socage
nounUK /ˈsɒkɪd͡ʒ/ · US /ˈsɑkɪd͡ʒ/
Etymology From Middle English sokage, from Anglo-Norman socage, from Old French soc (“soke”), ultimately from Old English sōcn. By surface analysis, soke + -age.
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Historical In the Middle Ages (and chiefly but not exclusively medieval England), a legal system whereby a tenant would pay a rent or do some agricultural work for the landlord.
- […] 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.1990, John Updike, Rabbit at Rest:
- 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.1908, Mary A. M. Marks, “In Saxon Times”, in Landholding in England: