BOC HORDE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

BOC HORDEAuthored

The Law Mind • 653 words

Definition

A place where books, writings, or evidences were kept. The term derives from Anglo-Saxon usage and refers to a repository for written records, deeds, and documentary instruments — functioning in medieval England as what a modern researcher might recognize as a records office or archive. Such repositories were commonly maintained within monasteries, which served as the primary institutional custodians of written instruments in pre-Conquest and early post-Conquest England.

Why It Matters in Research

Boc horde is a term of purely historical significance with no living legal application. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in sources dealing with Anglo-Saxon land tenure, ecclesiastical record-keeping, or the history of English legal institutions prior to the Norman Conquest. It does not appear in modern statutes, case law, or legal doctrine.

The term is closely linked to boc land (also spelled bocland or bookland), the tenure by which Anglo-Saxon landholders held estates evidenced by written charters. Understanding boc horde as the physical repository for those instruments is essential context for researching boc land tenure: the validity and transferability of boc land depended on the existence and custody of the underlying written evidence, making the boc horde functionally equivalent to a title registry in that system.

Researchers working in early English legal history should note that references to "evidences" in this context carry a technical meaning — written instruments, particularly charters and grants — not testimony or proof in the modern evidentiary sense. Conflating medieval and modern uses of "evidence" is a common source of misreading in historical sources.

The monastic connection noted in Bouvier is significant. Because monasteries controlled the principal boc hordes, the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII created serious disruption to the custody of pre-Conquest and early medieval records. Researchers tracing land title through Anglo-Saxon charters may find gaps in the documentary record attributable to this institutional rupture.

Historical Dictionary Support

All four shelf sources agree on the core definition: a place where books, writings, or evidences were kept. All cite Cowell's Interpreter as their common authority, reflecting the term's survival primarily through antiquarian legal lexicography rather than through active legal use.

Bouvier adds the monastic context, citing Spence's Equitable Jurisdiction for the proposition that boc hordes were generally maintained in monasteries — a detail absent from Black's and Burrill's but consistent with the broader historical record.

Burrill's is the only source to gloss the etymology explicitly, noting the quasi-composition of "bookhoard," which helpfully illuminates the term's structure for readers unfamiliar with Anglo-Saxon compounds.

Rapalje & Lawrence is the most informative of the four, transitioning directly from the definition of boc horde into a definition of boc land, treating the two terms as naturally connected. This editorial choice reflects sound judgment: the repository (boc horde) and the tenure it authenticated (boc land) are conceptually inseparable. Rapalje's entry on boc land characterizes it as terram codicillariam or librariam — deed land or charter land — and situates it as one of the recognized titles by which Anglo-Saxon landholders held their estates. This cross-entry context is the most useful material in the historical record for researchers.

None of the four sources add substantive legal doctrine beyond the basic definition. This is a term whose significance is contextual and institutional rather than doctrinal.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Anglo-Saxon Land Tenure; History of English Record-Keeping

BOC HORDEmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1888

- A place where books, he or they belong; the permanent withwritings or evidences were kept.-Cowel. BOC LAND.-An inheritance or possession held by the evidence of written instruments. It was one of the titles by which the English Saxons held their lands, and being always in writing, was hence called "boc land," which signifies terram codicillariam, or librariam, deed land or charter land. It was the same as allodium, being descendible according to the common course of nature and nations, and devisable by will. This species of inheritance was usually possessed by the thanes or nobles. (Spel. Feuds.)-Brown. drawal before adjournment of a portion of the delegates to a political convention. BOLTING.-A term formerly used in the Inns of Court, whereby is intended a private arguing of cases. The manner of it at Grays Inn, is thus: An ancient and two barristers sit ar judges, three students bring each a case, out of which the judges choose one to be argued, which done, the students first argue it, and after them the barristers. It is inferior to mooting and may be derived from the Saxon "bolt," a house, because done privately in the house for instruction. -Jacob. BONA.-Goods; chattels real, and personal; property real, or personal. This BODILY HEIRS, (in a will). 1 Bush (Ky.) 279. BODY.-(1) A person; either the physical person of an individual, or an artifiword (the plural of the Latin bonum) in cial person created by law, as a corporathe Roman law, was chiefly applied to tion. (2) A collection into one systematic real estate; in the common law, it was statement of a number of distinct laws, or confined to movable property; in the civil legal principles. (3) The main part of any instrument; in deeds it is spoken of as distinguished from the recitals and other introductory parts and signatures; in affidavits, from the title and jurat (q. v.) See