Definition
Socmanry is a historical English land tenure term denoting free tenure by socage — that is, the holding of land from a feudal lord in exchange for fixed agricultural or other non-military services, rather than by knight service or villein tenure. The term is essentially synonymous with socage and with sokeman tenure, and refers both to the mode of holding and, collectively, to the body of rights and obligations attached to that form of landholding.
In practical terms, socmanry defined a middle category of medieval tenure: freer than villeinage (which carried servile obligations and uncertain services) but without the military character of knight service. Socage tenants owed defined, certain services — typically plowing, harvest work, or fixed money payments — which distinguished their tenure from the uncertain and potentially degrading obligations of villein tenure.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Socage.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Tenure by socage.
Both the modern and historical common definitions treat socmanry and socage as interchangeable. The legal distinction worth preserving is that socmanry specifically emphasizes the free quality of the tenure — it is free tenure by socage, not merely socage in general. Historical legal sources used socmanry to distinguish the tenure of free sokemen from forms of socage that might carry servile or uncertain characteristics.
Common Confusion
Socmanry, socage, and villein socage are easily conflated. Socmanry refers specifically to free socage tenure, held by persons of free condition with fixed and certain services. Villein socage, by contrast, involved uncertain services and was associated with unfree or base tenure, even though the land itself was sometimes called socage land. Researchers encountering socmanry in historical documents should not assume the broader category of socage — the free qualification is legally operative. Similarly, socmanry should not be confused with sokemen as a class (though sokemen were the tenants holding by socmanry) or with soc and soke, which denoted jurisdictional franchises rather than tenure forms.
Why It Matters in Research
Socmanry is a term of historical English land law and will appear almost exclusively in pre-modern sources — English statutes, Year Books, feudal surveys, and treatises from Bracton through Blackstone. Researchers working in early American colonial records may also encounter the term, since socage tenure (and sometimes socmanry specifically) was the basis for early land grants in several colonies, including New York's conversion from Dutch patroon tenure.
The key navigational trap is terminological drift: sources from different centuries use socage, socmanry, and sokeman interchangeably or with subtly shifting meanings. Blackstone's Commentaries (Book 2) is the standard synthesis for English common law purposes, but earlier sources may use socmanry where Blackstone would simply write free socage. When working in Year Books or Bracton, do not assume that socage and socmanry are perfectly coextensive — the free qualification embedded in socmanry was legally significant in distinguishing tenure from villeinage.
Rapalje & Lawrence also includes adjacent entries (socna, socome, sokemans) that cluster around the same feudal vocabulary. Researchers should treat these as a family of related terms, not isolated definitions. Sokemans (tenants of socage lands) are the human correlate of socmanry as a tenure form, and socome (the custom of grinding at the lord's mill) was a common incident attached to these holdings.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary gives only the bare definition — free tenure by socage — which is accurate but offers no analytical depth. Rapalje & Lawrence is more useful because it situates socmanry within its immediate terminological cluster, cross-referencing socna (a franchise or liberty), socome (the mill-grinding custom), and sokemans (the tenant class), with citations to Cowell and Blount. The citation to 3 Bl. Com. 100 for sokemans anchors the cluster in Blackstone and is the most useful pointer for researchers.
Neither source distinguishes socmanry from villein socage, which is a meaningful omission. Historical sources agree on the basic definition but do not engage with the internal complexity of the socage category or with the evolution of socage tenure through the Tenures Abolition Act 1660, which converted most surviving feudal tenures into free and common socage. After 1660, socmanry becomes largely a term of historical description rather than active legal classification.
Jurisdictional Note
Socmanry as an operative legal category is confined to English law and jurisdictions that received English feudal tenure before its abolition. In the United States, free socage was the nominal basis for most colonial and early state land grants, but socmanry as a term of art did not survive into American property law in any functional sense. Researchers in American sources from the colonial or early republic period may encounter the term in historical recitations, not as a living tenure category.