There are other indications that during the two centuries which had elapsed since the legislation of Ine, the tendency which was even then observable, towards the formation of large landed estates and the lessening of the number of free and independent ceorls, had been going forward. One cause which probably contributed to this result was the conversion of Folkland into Bookland: two terms which, after puzzling a whole generation of English historians, have at last, it may be hoped, yielded up their secret to the patient research of a foreign student of our institutions.[143] Folkland, it seems now safe to say, was “family land held by common right and without written evidence”.[144] Bookland was, as it is called by a Latin interpreter,[145] _terra testamentalis_, land over which the owner had full power of disposition by will, and his right to which rested on some “book” or written document, not on folk-right and immemorial custom. A striking illustration of the difference between the two kinds of property is afforded by the will of a certain ealdorman Alfred who was a contemporary of his great namesake the king.[146] This nobleman leaves the bulk of his large property, which is expressly stated to be bookland, to his widow and “our common bairn” Aldryth: but there is also a son, probably not born in wedlock, for whom he wishes to make provision. After leaving him a certain small “bookland” property, he adds: “If the king will let him have the folkland in addition to this bookland, then let him have and enjoy it”; if not, the widow is to convey to him certain other bookland estates. It is argued with much force that here we have the case of a nobleman owning large properties which have been conveyed to him by perhaps recent “books,” written instruments of purchase and sale, royal donations and the like. But he has inherited also another, probably smaller, property which has been in his family from time immemorial, is his by folk-right, and is called folkland. But this property is held subject to certain customary laws of inheritance, and is perhaps liable to reversion to other members of the kinship in default of male heirs. The ealdorman hopes for the king’s intervention on behalf of his son should any difficulty be made about his succession to the folkland, and, failing that, desires that the loss shall be made up to him out of the bookland estate, over which his disposing power is incontestable.