"One innovation made by William upon the feudal law is very deserving of attention. By the leading principle of feuds, an oath of fealty was due from the vassal to the lord of whom he immediately held the land, and no other. The King of France long after this period had no feudal, and scarcely any royal, authority over the tenants of his own vassals; but William received at Salisbury, in 1085, the fealty of all landholders in England, both those who held in chief and their tenants, thus breaking in upon the feudal compact in its most essential attribute--the exclusive dependence of a VASSAL upon his lord; and this may be reckoned among the several causes which prevented the continental notions of independence upon the Crown from ever taking root among the English aristocracy." A more recent writer, Mr. FREEMAN ("History of the Norman Conquest," published in 1871, vol. iv., p. 695), repeats the same idea, though not exactly in the same words. After describing the assemblage which encamped in the plains around Salisbury, he says: "In this great meeting a decree was passed, which is one of the most memorable pieces of legislation in the whole history of England. In other lands where military tenure existed, it was beginning to be held that he who plighted his faith to a lord, who was the man of the king, was the man of that lord only, and did not become the man of the king himself. It was beginning to be held that if such a man followed his immediate lord to battle against the common sovereign, the lord might draw on himself the guilt of treason, but the men that followed him would be guiltless. William himself would have been amazed if any vassal of his had refused to draw his sword in a war with France on the score of duty toward an over-lord. But in England, at all events, William was determined to be full king over the whole land, to be immediate sovereign and immediate lord of every man. A statute was passed that every FREEMAN in the realm should take the oath of fealty to King William." Mr. FREEMAN quotes Stubbs's "Select Charters," p. 80, as his authority. Stubbs gives the text of that charter, with ten others. He says: "These charters are from 'Textus Roffensis,' a manuscript written during the reign of Henry I.; it contains the sum and substance of all the legal enactments made by the Conqueror independent of his confirmation of the earlier laws." It is as follows: "Statuimus etiam ut OMNIS LIBER HOMO feodere et sacramento affirmet, quod intra et extra Angliam Willelmo regi fideles esse volunt, terras et honorem illius omni fidelitate cum eo servare et eum contra inimicos defendere." It will be perceived that Mr. Hallam reads LIBER HOMO as "vassal." Mr. FREEMAN reads them as "FREEMAN," while the older authority, Sir Martin Wright, says: "I have translated the words LIBERI HOMINES, 'owners of land,' because the sense agrees best with the tenor of the law."