The record of the _placitum_, drawn up during the tenure of Lisois, shows us their limited services: 'Isti solummodo arabant et c'terent [_sic_] messes ejusdem loci quotienscunque abbas præceperit.' The difference between these services and the others we have seen recorded is considerable.
Yet another group of sokemen on Suffolk Manors rendered these services:
Ita proprie sunt abbati ut quotienscunque ipse præceperit in anno arabunt suam terram, purgabunt et colligent segetes, portabunt victum monachorum ad monasterium, equos eorum in suis necessitatibus habebit [abbas], et ubicunque deliquerint emendationem habebit semper et de omnibus illis qui in terris eorum deliquerint.
This is practically the same definition as we had for the other group, and suggests that it was of wide prevalence. A notable contrast is afforded by the entry: 'In villa que vocatur Blot tenet ipse R. iiii. homines qui tantum debent servire abbati cum propriis equis in omnibus necessitatibus suis.'
We have now examined the _consuetudines_ due from those 'qui vendere non potuerunt', and may turn to the rights exercised over the other class. Excluding 'servitium' (which is usually omitted as subordinate or comprised in the others), these are: (1) 'commendatio' (2) 'saca et soca'. The distinction between the two meets us throughout the survey of the eastern counties. A man might be 'commended' to one lord while another held his _soca_. Thus we read of Eadwine, a 'man' of the Abbot of Ely: 'Potuit dare absque eius licentia, sed socam comes Algarus habuit.'[61] That is to say, he was 'commended to the Abbot of Ely', but Earl Ælfgar had the right of 'sac and soc' over him.[62]
So too in the case of three 'liberi homines', commended to the Abbot in Norfolk. He had no right over them, but such as commendation conferred 'non habebat nisi commendationem', while their 'soca' belonged to the King's Manor of Keninghall.[63] Conversely, the Abbot of Ely had the 'soca' of a 'man' of Earl Waltheof,[64] and a 'man' of John, Waleran's nephew.[65] 'Commendatio', of course, took precedence as a right. Thus we read of the above three 'liberi homines'--'Hos liberos homines tenet [tenuit] Ratfridus, postea W. de Scodies, et abbas saisivit eos propter commendationem suam' (p. 133).