[321] Thus in D.B. ii. 409 we find two successive entries, the ‘in saca regis et comitis’ of the one, being to all seeming an equivalent for the ‘in soca regis et comitis’ of the other. D. B. ii. 416: ‘de omnibus habuit antecessor Rannulfi commendationem et sacam excepto uno qui est in soca S. Edmundi.’ Ibid. ii. 391 b: ‘liberi homines Wisgari cum saca ... liber homo ... sub Witgaro cum soca.’ In the Inquisitio Eliensis (e.g. Hamilton, p. 109) saca is sometimes used instead of soca in the common formula ‘sed soca remansit abbati.’ In D. B. ii. 264 b, a scribe having written ‘sed habet sacam’ has afterwards substituted an o for the a; we have noted no other instance of such care.
[322] Hist. Eng. Law, i. 566.
[323] D. B. i. 184, Ewias.
[324] Leg. Henr. 20 § 1. The author of Leg. Edw. Conf., c. 22, also attempts to connect soke with seeking, but his words are exceedingly obscure: ‘Soche est quod si aliquis quaerit aliquid in terra sua, etiam furtum, sua est iustitia, si inventum sit an non.’ On the whole we take this nonsense to mean that my right of soke is my right to do justice in case any one seeks (by way of legal proceedings) anything in my land, even though the accusation that he brings be one of theft, and even though the stolen goods have not been found on the thief. Already the word is a prey to the etymologist.
[325] D. B. ii. 256.
[326] Heming Cart. i. 75–6: ‘quod illae 15 hidae inste pertinent ad Osuualdeslaue hundredum episcopi et debent cum ipso episcopo censum regis solvere et omnia alia servitia ad regem pertinentia et inde idem requirere ad placitandum.’ Another account of the same transaction, ibid. 77, says ‘et [episcopus] deraciocinavit socam et sacam de Hamtona ad suum hundred Osuualdeslauue quod ibi debent placitare et geldum et expeditionem et cetera legis servitia de illis 15 hidis secum debent persolvere.’
[327] Schmid, Glossar. s. v. sócen. The word, it would seem, first makes its way into the vocabulary of the law as describing the act of seeking a sanctuary and the protection that a criminal gains by that act. A forged charter of Edgar for Thorney Abbey, Red Book of Thorney, Camb. Univ. Lib., f. 4, says that the word is a Danish word—‘Regi vero pro consensu et eiusdem mercimonii licentia ac pro reatus emendatione quam Dani socne nsitato nominant vocabulo, centum dedit splendidissimi auri mancusas.’
[328] Leg. Henr. 9 § 4.
[329] Ibid.
[330] Ibid. 22.