Socage

One of the feudal tenures of land. times on socage service. Knight service required military duty from the tenant, and was very uncertain in its demands and obligations; the tenant must aid the lord, according to the exigencies of his campaigns and military adventures. Socage called upon the tenant for services in husbandry. Those who attach importance to the derivation of words as a leading means of determining their sense differ whether to deduce the word from the French soc, a plough, or the Saxon soc, a privilege; but agree in this, that it called for agricultural services, and so imported a privilege which could not be claimed for knight service, viz. the amount due could be and usually was made certain; the tenant knew how much labor or produce the lord could require from him. In the earliest times, knight service was preferred, and deemed the more honorable; but as the arts of peace grew in esteem, and acquisition of property began to attract men from military glory, the greater certainty of socage tenures gradually gave thera a preference, and knight service declined, while socage gained strength and extension. There were once two kinds of socage: free socage, where the services were not only certain but honorable; and villein socage, or privileged villeinage, where the services, though certain, were of a baser nature. With the decline of villeinage, free socage attained steady preponderance; and at length, by the Stat. 12 Car. II. ch. 24, the ancient tenures by knight service were abolished, and all lands, with the exception of copyholds, and of ecclesiastical lands (which continued to be held in f rankalmoigne), were turned into free and common socage. Under this statute, the great bulk of real property in England continued to be held under this ancient tenure. Historically, then, socage may be said to be a holding of lands in consideration of services which are certain or definite in nature and amount. In another aspect, it may be described as the principal kind of title to lands, recognized by modern English law. The strong general tendency of conory of feudal service altogether, and consider lands as held by allodial tenure; that is, without any duty of service to a superior, and subject only to ultimate rights of the state, such as escheat and eminent domain.

Socii mei socius meus socius non est

The partner of my partner is not my partner. A person who is a copartner with one of several members of a different copartnership is not on that account a copartner with all or any other of them. This is a maxim of the civil law, which is also recognized in the common law. A person may become a partner with one individual of a partnership, without being concerned in that partnership. 3 Kent Com. 52, and note.