Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/182

 174 BARONY AND THANAQE April Further on, when the writer begins to treat of the pleas which the king shares with others, we are told (c. 20) that archbishops, bishops, earls, and other powers (potestates) have sac and sec, toll and team, and infangthef in the lands of their own bailliwick {in terris froprii potentatiis) — but in others acquired by purchase or exchange or in some other way, they have soc and sac in common causes and such as belong to hallmoots — over their own men and in their own [bailiwick], and sometimes over the men of another, especially if they have been taken in the act or accused without delay, and thence they shall have the proper fine. But everywhere the soc of the pleas of the Crown is the king's, unless by reason of nearness [sc. to the king] or worth they have them by the king's favour. That the ' other powers ' were king's thanes and barons is clear both from the chapter quoted above and from later references to ' barons having their soc ' (c. 24), to ' thanes or barons ' who had an ' overseunesse ' (i. e. overhiemesse), or fine for disobedience, just half that of bishops and earls, and one-fourth that of the king (c. 35), and to thanes who share with the king the right to receive ' mundbreche, blodwite, wudehwite, scyldwite, and fihtwite ' (cc. 37, 38, 80). The statements of the law-books are confirmed by the charter by which the abbot of St. Albans granted, c. 11 09, to Earl Gospatric and his son the lands of Archimorell to hold in fee-farm ' cum theines lage, in saca et soca, tol et team, et infangthef ' ; ^ so we conclude with Spelman that king's thanes, and therefore barons, ' antique aestimati sunt, qui in suis dominicis de litibus cognos- cebant et latrociniis, consuetudines habentes quas sac, soc, toll, team, infangthef, outfangthef, ferias, etc. appellant '.^ It is not easy to determine with exactness what rights were actually conveyed by a grant of sac and soc, toll and team, and infangthef. ' Sac ' seems to have given to the grantee profits of justice which would otherwise have gone to the king, 'soc ' to have given the right to try the cases out of which those profits arose, both rights being as a rule restricted to cases arising on the grantee's owTi land or between his own men.^ The extent of the jurisdiction thus granted varied very much. Most often it covered only a few civil and petty police cases which did not involve the ordeal, the common causes which belonged to hallmoots and to vavasors.* But the ' sac and soc ' of king's thanes and barons seems to have covered general police jurisdiction, including breach of the grantee's peace, bloodshed, and wood-cutting, and even man- slaughter,^ besides civil cases involving the ordeal.* Such at least is the inference to be drawn, partly from the statement of
 * Oesta Abbalum Monasterii Sancti AO>an%, ed. Riley, i. 72.
 * Spelman, Glossary (ed. 1626), p. 79.
 * Liebermann, ii, s. v. ' Sac ' and ' Soc '. * Leges Henrici, cc. 20, 27.
 * Ibid. c. 80. • Leges Edw. Conf., c. 9 (3).