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The deviation must probably be accounted for by the fact that the castle of Kenilworth was Royal demesne and had been given to Edmund, the brother of King Edward I; the peculiar condition described was certainly a species of customary freehold or socman's tenure.

The way in which the Register speaks of the admission of a socman to his holding is very characteristic: 'Every heir succeeding to his father ought to be admitted to the succession in his fifteenth year, and let him pay relief to the lord, that is, pay twice his rent.

It is a stepping-stone from villainage to socage, or rather to socman's tenure.

The socman's tenure, on the contrary, stands out as a clear case, and a careful analysis of it abundantly verifies the conclusions to which we have previously come by a more circuitous route.

Their decision is in contradiction with almost all the recorded cases; it was always assumed that the stiff Domesday terminology was quite insufficient to show whether a man was a pure villain or a free man holding in villainage, which last would be the villain socman in ancient demesne.