The march of ignorance …

… Freeholders no more — Murphy signs bill ending county title criticized as racist.

The following is from the online etymology dictionary:

"landed estate in possession of a freeman," late 15c., later generalized to any outright ownership of land, a translation of Anglo-French fraunc tenement; see free (adj.) + hold (n.1).

Serfs were not freemen. They were bound to the land and the landowner. The word churl (O.E., ceorl) came to be used to refer to a rude person because churls, though low-born, were freemen and, after the Norman invasion of England, made a point of their free status, often pointedly.