HKB
[The English land-loan.]
The analogous English institution was the lǽn or, as we now say, loan. If in translating a German book we render Lehn by fief, feud, or fee, we should still remember that a Lehn is a loan. And no doubt the history of our ancient land-loans was influenced by the history of the precarium. We come upon the technical terms of continental law when King Æthelbald forbids any one to beg for a benefit or benefice out of the lands that have been given to the church of Winchester[1047]. There was need for such prohibitions. Edward the Elder prayed the bishop of this very church to lend him some land for his life; the bishop consented, but expressed a fervent hope that there would be no more of such requests, which in truth were very like commands. It would seem that some of the English kings occasionally did what had been done on a large scale in France by Charles Martel or his sons, namely, they compelled the churches to grant benefices to lay noblemen[1048]. When bishop Oswald of Worcester declared how he had been lending lands to his thegns, he used a foreign, technical term: 'beneficium quod illis praestitum est[1049].' But it is clear that the English conception of a land-loan was very lax; it would blend with the conception of a gift. To describe transactions of one and the same kind, if such verbs as commodare and lǽnan and lǽtan were used[1050], such words as conferre, concedere, tribuere, largiri and donare were also used[1051]. A loan is a temporary gift, and the nature of the transaction remains the same whether the man to whom the loan is made does, or does not, come under the obligation of paying rent or performing services.
[Loans of church lands to the great.]