A more recent text dealing explicitly with these controversies is Eric John's 1960 work, "Land Tenure in Early England". He emphatically denies the previously held view that bookland evolved to take the land out of the family line, and in fact developed specifically to keep it within the family, claiming that the king's power over folkland remained too powerful and that his favour depended too much on a subject's good behaviour towards him. An episode from Beowulf is employed to indicate that a subject who displeased the king was likely to have his folkland removed. Bookland, by contrast, provided the holder more definite powers of bequest removed from royal influence.