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 A HISTORY OF ESSEX In the entry relating to Fobbing there is a passage of considerable importance for the status of ' free men ' and ' sokemen.' Count Eustace's estate there was composed of a five-hide ' manor,' which had been held by a thegn, to which Ingelric, the count's predecessor, had added (the holdings of) no fewer than 22 'free men' assessed at more than three times that amount. Domesday states that the ' manor ' had been worth 20 and the sokemen's land (terra socbemanorum) 12, and that in 1086 the value of the whole estate was 36. Here, the unwary might conclude, we have definite evidence that Domesday treated liberi homines and socbemani as convertible terms. 1 Yet at Finchingfield we read of a small estate that it had been held by ' 2 sokemen and i free man' (fo. 35^), a phrase which obviously implies that the two classes were distinct. The references to ' sac and soc ' in the Essex survey are many ; but it cannot be said that they enlighten us on this difficult sub- ject. At Chignal Sawin the priest and ' Erfin ' were ' so. free (liberi ita) that they could sell their land with the sac and soc where they would ' (fo. 59). Wulfwine held his land at Waltham 'freely with (the) soc' (fo. 58), which probably comes to the same thing. But at Rad winter, though jfElfric the sokeman ' had power to sell the land,' which he held ' as a manor,' yet ' the soc and sac remained ' to the lord (fo. 78) ; and so at Theydon (fo. 50^) and at one of the Rodings (fo. 51), though a sokeman in each ' had power to sell his land,' yet ' the soc remained in the manor' (an equivalent formula). At another Roding a free man had held 1 f hides, of which ' half used to render soc to Ansgar, and the rest was free' (fo. 6ib). Where we read, as at Newnham, of soke- men 'remaining with (the) soc' (fo. 34), it probably implies that the sokeman could part neither with the land nor with its soc. At Staple- ford (Abbots) there is a curious entry of ' 2 free men in the soke of the manor' (fo. 20), and at Shopland it is noted of two sokemen that ' their lord had (the) soc and sac' (fo. 34^). When we come to personal ' commendation,' the light is a little clearer. At Prested (in Peering) Brihtmar, who held this manor, was ' commended ' to Siward (of Maldon), ' but could betake himself (ire) with his land where he would ' (fo. 75). At (Abbess) Roding a manor was held of Barking Abbey by a tenant who ' was only the man of Geoffrey's predecessor ' (' Ansgar the staller ') and had no power to dispose of (mittere) this land ' away from the abbey ' (fo. 57^). At Vange a free man ' became, in King William's time, the man of Ranulf's predecessor (Siward of Maldon), but did not give him his land' (fo. 71^), though Ranulf was in possession in 1086. At Manhall (in Saffron Walden) a free man similarly ' became, in King William's time, the man of Geoffrey (de Mandeville) of his own accord,' but this was held to be insufficient to account for the possession of his land by Geoffrey in 1086 (fo. 6zb). At Hanningfield the abbot of Ely claimed the land of two ' free men,' but the jurors found that ' they used 1 At Pitsea (fo. 45^) there were two manors, of which one had been held by a sokeman of Robert (Fitz Wimarc), and the other by ' I free man,' the soke belonging to Robert. Here the difference between the two is not obvious. 358