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Introduction: Studies of the early Khmer empire have so far been inevitably concerned with establishing the chronological structure of its history and with its religious institutions, of which much is now known. Other areas of inquiry have tended to be postponed in order to undertake these basic tasks, and the impression may exist that the inscriptions, which are the principal documents for such research, contain no other types of information. This impression is ill-founded. The extensive library of translated Cambodian inscriptions, available in the <i>Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient</i> and, above all, in Professor Cdès'<i> Inscriptions du Cambodge</i>, contains a storehouse of material relevant to studies of Khmer social and economic institutions as well as to further work in political and religious affairs. Professor Cdès himself has called for continuing research in these epigraphic materials. Such studies promise exciting contributions to the scholar's understanding of the Angkor monarchy, and of earlier Southeast Asia in general. The present study is a preliminary analysis of patterns of Khmer land-holding as revealed in the inscriptions of the tenth century, which during its last 56 years saw one of the first extended periods of peaceful rule from the city of Angkor. Land matters are a common concern of these inscriptions. Professor Cdès has observed, These land transactions were in many cases the subject of a royal decree intended to sanction them, which raises the question of knowing to what extent the buyers [acquéreurs] became truly lawful land-owners or whether on the contrary the king remained the ultimate owner of the soil. This paper proposes to examine this question. Two aspects of the matter will be analyzed: the rights of land-owners and the legal arrangements which protected these rights. The conclusions offered are based upon tenth- and early eleventh-century inscriptions sufficiently scattered in time and location to suggest that these cases were typical of the land-administration system as a whole in this period.
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