Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Socage
Soc′age
,Noun.
[From
Soc
; cf. LL. socagium
.] (O.Eng. Law)
A tenure of lands and tenements by a certain or determinate service; a tenure distinct from chivalry or knight’s service, in which the obligations were uncertain. The service must be certain, in order to be denominated
socage
, as to hold by fealty and twenty shillings rent. [Written also
soccage
.] ☞
Socage
is of two kinds; free socage
, where the services are not only certain, but honorable; and villein socage
, where the services, though certain, are of a baser nature. Blackstone.
Webster 1828 Edition
Socage
SOC'AGE
,Noun.
Definition 2024
socage
socage
English
Alternative forms
Noun
socage (countable and uncountable, plural socages)
- (historical) In the Middle Ages, a system whereby a tenant would pay a rent or do some agricultural work for the landlord.
- 1990, John Updike, Rabbit at Rest:
- […] this quiz with all the strange old terms in it, curtilage and messuage and socage and fee simple and fee tail and feoffee and copyhold and customary freehold and mortmain and devises and lex loci rei sitae.
- 1908, Mary A. M. Marks, “In Saxon Times”, in Landholding in England:
- The rest was held by tenants, sometimes called "sokemen" from the "soke" or jurisdiction; and said to hold in "soccage" because they gave plough-service by way of rent.
-
Translations
medieval form of land tenure
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Old French
Alternative forms
- soccage
- sokage
Etymology
Noun
socage m (oblique plural socages, nominative singular socages, nominative plural socage)
- socage (system whereby a tenant would pay a rent or do some agricultural work for the landlord)
References
- (fr) Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle (1881) (socage)
- socage on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub