It is not possible within the limits of this work to deal with this complicated and difficult subject, especially as any attempt at a concise definition of the term is apt to be misleading in the present state of knowledge on the matter.
Maitland, Vinogradoff and Seebohm have done much by their able writings to elucidate the difficulties and to remove some prevalent misconceptions, and a careful study of their works is to be recommended to anyone who wishes to gain useful knowledge on this subject.
It has always been assumed that manors were non-existent within the limits of the City of London, and were wholly alien to the conditions of free-burgage tenure under which it was held by the King. But if this position is maintained, yet it is certain that there existed within the City from early times certain privileged areas known as "sokes," forming independent estates in the hands of private individuals, which were exempt from the jurisdiction of the City, and possessed of their own courts and officers.
Stow in his Survey of London mentions one or two estates which he describes as manors, but in his time the word seems to have acquired a wider and looser signification than it possessed in earlier days, when a definite technical meaning was attached to it.