Note 567 — Chapter XI · FOLCLAND. BÓCLAND. LǼNLAND.

MS. Cott. Vitel. A. xv. fol. 2. “Ac ǽlcne man lyst, siððan he ǽnig cotlif on his hláfordes lǽne mid his fultume getimbred hæfð, ðæt he hine móte hwílum ðǽron gerestan, ⁊ huntigan, ⁊ fuglian ⁊ fiscan, ⁊ his on gehwylicwísan tó ðǽre lǽnan tilian, ǽgðer ge on sǽ ge on lande, oð oð ðone fyrst ðe he bócland ⁊ éce yrfe þurh his hláfordes miltse ge-earnige.” Whether land so put out was called earningland, I will not affirm; but at the close of a grant for three lives I find this memorandum: “Two of the lives have fallen in; then Eádwulf took it, and granted it to whomsover he would as earningland.” Cod. Dipl. No. 679. Cotlif seems in other passages to denote small estates not necessarily on lǽn. The Saxon Chronicle, an. 963, for example uses that term of the lands which Æðelwold gave to Ely, after purchasing them of the king. This it is clear he could not have done, had they been on any person’s lǽn. Were they not perhaps settlements of unlicensed squatters who had built their cottages on the king’s waste and deserted lands—the old Mark—in the isle of Ely and Cambridgeshire? But again the Chronicle, an. 1001, speaks of the hám or vill at Waltham, and many other cotlifs.