Freeman

[OE. fréoman: see FREE a. and MAN sb.]

  1.  a. One who is personally free; one who is not a slave or serf. b. In later use often, one who is politically free; one not a subject of a tyrannical or usurped dominion.

a. 1000.  Cædmon’s Gen., 2175 (Gr.).

c. 1000.  Laws of Æthelred, I. i. § 1. Ðæt ælc freoman ȝetreowne borh hæbbe.

c. 1205.  Lay. 15576.

c. 1275.  Fortune, 3, in O. E. Misc., 86. Wyþ freomen þu art ferly feid.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 16021.

1382.  Wyclif, Eph. vi. 8. This he schal resceyue of the Lord, whethir seruaunt, whether fre man.

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 178/1. Fremann, made of bonde … manumissus.

1601.  Shaks., Jul. C., III. ii. 25. Had you rather Cæsar were liuing, and dye all Slaues; then that Cæsar were dead, to liue all Free-men?

1659.  Rushw., Hist. Coll., I. 459. No Free-man shall be imprisoned without due Process of the Law.

1784.  Cowper, Task, V. 733.

1793.  Burns, Scots, wha hae, iv. Free-man stand, or free-man fa’.

1850.  Lyell, 2nd Visit U. S., II. 98. A coloured freeman who had been brought up as a saddler, and was a good workman.

1875.  Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 222–3, The Republic, I. If the effect of injustice is to cause hatred, will not injustice, whether existing among slaves or freemen, make them hate one another and set them at variance and render them incapable of common action?

  2.  One who possesses the freedom of a city, borough, company, etc.

1386.  Rolls of Parlt., III. 225/1. The eleccion of Mairaltee is to be to the Fre men of the Citee.

1682.  Enq. Elect. Sheriffs, 34. The Rights … are not only granted to the Mayor, but to the Free-men and Barons.

1705.  Addison, Italy, Wks. 1721, II. 42. Both having been made Free-men on the same Day.

c. 1744.  Parl. Bill, in Hanway, Trav. (1762), I. V. lxxi. 325. The oath to be taken by the freemen of the said company, or being one of the people called Quakers, a solemn affirmation.

1805.  Forsyth, Beauties Scotl., II. 474. The son and heir of a freeman succeeds to his inheritance within the borough unencumbered by the debts of his father.

1863.  H. Cox, Instit., III. ix. 730. The electors [of a Town Council] are citizens, burgesses, or freemen, who are not to be for the future admitted by gift or purchase.

  3.  In various modern uses. a. (See quot.)

1836.  W. Irving, Astoria, I. xii. 126. Brugiere was of a class of beaver trappers and hunters technically called freemen, in the language of the traders. They are generally Canadians by birth, and of French descent, who have been employed for a term of years by some fur company, but, their term being expired, continue to hunt and trap on their own account, trading with the company like the Indians.

  b.  Austral. A ‘free-laborer,’ a non-union man.

1890.  Times, 8 Sept., 3/1. The ships are being loaded by freemen.

  4.  Comb., as freeman-like adv.; † freeman’s song, the name applied in 16th c. to a certain class of vocal compositions of a lively character.

1561.  T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., III. 273. Children, whiche are more liberally and more freemanlike handled of theyr fathers.

c. 1575.  J. Hooker, Life of Carew, 39. The King would very often use him to sing with him certain songs then called fremen songs, as namely ‘By the bank as I lay.’

1609.  [T. Ravenscroft], Deuteromelia: or The Second part of Musicks melodie, or melodius Musicke. Of Pleasant Roundelaies; K. H. mirth, or Freemens Songs. And such delightfull Catches.

1611.  Cotgr., Virelay, a … Round, freemans Song.

  Hence Freemanship, the position or status of a freeman, with its rights and privileges.

1869.  Daily News, 31 Aug. The fees payable on taking up freemanship.

1873.  M^cDowell, Hist. Dumfries, xxviii. 315. He had to serve other three years for meat and fee as a journeyman, before he could aspire to freemanship, unless he got rid of this additional servitude by wedding a master’s daughter, and thus placing himself under a more alluring sort of bondage.