In some cases manors were diminished or added to, and new ones created. Probably however there was no great addition after the Conque-st to the number ot Manors." * In the reigns of ihe later Saxon Kings, those subsequent to Allred, the English Commissioners on the Law of Real Property tell us, "that portions of the royal domains, with jurisdiction were granted, and afterwards jurisdiction was granted although the land might never have belonged to the King. The objects of these grants were lay favorites or monastic houses, and the operation of them was to invest the grantees with the power of judging the people dwelling in their territory. The courts ibr this purpose were framed after the ordinary model. The lord or a deputy presided, and the tenants and suitors formed the jury. They were commonly held in the hall of the lord's house, and were thence called Hallmotes." The words which granted this jurisdiction " were saca, soca, and theime, of which one of the

1 Maine ViU. Com. 1215, and 146. 3 II. Christian's Blackstone, 90.

2 Hist. lus. 126.

< Tomliiis, 618. Tower's Law Diet. " Manors."

5 P. 2.3. « Digby 24,35.

THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE MANORS.

l;nvs supplies us with the interpretation. Saca, meant the privilege of administering justice locally ; soca, the territory or franchise in which the privilege was to be exercised ; theime,* the seignorial jurisdiction." "It will be obvious to every one's miud that this species of local and private jurisdiction is what we now call a Manor. The substance of a manor is therefore justly said by Mr. Ellis to be aa ancient as the Saxon constitution; and the lord having soc and sac over his own men, and the baron holding his own court for his own men, were the same characters as were afterwards termed lords of Manors.