Soke¹

Now chiefly Hist. Also 4 sok, 6–7 soake, 7–9 soak. [ad. med.L. soca, ad. OE. sócn SOKEN.]

  1.  A right of local jurisdiction; = SOC 1, SOKEN 3.

  [a. 1086.  Domesday Bk., I. 225 b/2. Gitda tenuit cum saca & soca. Ibid., VI. 275/2. Abbas clamat socam huius ville.

1114–8.  Laws Hen. I., IX. 11 (Liebermann). Soca … alia pertinet baronibus socam et sacam habentibus.]

  1598.  Stow, Surv., 36. I … will and command, that they shall inioy the same well and quietly and honourably with sake and soke [etc.].

1720.  Strype, Stow’s Surv., II. 12. My [i.e., King Stephen’s] Demains with Sake, and Soke, and Toll, and Theam.

1809.  Bawden, trans. Domesday Bk., 460. Half a carucate of land … with sac and soke.

1859.  C. Barker, Associative Principle, i. 27. Manorial privileges, such as soke, stallage, or tolls of markets and fairs.

  2.  A district under a particular jurisdiction; a local division of a minor character.

  [a. 1086.  Domesday Bk., I. 324. Ad hoc manerium pertinet soca haec.

1147–50.  Reg. de Dunfermelyn (Bann. Cl.), 8. Donauit … eidem capelle decimas dominiorum suorum in soca de Striuelin.

1200.  Rot. Chart. (1837), 38/1. Do … decem libratis terre in soka nostra de Eyllesham.]

  α.  c. 1350.  in Eng. Gilds (1870), 350. To don here Offys al-so wel in þe sok as in þe Citee a-fore y-seyd.

1442.  Rolls of Parlt., V. 58/2. The Maner of Snayth, and the Soke of Snayth, in the Schire of Yorke. Ibid. (1482), VI. 200/2. Within the said Cite, the Soke of the same, and the Shere of such or any of them.

1540.  Act 32 Hen. VIII., c. 15. Dioceses … ben deuided into seuerall riddinges, wapentakes, and sokes.

1627.  Speed, England, xxviii. § 7. It [Somersham] is the head of those fiue Townes, of which the Soke is composed.

1679.  Blount, Anc. Tenures, 9. Coningsburg in Yorkshire … had twenty eight Towns and hamlets within its soke.

1766.  Entick, London, IV. 305. Certain burgesses … gave to the … church … all the lands and soke, called … Knighten Guild.

1799.  [A. Young], Agric. Lincoln., 331. A difference in the rights between the Soke of Bolingbroke and Holland Town, have hitherto protracted the proceeding.

1833.  Rep. Comm. Municipal Corporations, 333. Is it the practice to charge the Soke of Grantham with the maintenance of prisoners?

1873.  J. Lewis, Census 1871, 174. Lincolnshire … comprises 31 wapentakes, hundreds, liberties and sokes.

1884.  Encycl. Brit., XVII. 556/2. The liberty or soke of Peterborough.

  β.  1591.  Fletcher, Russe Commw. (Hakl. Soc.), 50. An ordinarie rent of money imposed upon everie soake or hundred within the whole realme.

1613.  in Scott. Hist. Rev., Oct. (1910), 12. Being about to take a lease of the soake of Horncastle.

1704.  Lond. Gaz., No. 4067/2. Your Majesty’s ancient Borough and Soak of Doncaster.

  3.  (See quot. 1788 and SOKEN 2 b.)

1609.  in Act 5 Geo. III., c. 26. Preamble, Suits, sokes, multures, and also all and singular profits.

1638.  Slingsby, Diary (1836), 22. Y^e Mills were worth a great deal more if they had had y^e same soak, which … they had, but now y^e soak is bought and sold.

1788.  W. H. Marshall, Yorksh., II. 354. Soke (vulg. sooac); an exclusive privilege claimed by a mill, for grinding all the corn which is used within the manor or township it stands in.

  4.  attrib., as soke-fee, -land, -mill, -reeve.

c. 1290.  Fleta, II. lv. (1647), 119. Quod fieri potest per Sokereves eorum in hustengo.

1741.  T. Robinson, Gavelkind, v. 85. A Man seised of Land in Soke-Fee.

1858.  Hogg, Shelley, II. x. 345. The proprietor of a large soke-mill.

1882.  Elton, Orig. Eng. Hist., 192. In some places … there are two kinds of copyhold land, the one called ‘Bond-land’ and the other ‘Soke-land.’

1893.  Baring-Gould, Cheap Jack Zita, II. xvi. 46. You send a sack of corn to the soak-mill, and you get back half a sack of flour. How is that?