It must be understood by all those who read these charters that this ...

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THE SAXON LAND CHARTERS OF WILTSHIRE. I ~J\ vocabulary of meanings which are not to be found in the dictionary. But that vocabulary is not complete; and in respect to the rarer terms of unknown meaning I see no reason to hope that it ever can be. 1 It is, of course, the case that the topographical investigations published here have not in the majority of cases been supported by investigation on the spot. But any one who cares to make an estimate of the amount of travelling on foot which would have to be done by any one who attempted to attain to such completeness in inquiry will understand that such a counsel of perfection could not be put in practice by any single individual who wished to deal with a large number of charters. For the Wiltshire charters alone it would necessitate the traversing of more than 1,200 miles of boundary, and this not by road, but across all kinds of country. As a fact it is only now and then that such a laborious, expensive, and slow method of investigation could be rewarded by the discovery of that which is not apparent on the six-inch maps. I have indicated various cases in which the work of a local investigator might be useful. As to the dating of extant copies of the charters, I have confined myself to conclusions drawn from the language and forms of words in the surveys attached to them. Had I attempted to append to each charter a dissertation on the date of the formulae employed in each grant, and on the genuineness of the names of witnesses attached thereto, the work would have been expanded to four or five times its present dimensions, and would have been so large in volume that no publisher or society would have faced the expense of publication. For the understanding and use of the charters as historical documents the solution of their topography is the first requisite ; and it is to this side of the question that I have especially applied myself. After that has been done the investigation branches off along various lines, social, economic, historical, archaeological, etc., the exploration of which would be more than the work of a lifetime for any one individual. I have claimed to be a pioneer, but there my claim must end. Others after me will have to build on the 1 A large number of these interpretations 1922 volume of Essays and Studies by members are (Nov. 1922) about to be published in the of the English Association.
THE SAXON LAND CHARTERS OF WILTSHIRE. I ~J\ basis of the preliminary work that I have done ; and I can foresee that their work may be of greater importance, though not perhaps of greater interest, than my own. To this necessarily brief introduction I must add a word or two as to the kind of property created by the charters, that is to say as to the nature of the rights which the various kings conferred on those to whom they granted this chartered land (Bocland). Bocland was not necessarily land at all in the sense that its creation implied any transfer of property in the land itself. It is quite certain that the transfer made no difference in the status of holders of land within the area of the grant. As far as they were concerned it merely meant that certain dues, fines, etc., which they had previously paid to the king they paid henceforth to the king's grantee and his heirs. Hence, whatever .else may be assumed, it is certainly not to be assumed that when one of the monasteries received by grant twenty hides of bocland in a certain locality, it entered forthwith into the position of landholder in all that area. It may even have been the case that the monastery did not become direct holder of one single acre in the area. As Sir Frederick Pollock puts it : the grant of bocland ' was a grant of lordship and revenues, and perhaps of jurisdiction and its profits. The inhabitants rendered their services and dues to new lords, . . . and things went on as before.' 1 It is true that these rights did in a long period of evolution extending through the feudal period eventuate in what was freehold ownership of the land concerned ; but nothing resembling that was, or could be, conferred under the land system prevailing at the time at which these grants were made. B.27. K.985. Lands of Bishopstone and part of Stratford Tony together with other lands the situation of which is not determinable. RD. before A.D. 672. Granted by Cynewale, king of the West Saxons, to Winchester cathedral. Ident. B. None ; K. Downton, Wilts. This is one of a group of charters all of which seem to have been labelled Duntun (Downton) in the cartulary of 1 Eng. Hist. Rev. 1893, p. 269. See also Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 240.
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