Obs. exc. Hist. A term of OE. law, designating land held by a certain kind of tenure; opposed to BOOKLAND.
As to the nature of the antithesis between folkland and bookland there have been many conjectures. Since the publication of Allen’s Inquiry into the Growth of the Royal Prerogative, 1830, the prevailing view has been that folkland was land belonging to the state, which the king or the witan might grant to a person for his life, but which did not descend to heirs, while bookland was land held by charter or deed. But in the Eng. Hist. Rev., VIII. (1893), Prof. Vinogradoff has forcibly argued that folkland was simply land heritable by folkright or common law, while the estate in bookland was conferred by charter or deed, and could be alienated freely.
a. 1000. Laws Edgar, § 2. Oþþe on boc-lande oþþe on folc-lande.
1641. Termes de la Ley, 54. This land was held with more easie & commodious conditions than Folkeland & Copyhold land held without writing.
1767. Blackstone, Comm., II. 91. Folk-land … was held by no assurance in writing, but distributed among the common folk or people at the pleasure of the lord, and resumed at his discretion.
1830. J. Allen, R. Prerog. (1849), 135. Folcland, as the word imports, was the land of the folk or people. It was the property of the community. It might be occupied in common, or possessed in severalty; and, in the latter case, it was probably parcelled out to individuals in the folcgemôt or court of the district, and the grant sanctioned by the freemen who were there present. But while it continued to be folcland, it could not be alienated in perpetuity; and therefore, on the expiration of the term for which it had been granted, it reverted to the community, and was again distributed by the same authority.
1871. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), IV. xvii. 24. The folkland, the common land of the nation, was now [1066–7] changed, fully and for ever, into terra Regis, the land of the King.
