Lands so given were granted by a written "book" as it was termed, which was a deed or charter, delivered to the grantee, and it was then said to be "booked '"to him, from which it was called "bocland," that is, booked land. This "book," or grant, stated that the grantee was to hold the land free from all burdens and from any services or money payment, except three, -- military aid in cas-eof invasion, manual, or money aid in the repairing of fortresses, and in the repairing of bridges, which duties were borne by all landholders indiscriminately, and was termed the f7-inoda necessitas, or threefold obligation. This military aid, was simply the liability to be called on to defend the country in case of attack, and not the tenure by knight service under the feudal system, which tenure was unknown in England till after the Norman conquest. Thus before that event all land in England was either ' folcland " or " bocland." '
All land not made 'bocland' remained 'folcland' and was held in common by the community. Later it became vested in the chief, as its head man, and subject to his control. "Nearly, if not quite coextensive with the conception of "bocland," says Digby, "was that of allodial land. The term 'alod,' allodial, did not, however, have any necessary reference to the mode in which the owuer.*liip of land had been conferred ; it simply meant, land held in absolute ownership, not in dejiendence upon any other body or person in whom the proprietary rights were supposed to reside, or to whom the possessor of the land