The Rural Population of England. 169 



Suffolk and Essex, are to be explained by supposing tliem to 

 be the descendants of tbe Danes of Gutliorm (see Lappenberg's 

 "JSTomian Kings of England," p. 202). 



4. We come next to tlie sochemanni, who present undonbt- 

 edl}^ tlie most puzzling problem connected witli tliese inquiaies. 

 It seems to me, however, that the difficulty has arisen chiefly 

 from the attempt to identify them with the socage tenants of 

 later times, to whom also the term sochemanni was applied ; 

 and fi'om the further attempt to explain the word by socagium, 

 socage, which is itself a derived word, rather than by sac or 

 socha, from which both of these must have been derived. It 

 is easy to see how inadequate this method is. The tenants in 

 "free and common socage" made up the body of the freehold 

 tenants in all parts of England ; but the sochemanni of Domes- 

 day Book are found only in certain counties in the east of 

 England ; so that the -theory in question makes no provision for 

 the socagers of Wessex and western Mercia. Further, it has 

 been shown [in the pages omitted] that the villani held their 

 lands by a tenure which was, to all intents and purposes, free 

 and common socage, that is, a tenure "by any certain and de- 

 termined service."* The villani^ therefore, who are found in 

 all counties of England, must be, in part at least, the repre- 

 sentatives of the later socagers ; consequently the sochemanni 

 must have had something to distinguish them besides this 

 tenure. 



We must, then, leave the late and derived word socagium^ 

 and have recourse to the primitive soc or socha^ and determine 

 from this, on etymological grounds, the probable meaning of 

 sochemannus. Etymology is a very unsafe guide to the actual 

 meaning of a w^ord at any given time ; but it gives a certain 

 clue to what must have been its meaning at one time — to one 

 of the phases of meaning through which it must have passed. 

 Thus, the derivation of socage has been greatly disputed, and, 

 whatever this may have been, it is not at all a safe indication 



* Blackstone. 



