[primer seisins, and ousterlemains, values and forfeitures. of marriages, by reason of any tenure of the king's majesty, or other, by knight-service. . . be taken away and discharged and that all fines for aliena tions, tenure by homage knight-service, escuage, and also aid pur file marrier, and pur fair fitz chevalier, . . . and all tenures of the king in capite, be taken away and discharged and that all tenures held of the king or others, be turned into free and common socage" (n). The statute also expressly provides (0), that all tenures thereafter created by the king should be deemed free and common socage; but it sanctions the retention of tenures in frankalmoign, and by copy of court roll, and the honorary services of grand serjeanty (p). A statute which was a greater acquisition to the civil property of this kingdom than even Magna Carta itself; since that only pruned the luxuriances that had grown out of the military tenures, and thereby preserved them in vigour. But the statute of King Charles the Second extirpated the whole, and demolished both root and branches. B. The second species of tenure, or Free Socage, consisted also of free honourable services. And this tenure not only subsists to this day, but has in a manner absorbed and swallowed up (since the statute of Charles the Second) almost every other species of tenure. Socage, in its most general and extensive signification, denotes a tenure by any certain service. And in this sense it is, by our antient writers, constantly put in opposition to chivalry, or knight-service, where the service was uncertain. Thus Bracton: "if a man holds by a rent in money, without any escuage or serjeanty, id tenementum dici potest (n) This appears to be the meaning of sect. 1 of the Act, which is a monument of bad drafting. (v) Sect. 4. (p) Sect. 7. Sect. 6 expressly saves fines on alienation due by customs of particular manors. [socagium; but if you add thereto any royal service, or escuage to any, the smallest amount, illud dici poterit feodum militare (q). Littleton also defines socage to be, where the tenant holds by any certain service, in lieu of all other services; so that they be not services of chivalry, or knight-service (r). The service must therefore be certain, in order to denominate it socage; as to hold by fealty and 20s. rent; or by homage, fealty, and 20s. rent; or, by homage and fealty without rent; or, by fealty and certain corporal service, as ploughing the lord's land for three days; or by fealty only, without any other service: for all these are tenures in socage (8). But socage, as was hinted earlier in the chapter, is of two sorts free-socage, where the services are not only certain but honourable; and villein-socage, where the services, though certain, are of a baser nature. Such as hold by the former tenure are called in Glanvil, and other subsequent authors, by the name of liberi sokemanni, or tenants in free-socage (t). Of this tenure we are now to speak.] Free-socage was of a strongly feudal character, being created by words of pure donation accompanied with livery of seisin, and being invariably attended with the obligation of fealty at the least, (even where no other service was rendered). Moreover, it was accompanied by many of the incidents attaching to feuds in general, and yet it fell far short of the severity of the tenure in chivalry, not only as being certain in its services, but also as being comparatively mild in some of its fruits and consequences, as will appear from the following comparison of the incidents of knight-service and free-socage tenure. [1. In the first place, then, both were held of superior (q) L. 2, c. 16, § 9 (fo. 37). () Sect. 117. (s) Litt. ss. 117, 118, 119. (1) Glany. vii. 3. (Glanvil does not, however, tell us what a liber sokemannus is.) [lords; of the king as lord paramount, and sometimes of a subject or mesne lord between the king and the tenant. 2. Both were subject to the feudal return, render, rent, or service of some sort or other. In socage, this was certain, fixed, and determinate, (though perhaps nothing more than fealty), and so continues to this day. 3. Both were, from their constitution, universally subject (over and above all other renders) to the oath of fealty, or mutual bond of obligation between the lord and tenant (u).] The oath of fealty can, in strictness of law, be exacted from the socage tenant at the present day; but it is usually "respited." [4. The tenure in socage was subject, of common right, to aids for knighting the son and marrying the eldest daughter (r); which were fixed by the Statute of Westm. I. (1275) cap. 36, at 20s. for every 20l. per annum so held, as in knight-service. These aids were all abolished by the statute 12 Car. II. (1660) c. 24,] which, however, says nothing about the aid for ransoming the lord's body. [5. Relief is due upon socage tenure, as well as upon tenure in chivalry; but whereas the relief on a knight's fee was 51., or one quarter of the supposed value of the land, a socage relief is one year's rent, be the same either great or small (y). And therefore Bracton will not allow this to be properly a relief, but "quædam præstatio loco relevii in recognitionem domini” (z). So, too, the 28 Edw. I. (1300) c. 1 declares, that a free sokeman shall give no relief, but shall double his rent after the death of his ancestor, according to that which he hath been used to pay his lord; and shall not be grieved above measure. Reliefs in knight-service were only payable, if the heir at the death of his ancestor was of full age; but in socage they were due even though the heir was (u) Sect. 131. (/) Litt. s. 126. (2) L. 2, c. 36, § 8 (fo. 35 b.). [under age, because the lord has no wardship over him (a). The statute of Charles the Second reserves the reliefs incident to socage tenures; and therefore, wherever lands in fee simple are holden by a rent, relief is still due of common right upon the death of the tenant. 6. Primer seisin was incident to the king's socage tenants in capite, as well as to those by knight-service (b). But tenancy in capite, as well as primer seisins, are also, among the other feudal burdens, entirely abolished by the statute. 7. Wardship is also incident to tenure in socage, but of a nature very different from that incident to knightservice. For if the inheritance descend to an infant under fourteen, the wardship of him does not, nor ever did, belong to the lord of the fee; because, in this tenure no military or other personal service being required, there was never any occasion for the lord to take the profits, in order to provide a proper substitute for his infant tenant. But the infant's nearest relation, not being one to whom the inheritance can descend, shall be his guardian in socage, and have the custody of his land and body till he arrives at the age of fourteen (c). At fourteen, this wardship in socage ceases, and the heir may oust the guardian, and call him to account for the rents and profits; for at this age the law supposes the infant capable of choosing a guardian for himself (d). It was in this particular, of wardship, as also in that of marriage, and in the certainty of the render or service, that the socage tenures had so much the advantage of the military ones. But as the wardship ceased at fourteen, there was this disadvantage attending it; that young heirs, being left at so tender an age to choose their own guardians till twenty-one, might make an improvident choice. Therefore, when almost all the lands of the kingdom were turned into socage tenures, the same statute, 12 Car. II. (a) Litt. s. 127. (c) Ibid. 88 b., n. (6). (d) Litt. s. 123; Co. Litt. 89 a. [(1660) c. 24, enacted, that it should be in the power of any father, by deed or will, to appoint a guardian, till his child should attain the age of twenty-one (e). And, if no such appointment be made, the courts interpose to name a guardian, to prevent an infant heir from improvidently exposing himself to ruin (f). 8. Marriage, or the valor maritagii, was not in socage tenure any advantage to the guardian, but rather the reverse. For, if the guardian married his ward under the age of fourteen, he was bound to account for the value of the marriage, even though he took nothing for it (g), unless he married him to advantage. For the law made guardians in socage account, not only for what they did, but also for what they might have received on the infant's behalf. But, the statute of Charles the Second having destroyed all values of marriages, this doctrine has, of course, ceased to apply to the subject. 9. Fines for alienation were, apparently, due for lands holden of the king in capite by socage tenure, as well as in case of tenure by knight-service; for the statutes speak generally of all tenants in capite, without making any distinction (). But all these fines were taken away by the statute of Charles the Second. 10. Escheat and forfeiture also are equally incident to tenure in socage, as they were to tenure by knightservice.] Such is the tenure in free socage, being that under which the bulk of real property in this realm is held at the present day, and which is now better known by its modern denomination of freehold. It remains only to specify three special varieties of it, viz., petit serjeanty, tenure in burgage, and gavelkind. [Now petit serjeanty bears a great resemblance to grand serjeanty; for as the one is a personal service, so the (e) Sect. 8. (f) For recent statutory pro visions on this subject, see bk. iii. ch. iv. (g) Litt. s. 123. |