Bocland

Bocland (i.e. book-land, or rather charter-land or deed-land), one of the early Anglo-Saxon forms of land tenure. Being proved by writing, it was distinguished from the Ethel, which had also been severed by an act of government from the Folc-land (q.v.), and converted into an estate of perpetual inheritance, but which was proved by the pedigree of the owner and the witness of the community. It might belong to the church, to the king, or to a subject; it might be alienable and divisible at the will of the proprietor; it might be limited in its descent, without any power of alienation in the possessor. It was often granted for a single life or for more lives than one, with remainder in perpetuity to the church. It was forfeited for various delinquencies to the state, and was exempt from services, except the fyrð or military service, the repair of bridges, and the maintenance of fortifications. See Allen, The Royal Prerogative; Stubbs, Constitutional History (i. 76); Gneist, Verwaltungsrecht (i. 4); Robertson's Early Kings of Scotland (ii. 251).