kings which imply that Knut granted his wife Emma sake and soke over eight and a half hundreds in West Suffolk and that the grant carried with it grithbrice, hamsocn, foresteal, aeberethef, flitwite and fihtwite[1]. From some points of view this grant to his wife is more novel and important than the grant to the archbishop; for it is the earliest clear instance on record of a wide stretch of territory passing into the hands of a lay subject, and shews that sokes had already ceased to be regarded as specially ecclesiastical privileges at least twenty years before Edward came to the throne. None the less this great franchise did ultimately come into the hands of the Church; for Emma's estates were all confiscated in 1043, soon after her son's accession, and this gave Edward the opportunity to transfer the jurisdiction over the eight and a half hundreds to the monks of St Edmund's Bury, who continued to enjoy the franchise right down to the Reformation. How much further back it would be possible to trace these franchises, were documents of Aethelred's reign available, it is impossible to say; but there seems no reason for supposing that Knut was an innovator. Like all rulers he more often than not followed precedents, and after all he had excellent precedents for such sokes as he created in the sokes which Edgar had set up in the tenth century. The really obscure problem is not so much the origin of the larger franchises granted to the magnates, as the origin of the practice of allowing quite small men to exercise sake and soke over petty estates. As to these we can never hope to attain any certainty; but it is interesting to note that the phrase saca and socne is even older than the reign of Edgar, being found in a charter issued by Eadwig in 958 which is apparently genuine and which relates to Southwell in Nottinghamshire[2].
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St Edmund's Liberty
