Diploma (Royal Landbook / Boc)
Gr. diploma ('folded document') / OE bōc ('book, charter')
The highest and most solemn class of legal instrument in pre-Conquest England: a single-sheet parchment recording a perpetual royal grant of bookland accompanied by fiscal immunities and witnessed by the witenagemot.
Unlike continental private charters, royal diplomas were issued exclusively in the king's name and possessed quasi-sacral authority, transforming customary tenure into permanent ecclesiastical or secular patrimony.
Dispositio (Dispositive Words)
Lat. dispositio < disponere ('to arrange, distribute, bestow')
The operative legal core of the diploma expressing the grantor's intention to grant, transfer, or confirm property, estates, or immunities (*dono, trado, concedo, libenter largior*).
The phrasing of the dispositive clause established whether the tenure granted was hereditary bookland (*in perpetuam haereditatem*) or a temporary leasehold (*læn*), and defined any reservation of common civic obligations.