The gaining of a hereditary character for lands, and especially the relief from heavy dues, were advantages which might speedily arouse the avarice and stimulate the invention even of barbarians. Accordingly those who could gain access to the ear of the king and his witan, bought, or begged or extorted grants of privileged land, which they either converted entirely into private estates, or upon which they erected monasteries, nominally such: and over these, which they filled with irregular and often profligate monks, they assumed the jurisdiction of abbots; with such little advantage to the service of religion, that we have seen Beda describe them as a public scandal, and recommend even the desperate remedy of cancelling, by royal and episcopal authority, the privilegia or charters on which their immunities reposed.
To the growing prevalence of this fraud we probably owe it that, at least in Wessex, the custom arose of confiscating land on which the conditions of the grant had not been fulfilled. Thus Ini called in the lands which Cissa had granted to Hean the abbot and Cille the abbess, his sister, because no religious buildings had been erected thereon: “Sed Ini rex eandem terram, postea dum regno potiretur, diripiens ac reipublicae restituit, nondum constructo monasterio in ea, nec ullo admodum oratorio erecto[[553]];” that is, as I understand it, folcland they had been, and folcland they again became. But even this did not meet all the exigencies of the case, and it therefore probably became necessary, even in bócland granted to the church, to reserve the military and other services, which the clergy could cause to be performed by their own dependent cultivators or tenants, even if they were not compelled to serve themselves,—a point which is by no means clear[[554]].
A majority of the documents contained in the Codex Diplomaticus Ævi Saxonici are conversions of folcland into bócland, or confirmations of such conversions. They almost universally contain a clause declaring or proclaiming—such is the technical word for this important public act, by which prince and king, ealdorman and sheriff, were at once made strangers to the land—the estate free from every burthen save the inevitable three; a clause giving the fullest hereditary possession, and the power to dispose of it by will at the testator’s pleasure; and finally a clause stating that this is done by the authority of the king, with the advice, consent and license of his Witan or counsellors. They remain therefore to the last important public acts, and are, I believe universally, to be considered acts of the assembled Witena-gemót or great council of the nation[[555]]. And as by their authority folcland could be converted into bócland, so it appears could the reverse take place; and a change in the nature of two estates is recorded[[556]], where the king gave five ploughlands of folcland for five of bócland, and then made the folcland bócland, the bócland folcland.
In this general spoliation it is to be supposed that the kings would not omit to share: accordingly we find them causing estates to be booked to them by their witan; which estates, when thus become their private and heritable property, they devise and deal with at their pleasure: and indeed, as the king’s consent was necessary to all such conversions, he was much better able to obtain that of his witan in his own case, than bishops, thanes or others were in their cases: these generally found themselves compelled to pay handsomely for the favour they required. With respect to ecclesiastical lands, we frequently find a loss of very large estates submitted to, in order to secure freedom to what remained. There are also a few instances in which lands having descended, encumbered with payments, the owners engage some powerful noble or ecclesiastic to obtain their freedom,—that is, to persuade the witan into abolishing the charges. The gratuity offered to the member whose influence was to carry these ancient private acts of parliament, is often very considerable. Towards the closing period of the Anglosaxon polity, I should imagine that nearly every acre of land in England had become bócland; and that as, in consequence of this, there was no more room for the expansion of a free population, the condition of the freemen became depressed, while the estates of the lords increased in number and extent. In this way the ceorlas or free cultivators gradually vanished, yielding to the ever growing force of the noble class, accepting a dependent position upon their bócland, and standing to right in their courts, instead of their own old county gemótas; while the lords themselves ran riot, dealt with their once free neighbours at their own discretion, and filled the land with civil dissensions which not even the terrors of a foreign invasion could still. Nothing can be more clear than that the universal breaking up of society in the time of Æðelred had its source in the ruin of the old free organization of the country. The successes of Swegen and Cnut, and even of William the Norman, had much deeper causes than the mere gain or loss of one or more battles. A nation never falls till “the citadel of its moral being” has been betrayed and become untenable. Northern invasions will not account for the state of brigandage which Æðelred and his Witan deplore in so many of their laws. The ruin of the free cultivators and the overgrowth of the lords are much more likely causes. At the same time it is even conceivable that, but for the invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries, the result which I have described might have come upon us more suddenly. The sword and the torch, plague, pestilence and famine are very effectual checks to the growth of population, and sufficient for a long time to adjust the balance between the land and those it has to feed.
An estate of bócland might be subject to conditions. It was perhaps not always easy to obtain from the Witan all that avarice desired: accordingly we sometimes find limitations in grants, to a certain number of lives with remainders and reversions. And it was both law and custom not only that the first acquirer might impose what conditions he pleased upon the descent of the estate, but that to all time his expressed will in that respect should bind those who derived their title from him[[557]]. Ælfred requires his Witan, who are the guarantees and administrators of his will, to see that he has not violated the disposition of his ancestors by leaving lands to women which had been entailed on the male line, and vice versâ[[558]]; and we have cases of grants solemnly avoided for like want of conformity. More questionable in point of principle is the right attempted to be set up by some of these purchasers, to bar escheat and forfeiture of the land upon felony of their heirs or devisees.
It is to be presumed that a tenant of folcland was permitted to let the same,—upon condition no doubt that he conveyed no estate superior to his own. The holders must have been allowed to place poor settlers upon their estates, whose rents and services, in labour and kind, would be important to their own subsistence. Of course in bócland no limitation could be thought of; it was the absolute, inheritable property of the purchaser, and he could in general dispose of it as freely as if it were alod itself. But there seems no reason to doubt that much the same course was adopted in both descriptions of estate; the folcland being held beyond question for term of life, at every period of which our history takes cognizance, whatever may have been the case at first. A portion called the inland, or dominium, demesne, was reserved for the lord’s homestead, house and farms, and the dwellings of his serfs, esnes, læts, and other unfree and poor dependents. This was cultivated for him by their industry, and he repaid their services by protection, food, clothing, and small perquisites, all of which now pass under the general name of wages[[559]]. On the upland and in the forests, sometimes his own, sometimes subject only to his rights of common, they tended his sheep, oxen and steeds at the fold, or his swine in the mast, lying out during the appointed season of the year[[560]], or within the circuit of his own inclosures they exercised such simple manufactures as the necessities of the household required. The spinner and weaver, the glove- or shoemaker, the smith and carpenter, were all parts of the family. The butter and cheese, bread and bacon, were made at home; the beer was brewed and the honey collected by the household. The remainder of the land the owner leased on various conditions to men who had no land; demanding in return for that commodity, indispensable in a country which has not yet learnt to manufacture, rents paid in kind, in labour, and even in money. This labour-rent, yet called robot in Slavonic countries, as well as the other dues, naturally varied in various districts, partly with the importance of land[[561]], to the cultivator, and the value of its produce to the owner. And at last political motives may have had some weight, when the number and condition of a man’s dependents might affect his own influence and position in the state: but in general we shall be justified in saying that land was very valuable, and the conditions on which it was to be obtained harsh and onerous[[562]]. Such land, whether in large or in small portions, whether leased on long or short terms, large or small rents, was called by the common name of Lǽn, or loan[[563]]. It was considered to be lent; and where the lǽn was on folcland, it is obvious that no certain time could be assigned, and that the after-tenant could have only a tenancy at will. In any case it was reasonable that misconduct in the holder, which would have entailed upon him the forfeiture of his own real property, should not be permitted to interfere with the rights of the reversioner: lǽnland therefore could not be taken from the owner, for the crime of the tenant. In the year 900 a certain Helmstán was guilty of theft, and the sheriff seized all his chattels to the king: and Ordláf entered upon the land, “because it was his lǽn that Helmstán sat on: that he could not forfeit[[564]].” A similar principle prevailed in grants for lives, especially where ecclesiastical corporations were the grantors and reversioners; and which, though to a certain extent they conveyed estates of bócland, gave, strictly speaking, lǽn or beneficiary tenures[[565]]. But as the clergy were not always quite sure of meeting with fair treatment, we find them not unfrequently introducing into their instruments a provision that no forfeiture shall be valid against their rights; this, from the great strictness with which the provisions of a book or charter were always construed, and in general from the fear of violating what had been confirmed by the signature of the cross and the threat of eternal punishment, may have had some effect. In such cases it may be presumed that the guilt of the grantee entirely cancelled the grant; the remaining lives, if any, losing the advantage which they derived through the grantee; forfeiture really taking effect, but for the benefit of the grantor, not the civil power[[566]]. The tenant of lǽnland, who by his services acquired the good will of the lord, might hope to have his tenure improved, if not into an absolute possession of bócland, yet into one for his own or more lives. In a translation of St. Augustine of Hippo’s Soliloquia, attributed like so many other things to Ælfred of Wessex, there occurs this passage[[567]]:
“But it pleaseth every man, when he hath built himself some cottage upon his lord’s lǽn, with his assistance, for a while to take up his rest thereon, and hunt, and fowl and fish, and in divers ways provide for himself upon the lǽn, both by sea and land, until the time when by his lord’s compassion he can earn a bócland and eternal inheritance.”
And instances occur in more formal documents. In 977, Oswald, Archbishop of York and Bishop of Worcester, made a grant of three hides at Teddington, for three lives, to Eádríc his thane, with reversion to Worcester: “Now there are three hides of this land which Archbishop Oswald booketh to Eádríc his thane, both near town and from town, even as he before held them as lǽnland[[568]].”
In another grant of the same prelate, between 972-992, made to his client Ælfsige, of a dwelling in Worcester city, for three lives, he adds, “Also we write [or book] to him the croft appurtenant to that tenement, which lies to the east of Wulfsige’s croft; that he may hold it in as large measure, for bócland, as he before held it for lǽnland[[569]].”
In 977, the same convent at Worcester booked three hides for three lives to the monk Wynsige, even as his father had held them[[570]]; and in 978-992, they gave to Goding the priest, also for three lives, the tenement which he himself had without the city gate[[571]]. In both these cases lǽn appears to have been converted into estate for successive lives.