Land Tenure in Early England

Question 1

What s bocland?

Answer 1

‘Bookland’ - the rights over land conveyed by charters

Question 2

What is Folcland?

Answer 2

Not clear - could be land held ‘in common’ or could refer to the normal way in which farms were held by laymen

Question 3

What could Lord’s retinues (eg reeves) become?

Answer 3

Thegns - with no reason to suggest they were freeborn or slaves

Question 4

What is the indicator for a sizeable estate according to Trevor Aston?

Answer 4

Names ending ‘tun’, ‘ington’, ‘ham’

Question 5

Why might some places have ‘ingas’ in their name according to Aston and TCE?

Answer 5

Aston: Uncertain, thinks something like ‘the dependents and followers of a certain individual’

TCE: Because of inheritance system, may be a cluster of agnatic kinsmen named after a common ancestor

Difference in these views is that its sim idea but Aston class based and TCE inheritance/kindred based

Question 6

What does Aston think about family and followers?

Answer 6

Never mutually exclusive categories (contrary to TCE but TCE more concerned with ceorls)

Question 7

What were some common inheritances?

Answer 7

Not to get a full hide

Also common for up to half a hide to be split between a group of followers

Question 8

According to TCE what was the hide?

Answer 8

A “territorial unit for the assessment of taxes, rents, renders and services for kingdom and lordship”

It appears to be used this way as early as Ine’s laws

Question 9

Why does TCE think the hide as a measurement must have been given to kings by the past evolutions of society?

Answer 9

Because of a lack of resources to survey the kingdom

Question 10

What were the three main beliefs attached to a hide? (acc. to TCE)

Answer 10

1. Hide is the land of one family
2. The land of the normal freeman
3. The land worked by one plough

Question 11

What are some of the historiographical debate around the idea of a hide being the land of one farm?

Answer 11

Bede said this but not who constituted one family

• Maitland thought it was the extended family
• CE thinks this is unlikely cos of the emphasis on sexual relations within Germanic words cognate with old english ‘hide’

Question 12

What was inheritance system in EME?

Answer 12

Likely split amongst sons with preference to the eldest (Getting the parental home)

Royal inheritance seems the same

Question 13

What was a consequence of this type of inheritance?

Answer 13

Clusters of agnatic kinsmen (hence ingas)

Question 14

How did kingroups organise themselves agriculturally?

Answer 14

Kinsmen still participated in inheritance and cooperated in farming, but the farm was lived in by a single family

Question 15

What was a ceorl?

Answer 15

Difficult term but appears to be a man with full legal rights

Since ceorl means husband and freeman, CE argues hide specifically land of a normal freeman

Question 16

Was the idea of a ceorl owning a hide accurate for Ine’s time?

Answer 16

Unlikely

CE = the old link between ceorl, his family, and the standard area of land gone for England (but not for britons)

Question 17

What were the sufficient and necessary conditions for status in this period (Ine)?

Answer 17

Owning land a sufficient conditions for English but not a necessary one (more about birthright at this point)

It was a necessary condition for Britons however

Question 18

Where might laets fit into the picture?

Answer 18

Semi-free class in Kentish laws - may be Britons, but appear to be dependents of the ceorls

CE notes in Aethelberht’s laws that there is a grant of 6s to a ceorl if his Hlafaeta (loaf-eater) was killed

Question 19

What, according to CE, was the normal pattern of kindred group formation in EME?

Answer 19

Probably a group of men tracing their ancestry back to a particular man