It was the freeman who was the base of village society.

He was the "free-necked man" whose long hair floated over a neck which had never bowed to a lord.

He was the "weaponed man" who alone bore spear and sword, and who alone preserved that right of self-redress or private war which in such a state of society formed the main check upon lawless outrage.
[Sidenote: Justice] Among the English, as among all the races of mankind, justice had originally sprung from each man's personal action.

There had been a time when every freeman was his own avenger.

But even in the earliest forms of English society of which we find traces this right of self-defence was being modified and restricted by a growing sense of public justice.