The phrase 'Sac and soc' was used in early English for the right to hold a court (the primary meaning of 'soc' seems to have involved
seeking; thus
soka faldae was the duty of seeking the
lord's court, just as '''' was the duty of seeking the lord's mill). Historians such as
Paul Vinogradoff considered royal grants of sac and soc as opening the way for national to be replaced by local justice, through the creation of immunities or franchises. As
G. M. Trevelyan wrote, "by grants of
sac and soc private justice was encroaching on public justice". The standard grant of
sac et soc, toll et team et infangthief represented the equivalent of the authority of the
reeve at the
hundred court, impinging on royal justice, for instance, in the right to slay a thief caught red-handed (infangentheof).
Sokemen A
sokeman belonged to a class of
tenants, found chiefly in the eastern counties, especially the
Danelaw, occupying an intermediate position between the
free tenants and the
bond tenants, in that they owned and paid taxes on their land themselves. Forming between 30% and 50% of the countryside, they could buy and sell their land, but owed service to their lord's
soke, court, or jurisdiction. According to the
Ely Inquiry, the terms of remit for the
Domesday Book of 1086 specified determining for each manor "how many freemen; how many sokemen...and how much each freeman and sokeman had and has". ==Later developments==