The FREEMEN (LIBERI HOMINES) were a very numerous class, and all were trained in the use of arms. Their FOLC-LAND was held under the penalty of forfeiture if they did not take the field, whenever required for the defence of the country. In addition, a tax, called Danegeld, was levied at a rate varying from two shillings to seven shillings per hide of land (120 acres); and in 1008, each owner of a large estate, 310 hides, was called on to furnish a ship for the navy. Selden ("Laws and Government of England," p. 34) thus describes the FREEMEN among the Saxons, previous to the Conquest: "The next and most considerable degree of all the people is that of the FREEMEN, anciently called Frilingi, [Footnote: This is a Teutonic, not an ANGLO-SAXON term; the ANGLO-SAXON word is Thane.] or Free-born, or such as are born free from all yoke of arbitrary power, and from all law of compulsion, other than what is made by their voluntary consent, for all FREEMEN have votes in the making and executing of the general laws of the kingdom. In the first, they differed from the Gauls, of whom it is noted that the commons are never called to council, nor are much better than servants. In the second, they differ from many free people, and are a degree more excellent, being adjoined to the lords in judicature, both by advice and power (consilium et authoritates adsunt), and therefore those that were elected to that work were called Comites ex plebe, and made one rank of FREEMEN for wisdom superior to the rest. Another degree of these were beholden for their riches, and were called Custodes Pagani, an honorable title belonging to military service, and these were such as had obtained an estate of such value as that their ordinary arms were a helmet, a coat of mail, and a gilt sword. The rest of the FREEMEN were contented with the name of Ceorls, and had as sure a title to their own liberties as the Custodes Pagani or the country gentlemen had." Land was liable to be seized upon for treason and forfeited; but even after the monarchs had assumed the functions of the FOLC-GEMOT, they were not allowed to give land away without the approval of the great men; charters were consented to and witnessed in council. "There is scarcely a charter extant," says Chief Baron Gilbert, "that is not proof of this right." The grant of Baldred, King of Kent, of the manor of Malling, in Sussex, was annulled because it was given without the consent of the council. The subsequent gift thereof, by Egbert and Athelwolf, was made with the concurrence and assent of the great men. The kings' charters of escheated lands, to which they had succeeded by a personal right, usually declared "that it might be known that what they gave was their own."