free socage


noun
  1. Medieval History. land held by a tenant who rendered certain honorable and nonservile duties to his lord.

  • Also called free and common socage.

Words Nearby free socage

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use free socage in a sentence

  • It empowered persons possessed of land in free socage to give or devise same for the maintenance of the poor.

    Landholding In England | Joseph Fisher
  • Some of them as tenants in free socage may maintain their position; many fall down into the class of tenants in villeinage.

    Domesday Book and Beyond | Frederic William Maitland
  • Their tenure was the origin of free socage, common in the thirteenth century, and now the prevailing tenure of land in England.

  • A distinction was drawn between "free socage" and "villain socage."

  • The feudal tenures of the crown, such as knights' service, were converted into free socage.