could move elsewhere without permission and start paying rent to another lord. Some of these free people were serfs who showed some talent at a trade and were set up in business by their lords in return for a share of their profits. More social standing was had by those who were free-born, that is, were the children of free parents.

The Peasants Revolt of 1381 was largely a protest against the impositions suffered by serfs. The longing to be free was strong by this time. The Essex rebels were quite clear as to what they wanted. Their demands included the abolition of serfdom and the chance to pay a cash rent instead of doing service. Although the Revolt was put down by royal troops, the peasants had been articulating the changing demands of an economy which was moving away from feudalism towards capitalism. Within a century the old legal ties which bound serf to land had effectively collapsed throughout Britain. The people had become free in a legal sense.

They were also free in other ways too. Because the medieval concept of freedom conferred responsibility on the small number who were free, it had always been assumed that the state would leave these people to live as they wished so long as they did not become criminals or traitors. This attitude persisted into later ages as the British believed themselves to be a much freer and more libertarian society than those in neighbouring countries on the continent. The impositions heaped on the French peasants which led to the French Revolution were unknown in Britain, as were the dues and duties of peasants in the German states and elsewhere.

Likewise the fact that European constitutions grant to citizens their human rights is a direct product of the fact that the feudal dues remained in place until the era when the majority were literate and could write. People clamoured for rights and liberties previously denied them by the state, and insisted these were written into the new constitutions being drawn up. The result being that in legal terms, most Europeans see rights and freedom as something granted to the individual by the state. In Britain the opposite applies. British law and custom sees freedom as something which belongs to the individual. The state is only allowed to trespass on that freedom when it passes a specific law forbidding certain actions, which them become crimes. The British eccentric, so beloved of foreigners, is thus simply a Briton who has chosen to exercise his freedom as he sees fit, and his fellows respect his freedom to do so.

From its origins as a much prized status within medieval society, freedom and free-born have developed into a whole outlook on life among the British which can at times baffle outsiders.