THEIR CONDITION IN 1066 117 



year, 1 and fifty sokemen at Tingdene (Northants) rendered 

 8 os. lod. a year. 2 The land of three sokemen at Hat- 

 field Broad Oak (Essex) produced 45^. a year, 3 and the land 

 of twenty-two sokemen at Phobing produced 12 a year. 4 

 It is impossible to think that these payments represent 

 merely their pecuniary fines for misconduct ; the pleas of the 

 whole hundred of Rochford were worth only loos, a year ; 

 the soke that the Hitchin sokemen rendered must have 

 included other and more valuable payments. And in the 

 record of the profits accruing to the Bishop of Worcester in 

 respect of his triple hundred of Oswaldslaw, were included 

 " all the renders of the sokes and all the dues there per- 

 taining to the Lord's victuals, and to the King's service and 

 his own (pmnes redditiones socharum et omnes consuetudines 

 inibi pertinentes ad dominicum victnm et regis servitium et 

 smtm}" 5 Evidently a portion of the renders of the sokes 

 consisted in provisions for the lord of the sokelands. The 

 pre-Conquest Earl of Nottingham had the third part of " all 

 the dues and works (consuttudines et opera} " of the soke which 

 lay to Clifton. 6 



We have seen reason to believe that there was a dis- 

 tinction between " sake and soke " and " soke ; " and it is 

 permissible to suggest that "soke" was the term applied 

 to those services which were rendered by both freemen and 

 sokemen alike to the King or their lords in respect of their 

 lands. Hence we can understand how the soke of a hundred 

 could be annexed to a manor ; the soke of nineteen hundreds 

 of Oxfordshire was annexed to seven of the royal manors in 

 that shire ; the provisions and services rendered by the soke- 

 men within those hundreds were delivered and performed 

 at the manor to which they were annexed. 



If our interpretation of this term is correct, a sokeman 

 is a man who renders services, and a sokeland is a land from 



1 D. B., I. 133 a 2. 2 /</., I. 220 a I. 3 Id., II. 2 b. 



/</., II. 26. 5 Id., I. 172 b i. fd. t I. 280 b I. 



