SOCAGE, in its most general and extensive signification, seems to denote a tenure by any certain and determinate service. And in this sense it is by our ancient writers constantly put in opposition to chivalry or knight-service, where the render was precarious and uncertain. The service must therefore be certain, in order to denominate it focage; as to hold by fealty and 20s. rent; or, by homage, fealty, and 20s. rent; or, by homage and fealty without rent; or, by fealty and certain corporal service, as ploughing the lord's land for three days; or, by fealty only without any other service: for all these are tenures in focage.
Socage is of two sorts: free-focage, where the services are not only certain but honourable; and villain-focage, where the services, though certain, are of a base nature (see VILLENAGE). Such as hold by the former tenure are called, in Glanvil and other subsequent authors, by the name of liberi socemanni, or tenants in free-focage. The word is derived from the Saxon appellation soce, which signifies liberty or privilege; and, being joined to an usual termination, is called focage, in Latin focagium; signifying thereby a free or privileged tenure.
It seems probable that the focage-tenures were the relics of Saxon liberty; retained by such persons as had neither forfeited them to the king, nor been obliged to exchange their tenure for the more honourable, as it was called, but at the same time more burthensome, tenure of knight-service. This is peculiarly remarkable in the tenure which prevails in Kent, called gavelkind, which is generally acknowledged to be a species of focage-tenure; the preservation whereof inviolate from the innovations of the Norman conquerer is a fact universally known. And those who thus preserved their liberties were said to hold in free and common-focage.
As therefore the grand criterion and distinguishing mark of this species of tenure are the having its renders or services ascertained, it will include under it all other methods of holding free lands by certain and invariable rents and duties; and in particular, Petit SERJEANTY, Tenure in BURGAGE, and GAVELKIND. See these articles.
ings, united for their common preservation and improvement. Society.
There are schools of fishes, herds of quadrupeds, and flocks of birds. But till observation enable us to determine with greater certainty, how far the inferior animals are able to look through a series of means to the end which these are calculated to produce, how far their conduct may be influenced by the hope of reward and the fear of punishment, and whether they are at all capable of moral distinctions—we cannot with propriety apply to them the term Society. We call crows and beavers, and several other species of animals, gregarious; but it is hardly good English to say that they are social.
It is only human society, then, that can become the subject of our present investigation. The phenomena which it presents are highly worthy of our notice.
Such are the advantages which each individual evidently derives from living in a social state; and so helplessly does any human being appear in a solitary state, that we are naturally led to conclude, that if there ever was a period at which mankind were solitary beings, that period could not be of long duration; for their aversion to solitude and love of society would soon induce them to enter into social union. Such is the opinion which we are led to conceive, when we compare our own condition as members of civilized and enlightened society with that of the brutes around us, or with that of savages in the earliest and rudest periods of social life. When we hear of Indians wandering naked through the woods, destitute of arts, unskilled in agriculture, scarce capable of moral distinctions, void of all religious sentiments, or possessed with the most absurd notions concerning superior powers, and procuring means of subsistence in a manner equally precarious with that of the beasts of prey—we look down with pity on their condition, or turn from it with horror. When we view the order of cultivated society, and consider our institutions, arts, and manners—we rejoice over our superior wisdom and happiness.
Man in a civilized state appears a being of a superior order to man in a savage state; yet some philosophers tell us, that it is only he who, having been educated in society, has been taught to depend upon others, that can be helpless or miserable when placed in a solitary state. They view the savage who exerts himself with intrepidity to supply his wants, or bears them with fortitude, as the greatest hero, and possessing the greatest happiness. And therefore if we agree with them, that the propensities of nature may have prompted men to enter into social union, though they may have hoped to enjoy superior security and happiness by engaging to protect and support each other, we must conclude that the Author of the universe has destined man to attain greater dignity and happiness in a savage and solitary than in a social state; and therefore that those dispositions and views which lead us to society are fallacious and inimical to our real interest.
Whatever be the supposed advantages of a solitary state, certain it is that mankind, at the earliest periods, were united in society. Various theories have been formed concerning the circumstances and principles which gave rise to this union: but we have elsewhere shown, that the greater part of them are founded in error; that they suppose the original state of man to have been