In order to get a correct idea of the application of the charters, it is essentially necessary to make oneself familiar with the proper meanings of “Folcland” and “Bocland.” FOLCLAND AND BOCLAND. _Folcland_ was the general property of the community—_i.e._, Anglo-Saxon national property—_terra fiscalis_, and its possessors were bound to assist in repairing royal vills and in other public works; and were also liable to have travellers quartered upon them for subsistence. They were required to give hospitality to kings and great men in their progresses through the country; to furnish them with carriages and relays of horses, and to extend the same assistance to their messengers, followers, and servants, and even to persons who had charge of their hawks, horses, and hounds. Such are the burdens from which lands were liberated when converted by charter into bocland. For breach of these conditions they were liable to forfeiture or witeraeden; that is, fines. Freemen of all ranks and conditions, as well as common people, held folcland. The possessor had only a life-interest in it. On his demise the king could dispose of it to another. The holder may also possess bocland. Every one was desirous of having grants of folcland, and to convert as much as possible of it into bocland. _Bocland_ was land held by book or charter. It had been land severed by an act of the government from the folcland, and, by a written instrument was converted into an estate of perpetual inheritance. The possessors of bocland were released from all services to the public except the _trinoda necessitas_; that is, contributing to military expeditions, repairs of castles and bridges. The Church contrived in some cases to obtain exemption from them, but in general its lands, like those of others, were subject to them. The greater part of the charters granting exemptions to the Church, are forgeries. The estates of the higher nobility consisted chiefly of bocland. Bishops and abbots had bocland of their own in addition to what they held in right of the Church. _The Anglo-Saxon kings had private estates of bocland, and these estates did not merge in the crown, but were devisable by will, gift, or sale, and transmissible by inheritance in the same manner as bocland held by a subject._ Among the Anglo-Saxons royalty was elective. It sometimes happened that on the demise of the king his nearest blood did not succeed to the throne. The former king’s private estate did not then pass to his successor, but to his own children. Hence the advantage of a private estate in addition to the demesne or crown lands. The folcland could not be converted into bocland without the consent of the king by and with the advice of his Witenagemót, an expression of the national will in its distribution. There is hardly a Saxon charter creating bocland, which is not said to have been granted by the king with the consent and leave of his nobles and great men. “Cum consilio, consensu et licentia procerum,”