Land on which no unfree obligations are due, a distinction often up for legal debate. Freeholders rarely own the land they work but pay rent or crop shares for its use, a legal process known as farming. Some freeholders are rural guildsmen, such as millers or metalsmiths, who may or may not farm some acreage. Freeholders may come and go as they please, grow whatever crops they like, and appeal their lord’s justice to the king’s law, but in many ways have a less secure tenure than the unfree.