free socage

noun

Medieval History. land held by a tenant who rendered certain honorable and nonservile duties to his lord.

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It empowered persons possessed of land in free socage to give or devise same for the maintenance of the poor.

Some of them as tenants in free socage may maintain their position; many fall down into the class of tenants in villeinage.

Their tenure was the origin of free socage, common in the thirteenth century, and now the prevailing tenure of land in England.

A distinction was drawn between "free socage" and "villain socage."

The feudal tenures of the crown, such as knights' service, were converted into free socage.

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