Socage

A species of tenure, whereby the tenant held his lands of the lord by any certain service in lieu of all other services, so that the service was not a knight’s service. Its principal feature was its certainty; as, to hold by fealty and a certain rent, or by fealty-homage and a certain rent, or by homage and fealty without rent, or by fealty and * certain corporal service, as ploughing the lord’s land for a specified number of days.

2 Bla. Com. 80.

The terra* socage was afterwards extended to all services which were not of a military character, provided they were fixed: as, by the annual payment of a rose, a pair of gilt spurs, a certain number of capons, or of so many bushels of corn. Of some tenements the service was to be hangman, or executioner of persons condemned in the lord’s court; for in olden times such officers were not volunteers, nor to be hired for lucre, and could only be bound thereto by tenure. There w r ere three different species of these socage tenures — one in frank tenure, another in ancient tenure, and the third in base tenure: the second and third kinds are now called, respectively, tenure in ancient demesne, and copyhold tenure. The first is called free and common socage, to distinguish it from the other two; but, as the term socage has long ceased to be applied to the two latter, socage and free and common socage now mean the same thing.

Bracton; Co. Litt. 17, 86.

Free socage was the tenure by which all freehold lands were held, if they were not held by frankalmoin, knight service or se Tjeanty. Little can be said about the services which were due. Military service or scutage was not due; there was no wardship or marthe tenant by free socage was a dependent tenant, paying rent, or labor services, or both. Tenure by free socage came to embrace, not only the class of well-to-do farmers, but also all the class who hold at a rent. It was the least encumbered of all the tenures with obsolete and oppressive incidents. By the statute of 12 Car. II, c. 24, the ancient tenures by knight’s service were abolished, and all lands, with the exception of copyholds and of ecclesiastical lands, which continued to be held in free alms (frankalmoin), were turned into free and common socage and the great bulk of real property in England is now held under this ancient tenure. Many grants of land in the United States, made, previous to the revolution, by the British Crown, created the same tenure among us, until they were formally abolished by the legislatures of the different states. In 17S7, the state of New York converted all feudal tenures within its boundaries into a tenure by free and common socage; but in 1830 it abolished this latter tenure, with all its incidents, and declared that from thenceforth all lands in the state should be held upon a uniform allodial tenure, and vested an absolute property in the owners according to their respective estates. Similar provisions have been adopted by other states; and the ownership of land throughout the United States is now r essentially free and unrestricted.

See Tenure.

S0CER (Lat.).

The father of one’s wife; a father-in-law.