Depiction of socage on the royal demesne,[a]A demesne is a lord’s home farm. in a miniature from the Queen Mary Psalter, c. 1310. British Library, London.
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons
Socage, also known as sokemanry,[1] was a form of tenure under English feudal property law in which a tenant, known as a socager,[b]Also socman or sokeman.[1] was permitted to live on part of his lord’s land in return for agricultural services or money rent, as opposed to the military service required by knight tenure.[2]
The modern concept of freehold originates with these feudal services “of a free and honourable kind rendered to a superior in return for an inheritable property.” By 1400 most men had become free as opposed to being serfs, and the freedom became attached to the land, which if it was worth at least 40 shillings a year allowed its tenant a vote in parliamentary elections after 1432.[3]
Socage was abolished in 1660.[1]