Vickipedia

SOCAGE, or SOCCAGE (originally hlaford-socn, seeking a lord; whence we have also soc, a right, of holding a court), a tenure of lands in England, of which the characteristic feature is, that the service is fixed and determinate in quality, thereby differing both from knight-service and from villeinage. It was originally peculiar to the Anglo-Danish districts of England. At the time when the allodial tenure was converted into immediate dependence on the crown, this tenure seems to have arisen out of the necessity for commendation or seeking a lord. In Domesday, socmen are often mentioned as bound ‘ to seek a lord,’ or free to go with their land where they pleased. The socmen of Stamford are said to be free to seek a lord, being only liable to the king for the toll attached to them as inhabitants of a borough. The obligation of socage in its origin has been compared to the mutual bonds of allegiance of later times so common in the Highlands of Scotland, and known as Bonds of Manrent (see manrent). Three kinds of socage have been enumerated as existing at a later period—viz., free and common socage, socage in ancient tenure, and socage in base tenure. The second and third kind are equivalent to tenure in ancient demesne and copyhold tenure (see DEMESNE, ANCIENT, and copyhold), and the first is what has generally and more properly been denominated socage, where the services were both certain and honorable. Besides fealty, which the socager was bound to do when required, he was obliged to give attendance at the court baron of his lord, if he held one, either for a manor or for a seigniory in gross.

By an act passed during the Commonwealth, and confirmed after the Restoration by 12 Car. II. c. 24, tenure by knight-service was abolished, and all lands except church-lands held in free-alms, were directed to be held in free and common socage, which is now (with that exception) the universal tenure of real property in England and Ireland.

Socage tenures are unknown in Scotland, where, unless at a very early period, they never existed.