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Old English Characters:
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Displaying 2 glossary terms starting with F

Folcland (Folkland)

OE folcland ('land of the folk / customary land')

Land held according to the traditional unwritten customary law of the folk, subject to heavy royal food-rents (*feorm*), purveyance, and family reversionary claims.

Unlike bookland, folkland could not be freely willed outside the kindred or alienated to ecclesiastical foundations without royal conversion into bookland.

“The contrast between folcland and bocland governed pre-Conquest land tenure debate from John Allen and F. W. Maitland to modern scholarship.”
S 287 — Royal Conversion of Folkland Read in charter →
Charter Typology Old English

Foreweard (Covenant / Agreement)

OE foreweard ('covenant, treaty, agreement') < fore ('before') + weard ('guard, condition')

A bilateral covenant or dispute settlement agreed between two individuals, families, or institutions, ratified by mutual pledge (*wed*) before witnesses at a public meeting.

Foreweards covered dowries, leasehold duties, grazing rights, and the surrender of disputed estates in exchange for life-interests.

“Dis is seo foreweard the Eadweald and Cynethryth geworhtan...”
S 1200 — Kentish Land Agreement Read in charter →