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The term ''soke'' (; in
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
: ', connected ultimately with ', "to seek"), at the time of the
Norman conquest of England
The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...
, generally denoted "jurisdiction", but its vague usage makes it lack a single, precise definition.
[ ]
Anglo-Saxon origins
The phrase 'Sac and soc' was used in early English for the right to hold a court
[G. M. Trevelyan, ''History of England'' (London 1926) p. 92] (the primary meaning of 'soc' seems to have involved ''seeking''; thus ''soka faldae'' was the duty of seeking the
lord
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the Peerage o ...
's court, just as ' was the duty of seeking the lord's mill).
[
According to many scholars, such as ]Frank Stenton
Sir Frank Merry Stenton FBA (17 May 1880 – 15 September 1967) was an English historian of Anglo-Saxon England, a professor of history at the University of Reading (1926–1946), president of the Royal Historical Society (1937–1945), Readi ...
and H. P. R. Finberg, "... the Danelaw
The Danelaw (, ; ; ) was the part of History of Anglo-Saxon England, England between the late ninth century and the Norman Conquest under Anglo-Saxon rule in which Danes (tribe), Danish laws applied. The Danelaw originated in the conquest and oc ...
was an especially 'free' area of Britain because the rank and file of the Danish armies, from whom sokemen were descended, had settled in the area and imported their own social system."
Historians such as Paul Vinogradoff
Sir Paul Gavrilovitch Vinogradoff (; – 19 December 1925) was a Russian and British historian and medievalist. He was a leading thinker in the development of historical jurisprudence and legal history as disciplines.
Early life
Vinogradoff ...
considered royal grants of sac and soc as opening the way for national to be replaced by local justice, through the creation of immunities or franchises. As G. M. Trevelyan wrote, "by grants of ''sac and soc'' private justice was encroaching on public justice". Other scholars have viewed the judicial powers represented by the Anglo-Saxon Soke as rather limited. The standard grant of ''sac et soc, toll et team et infangthief'' represented the equivalent of the authority of the reeve at the hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numerals, Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 (number), 99 and preceding 101 (number), 101.
In mathematics
100 is the square of 10 (number), 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102). The standar ...
court, impinging on royal justice, for instance, in the right to slay a thief caught red-handed (infangentheof).
Sokemen
A sokeman belonged to a class of tenants, found chiefly in the eastern counties, especially the Danelaw
The Danelaw (, ; ; ) was the part of History of Anglo-Saxon England, England between the late ninth century and the Norman Conquest under Anglo-Saxon rule in which Danes (tribe), Danish laws applied. The Danelaw originated in the conquest and oc ...
, occupying an intermediate position between the free tenants and the bond tenants, in that they owned and paid taxes on their land themselves.[ G. O. Sayles, ''The Medieval Foundations of England'' (London 1966) p. 136] Forming between 30% and 50% of the countryside, they could buy and sell their land, but owed service to their lord's ''soke'', court, or jurisdiction. (But Adolphus Ballard argued that a sokeman was a man who rendered service from a sokeland, and was not necessarily under jurisdiction).
Sokemen remained an important rural element after the Conquest, buying and selling property, and providing their overlords with money rents and court attendance, rather than manorial labour. According to the Ely Inquiry, the terms of remit for the Domesday Book
Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...
specified determining for each manor "how many freemen; how many sokemen...and how much each freeman and sokeman had and has".
Later developments
After the Norman Conquest, doubt developed over the precise meaning of the word soke. In some versions of the much-used tract ', "soke" is defined: ' ( Norman for ‘to have a free court’), and in others as ', which glosses somewhat ambiguously as ''claim '':[ thus sometimes ''soke'' denoted the right to hold a court, especially when associated with ''sak'' or ''sake'' in the alliterative binomial expression ' (').
Sometimes only the right to receive the fines and forfeitures of the men over whom it was granted when they had been condemned in a court of competent jurisdiction. The '' Leges'' also speaks of pleas ' (‘pleas which are in his investigation’).
Ballard in the early twentieth century argued that the interpretation of the word "soke" as ''jurisdiction'' should be accepted only where it stands for the fuller phrase, "sake and soke", and that "soke" standing by itself denoted services. Certainly, many passages in the ]Domesday Book
Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...
support this contention, but in other passages "soke" seems to serve merely as a short expression for "sake and soke".
Territorial
The term ''soke'', unlike ''sake'', sometimes applied to the district over which the right of jurisdiction extended (compare Soke of Peterborough
The Soke of Peterborough is a historic area of England associated with the City and Anglican Diocese of Peterborough, Diocese of Peterborough. It was part of Northamptonshire, but was administered by Soke of Peterborough County Council, its own ...
). By the same usage, it could designate the ward of a town, as with Aldgate
Aldgate () was a gate in the former defensive wall around the City of London.
The gate gave its name to ''Aldgate High Street'', the first stretch of the A11 road, that takes that name as it passes through the ancient, extramural Portsoken ...
in the charters of Henry I.
Legal terminology
The law term, socage
Socage () was one of the feudal duties and land tenure forms in the English feudal system. It eventually evolved into the freehold tenure called "free and common socage", which did not involve feudal duties. Farmers held land in exchange for ...
, used of this tenure, arose by adding the French suffix ' to '.
See also
* History of English land law
The history of English land law can be traced back to Roman times. Throughout the Early Middle Ages, where England came under rule of sub-Roman Britain, post-Roman chieftains and Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies, Anglo-Saxon monarchs, land was the ...
* Soke used in place-names:
** Portsoken, a district in the City of London
The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...
** Soke of Peterborough
The Soke of Peterborough is a historic area of England associated with the City and Anglican Diocese of Peterborough, Diocese of Peterborough. It was part of Northamptonshire, but was administered by Soke of Peterborough County Council, its own ...
, Cambridgeshire
** Thorpe-le-Soken
Thorpe-le-Soken is a village and civil parish in the Tendring District, Tendring district of Essex, England. It is located east of Colchester, west of Walton-on-the-Naze and Frinton-on-Sea, and north of Clacton-on-Sea.
History
Since 2002, arch ...
, Essex
** Kirby-le-Soken, Essex
** Walton-le-Soken, Essex
** Liberty of the Soke, Winchester
Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...
* Socken
Socken ( or ) is the name used for a part of a counties of Sweden, county in Sweden. In Denmark, similar areas are known as , in Norway or and in Finland or . A is a rural area formed around a church, typically in the Middle Ages. A socken ...
References
External links
The Story of Our Law for Little Children
(A simple history of the word Socage)
*{{Cite EB1911 , last=Vinogradoff , first=Paul , authorlink=Paul Vinogradoff , wstitle=Socage , short=x
English legal terminology
Feudal duties
Former subdivisions of England
Land tenure
Legal history of England
Medieval English law