Obs. exc. Hist. Forms: 1 bócland; Antiq. 7 bock-, 8–9 boc-, 9 bok-, bookland. The Old English name for land taken from the folcland or common land, and granted by bóc or written charter to a private owner; thus, at length, applied to all land that was not folcland. (Hence the common place-name Buckland.)
a. 1000. Laws of Edgar, i. 2 (Bosw.). Ðe on his boclande cyricean hæbbe.
1641. Termes de la Ley, 42. Bockland, in the Saxons time … was by that name distinguished from Folkland.
1670. Blount, Law Dict., Bocland.
1768. Blackstone, Comm., II. 90. Book-land, or charter-land.
1860. C. Innes, Scotl. Mid. Ages, ii. 54. Bocland or Charterland was such as was severed by an act of the government, that is, by the King with the consent of his parliament, from the public land.
1875. Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. v. 76. As the primitive allotments gradually lost their historical character … the ethel is lost sight of in the bookland.
1876. Freeman, Norm. Conq., V. xxiv. 368. The man who received a grant of bookland on such terms as made it practically as much his own as a primitive eðel.
