Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/299

 LONDON TN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 277 commencement of the thirteenth century the commonalty of London was far from being in either state, as we now proi^ose to shew. Within the space circumscribed by the city walls, and also in the dis- trict immediately beyond them, but included in what was called the "liberty," there were, in the times of which we write, many distinct seig- norial jurisdictions, legally termed sokes, the lords of which possessed independent powers, generally extending to life and limb, by virtue of o-rants from the Crown, or by antique prescription. The possession of these sokes was guaranteed to the Church, the barons, and the citizens, by the charter of Henry the First, the earliest document, as we have said, w Inch throws any light on the privileges of the city : they were to " have their socs in peace, so that no guest, tarrying in any soc, shall pay custom to any other than him to whom the soc belongs." There is undoubted evidence that in the thirteenth century the London sokes were heritable estates, though it is probable they ceased to be so before the accession of Edward the Second. No municipal servant could execute his office within any of their franchises, the boundaries of which were jealously maintained by their owners, and unwillingly respected by the civic executive. The tenants of such sokes performed suit and service at their respective courts, and were generally exempt from municipal authority. It would be tedious to recite, on this occasion, the names of all these petty seignories ; a few, however, may be worth enumerating f^. First and foremost was the head of the great ecclesiastical body already referred to, the prior of the Holy Trinity, who in right of his district of Portsoken, or the soke without Aldgate, ranked as an alderman ; the soke of Castle-Baynard was owned by the Lord Fitz-Walter, hereditary banner-bearer of the city ; and there was the soke of Peveril, part of the honour of that name, originally the splendid appanage of the bastard of the Conqueror by his Saxon concubine. The site of the cathedral church of St. Paul and its precincts formed another exempt jurisdiction, belonging to the dean and chapter, besides which the bishop had his own soke of Cornhill with its four hanal, or seignorial oven, respecting Avhich the present volume contains a remarkable docu- ment, and one of the earliest examples of the use of Norman-French in this country. The kings of Scotland also possessed a soke in London, probably in right of Maud, daughter of the Saxon earl Waltheof, who married David son of IVIalcolm the Third. It was sold in the reign of Henry to a citizen named Geoffrey Godard, whose daughter and heiress married Richard le Poter, who held it in the third year of Edward the First*^. In addition to these one or two belonged to foreign monasteries, as that of the abbey of St. Peter at Ghent, and some to English ecclesi- astical lords. There were besides those pertaining to the great families of the city, the Farringdons. whose name is perpetuated in the modern wards so called ; the Frowicks, the Gisorzcs and others : in short, in •^ The reader is referred for more ample Edw. I. particulars concerning the sokes of ancient ^ See Rot. Hundr. tit. London. London, to the Hundred Rolls, temp. VOL. IV. O