1066-1924: An Eye Plucked Out for Disturbing the Deer – the creation and development of forests

William Rufus Hunting, from Heritage History

From Our Island Story, by H. E. Marshall (Chapter 26) –

The Normans talked a great deal of “right,” but the more they talked of right, the more wrong they did. The very sheriffs and judges, who ought to have seen that the laws were kept and that justice was done, were more greedy than thieves and robbers, and the king was greediest of all. He made the people pay tolls and taxes until they had hardly any money left. Much of this money he took away with him to France, much he kept locked up in his strong treasure-room.

As if he had not already spoiled enough of the country in battle, William next laid waste a great part in the south, simply because he was very fond of hunting and he wanted a good hunting-ground. He turned the people out of their houses, burning and ruining whole villages in order to make a great place in which to ride and hunt. He called this place the New Forest and it is so called to this day.

Having made this forest, William also made forest laws. These laws were very cruel. If any person was found hunting or killing the deer or other wild animals, his eyes were put out or his hands and ears were cut off. So the poor people, who had been driven from their homes dared not even kill the wild animals for food.

From Wikipedia -

William I, original enactor of the Forest Law in England, harshly penalized offenders. He “laid a law upon it, that whoever slew hart or hind should be blinded,” according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. William Rufus, also a keen hunter, increased the severity of the penalties for various offenses to include death and mutilation. The laws were in part codified under the Assize of the Forest (1184) of Henry II; he also afforested large tracts.

Magna Carta, the charter forced upon King John of England by the English barons in 1215, contained five clauses relating to royal forests. They aimed to limit, and even reduce, the King’s sole rights as enshrined in forest law. The clauses were as follows (taken from the text of Magna Carta):

• (44) People who live outside the forest need not in future appear before the royal justices of the forest in answer to general summonses, unless they are actually involved in proceedings or are sureties for someone who has been seized for a forest offence.

• (47) All forests that have been created in our reign shall at once be disafforested. River-banks that have been enclosed in our reign shall be treated similarly.

• (48) All evil customs relating to forests and warrens, foresters, warreners, sheriffs and their servants, or river-banks and their wardens, are at once to be investigated in every county by twelve sworn knights of the county, and within forty days of their enquiry the evil customs are to be abolished completely and irrevocably. But we, or our chief justice if we are not in England, are first to be informed.

• (52) To any man whom we have deprived or dispossessed of lands, castles, liberties, or rights, without the lawful judgement of his equals, we will at once restore these. In cases of dispute the matter shall be resolved by the judgement of the twenty-five barons referred to below in the clause for securing the peace (§ 61). In cases, however, where a man was deprived or dispossessed of something without the lawful judgement of his equals by our father King Henry or our brother King Richard, and it remains in our hands or is held by others under our warranty, we shall have respite for the period commonly allowed to Crusaders, unless a lawsuit had been begun, or an enquiry had been made at our order, before we took the Cross as a Crusader. On our return from the Crusade, or if we abandon it, we will at once render justice in full.

• (53) We shall have similar respite [to that in clause 52] in rendering justice in connexion with forests that are to be disafforested, or to remain forests, when these were first afforested by our father Henry or our brother Richard; with the guardianship of lands in another person’s `fee’, when we have hitherto had this by virtue of a `fee’ held of us for knight’s service by a third party; and with abbeys founded in another person’s `fee’, in which the lord of the `fee’ claims to own a right. On our return from the Crusade, or if we abandon it, we will at once do full justice to complaints about these matters.

After the death of John, Henry III was compelled to grant the Charter of the Forest (1217), which further reformed the forest law and established the rights of agistment and pannage on private land within the forests. It also checked certain of the extortions of the foresters. An “Ordinance of the Forest” under Edward I again checked the oppression of the officers, and introduced sworn juries in the forest courts.

The Great Perambulation and after

In 1300 many (if not all) forests were perambulated and reduced greatly in their extent, in theory to their extent in the time of Henry II. However, this depended on the determination of local juries, whose decisions often excluded from the Forest lands described in Domesday Book as within the forest. Successive kings tried to recover the “purlieus” excluded from a forest by the Great Perambulation of 1300. Forest officers periodically fined the inhabitants of the purlieus for failing to attend Forest Court or for forest offences. This led to complaints in Parliament. The king promised to remedy the grievances, but usually did nothing.

Several forests were alienated by Richard II and his successors, but generally the system decayed. Henry VII revived “Swanimotes” (forest courts) for several forests and held Forest Eyres in some of them. Henry VIII in 1547 placed the forests under the Court of Augmentations with two Masters and two Surveyors-General. On the abolition of that court, the two surveyors-general became responsible to the Exchequer. Their respective divisions were North and South of the river Trent.

By the Tudor period and after, forest law had largely become anachronistic, and served primarily to protect timber in the royal forests. James I caused enquiries to be made into assart lands of various forests. The commissioners appointed raised over £25000 by compounding with occupiers, whose ownership was confirmed, subject to a fixed rent. Under Charles I, several forests were disforested, the king receiving a portion of the waste land of the forest, which he then sold. The last serious exercise of forest law by a court of justice-seat (Forest Eyre) seems to have been in about 1635, in an attempt to raise money.

After the Restoration

A Forest Eyre was held for the New Forest in 1670, and a few for other forests in the 1660s and 1670s, but these were the last. From 1715, both surveyor’s posts were held by the same person. The remaining royal forests continued to be managed (in theory, at least) on behalf of the crown. However, the commoners’ rights of grazing often seem to have been more important than the rights of the crown.

In the late 1780s, a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the condition of Crown woods. North of the Trent only Sherwood Forest survived. South of it there were the New Forest and three others in Hampshire, Windsor Forest in Berkshire, the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, Waltham or Epping Forest in Essex, three forests in Northamptonshire, and Wychwood in Oxfordshire. Several of these no longer had swainmote courts, so that there was no official supervision. They divided the remaining forests into two classes, according to whether the Crown was or was not the major landowner. In certain Hampshire forests and the Forest of Dean, most of the soil belonged to the crown and these should be reserved to grow timber, to meet the need for oak for shipbuilding. The others would be inclosed, the Crown receiving an allotment in lieu of its rights.

In 1810, responsibility for woods was moved from Surveyors-General (who accounted to the Auditors of Land Revenue) to a new Commission of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues. From 1832 to 1851 “Works and Buildings” were added to their responsibilities. In 1851, the commissioners again became a Commissioner of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues. In 1924, the Royal Forests were transferred to the new Forestry Commission.

From A Concise Guide to Medieval Forest Law and Bow Hunting, by Mark Tustian, at Companions of the Longbow -

When I’m arranging a shoot I’m always looking to put a bit of a medieval slant on the proceedings, if only to give me a bit of inspiration or provide a pinch of extra interest.  So with the arrival of our new 3D targets I was looking forward to putting a bit of medieval hunting techniques into the mix.  The only thing was I didn’t know much about hunting, let alone medieval hunting.  In films and on TV it’s either a lone archer stalking a deer or a nobleman and his soldiers crashing through the forest.  Was that really the case?  Call me cynical but I suspect that TV and films don’t always provide an accurate picture.  There are also some tantalising NFAS round names such as Woodsman round, Forester round and Poachers round.  Did these have any bearing on the medieval hunt?

In this short article I’ll be covering, all be it briefly, forest laws, forest officials and enforcers, the skills & equipment of a forester, the medieval classification of game and medieval hunting styles such as stalking with the bow & hunting alone with a bow.  There’ll also be a very, very short bit about bird hunting with bow & arrow, wild boar hunting, and hare hunting.  Finally there’s something on medieval hunting dogs (which is probably worth an article on it’s own) before putting it all together to present a run down on a medieval Bow & Stable hunt & a Par Force hunt.

The Forest

Today when most of us think about a forest we think of lush green woodland densely populated with trees, providing dappled shade to a soft forest floor covered with shrubs, saplings, fallen twigs, branches and the occasional fallen tree.  Close on to a nine hundred years ago though the term forest meant something totally different.  From large game such as wild boar and deer to small animals such as hare & rabbit, all of them came under the protection of a regulation that came from the new Norman ruling elite; it was called forest law and came from the Latin foris which meant outside.

William the Conqueror introduced forest law shortly after 1066 to protect and preserve his favourite sport of hunting.  This meant that not only the game but their habitat, or vert as it was called, was protected.  Therefore within a forest boundary, which could include not just trees, but grassland, heath and marsh, it was forbidden to farm, to cut peat, to cut trees, to collect firewood or even to gather acorns without special permission.  A whole industry of officials and enforcers grew up in and around these royal forests to implement the forest law as well as maintain the habitat and conduct the royal hunts.

The legal term for the declaration of land as a royal forest was “afforestation”, a process which though started by William I (he established 21 royal forests by the time the Doomsday Book was compiled in 1086) would peak under Henry II (1133-1189) who had 80 royal forests covering three tenths of the entire country of England.

Originally people living in the newly established royal forests, like the one established by William the Conqueror in Hampshire (which was imaginatively called “the New Forest” and still exists) were moved out and their homes destroyed.  However as the area covered by royal forests became so large this became impractical and so new laws & restrictions were introduced to enable complete villages and towns to function inside the forest jurisdictions.  For example, in the 1184 Assize of the Forest King Henry II commanded that no tanner or bleacher of hides shall dwell in his forests outside a borough.

These restrictions, designed solely to preserve the venison and vert of the forest, were many (the word “venison” comes from the Latin word for hunting and originally covered all game animals).  These included requirements for the passage of bows, arrows and hunting dogs that were not part of an official hunt.  For example anyone passing through a forest was required to carry their bow with their arrows bound to the limbs with the bowstring.  Any hunting dogs, such as brachets and gazehounds (more on the types of dogs later) were to be tied together in twos. If you owned a mastiff for use as a guard dog there was the requirement for your dog to be “lawed”, that is to have the 3 claws on it’s forepaws cut off.  If a dead or wounded deer was found with an arrow the arrow was sent to the forest verderer and enrolled as evidence (more on verderers later too).

The penalties for breaking the forest laws started as quite severe – death or mutilation.  For example, under William I you could have an eye put out just for disturbing the deer. Later these punishments were relaxed to fines or imprisonment and it’s probably of no surprise to learn that it was found to be quite profitable for the crown to grant certain rights and privileges inside the forest in return for cash.  The King’s army could also gain by granting pardons in return for military service.

However within the medieval society the concept & privilege of forest law rankled with the general populous and gave rise to the popularity of the tales and ballads of those who fought against forest law and took sanctuary in the greenwood; the most famous subject for these tales was of course Robin Hood.  Terry Jones, in his book Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives hypothesises that this early empathy and tolerance of the outlaw was a concept that was carried to other parts of the world by the British.  He states that this fondness and acceptance of the rogue outlaw led to later phenomena like Billy the Kid & Ned Kelly.  However, it may be surprising to learn that many nobles also objected to the extent of these privileges and in fact several clauses in the Magna Carta (1215) imposed limits on the King’s powers when it came to royal forests.

What started just after 1066 would not end until 1653 when Parliament passed the “Act for the Disafforestation, Sale, and Improvement of Royal Forest”.  It was this act that the bulk of royal forests were sold off.  Indeed Sherwood Forest was one of these that was “disafforested” at the time.

So what were the restrictions and privileges imposed and granted on the people who lived in and around a forest?  Who were the officials and enforcers of forest law?

Forest Laws

The Assize of the Forest (also known as the Assize of Woodstock) in 1184 laid down in detail the organisation and administration of forest Law

Offences against forest law were outside the area of common law and were divided into two categories.  The first was trespass against the venison, which is the game and is the one offence everyone immediately thinks of thanks to all those films and TV shows showing Robin Hood shooting deer and being chased by the sheriff’s men.  The second less well-known one was trespass against the vert, which is the environment that supports the game.

Although forest law was originally concerned with protecting the deer, the boar and the wolf (which didn’t seem to have worked since the boar and the wolf eventually became extinct in England) the categories of animals have historically been listed under “beasts of the chase” and “beasts and fowls of warren”.  The beasts of the chase were the likes of the doe (female deer) and buck (male deer), the roe deer and the fox.  The beasts and fowls of warren were the likes of the rabbit, hare, pheasant and partridge.  As has been mentioned before, for a fee, the rights of chase and of warren could be granted to the local nobility.  If you weren’t a noble the only way you could hunt the likes of a deer were if you were a legitimate forester or you fancied running the gauntlet and trying your hand at a bit of poaching.  The historical record seems to indicate that it wasn’t just your down and out peasant who liked a bit of poaching though.  Minor nobility might hunt without license as well as the occasional clergyman and even the odd wayward forester who was paid to know better.

As simple as the trespass against the venison was i.e. don’t shoot the animals, the trespass against the vert was a bit more complicated.  Clearing land for agriculture by felling trees and clearing shrubs was called “assarting”.  Enclosing land for buildings or for pasture was called “purpresture”.  The right of taking firewood was called “estover”.  The right to pasture swine in the forest was called “pannage”.

The right to cut turf for fuel was called “turbary”.  Rights of pasturage was called “agistment”.  Disafforested lands on the edge of a forest were known as “purlieu” which meant that the land after having been included in a royal forest, was restored to private ownership and therefore could be used for agriculture.  Although these purlieu were still subject to the operation of the forest laws!  It wasn’t until the Charter of the Forest in 1217 that all freemen owning land within a forest enjoyed the universal right such as agistment (rights of pasturage) & pannage (pasturing swine).  Amazingly this charter was still in force right up until 1971.

Forest Officials and Enforcers

You’ve got the laws, so who’s going to enforce them?   Well, Hollywood might have us believe that in the forest that’d be exclusively the remit of the sheriff and his chain mail clad solders, but that was not the case.

At the top of the forest law official tree (if you pardon the pun) was the Warden of the Forest.  At least that was the title used between 1311 and 1397 as before and after these dates the title was Justices in Eyre (Eyre meaning “circuit”, referring to the movement of the court between the royal forests).

Below this, although not directly answerable to the Warden, was the verderer.  This title comes from the Norman word ‘vert’, a word that means green & thus refers to woodland. Verderers were often knights or persons of high social standing who were elected by the county court.  Verderers investigated and recorded minor offences and dealt with the day to day forest administration.  For example, swainmote (or swanimote) was a minor court held before the verderer who acted as the judge with the swains or freeholders within the forest composing of the jury.  Several 13th & 14th century verderers graves have an axe symbol on them symbolising the control they had over the felling of vert .

Next were the main foot solders, the foresters.  Foresters were charged with preserving the vert, venison and apprehending offenders against the forest law.  Each forester was assigned a patch of forest to look after called a ward, a walk or a bailiwick.  The forester would also enforce chiminage (a toll for passage through the forest a.k.a. road tax) for chiminagium (right of way) and also levy the exaction of ale, or the equivalent in money, in the event of a festivity. The later Charter of the Forest (1217) defined & restricted chiminage and scotage (the keeping of an ale house by an officer of the forest) which seems to indicate that these duties were routinely abused by unscrupulous foresters.  We’ll be looking at the foresters in greater depth later in this article.

The agisters were charged with supervising the pannage (the pasturing of swine) and the agistment (all other rights of pasturing) which generally meant the collection of fees for the privilege.

The literal eyes and ears were the surveyors who determined the boundaries of the forest and the regarders or regardors (from the French, regarde, to see).  These officers reported up to the Warden when there were infringements on the forest and incursion on the royal rights as stipulated under asserting (clearing of forest) and purpresture (enclosing of land for pasture or building).  Regarder and surveyor visits provided a check against collusion between the foresters and local offenders which, as the historical record shows, did happen occasionally.

The Forester

The hierarchy for foresters was on the face of it fairly simple.  There were foresters-in-fee who could be classified (from lowest to highest) as under-foresters, foot or walking foresters & riding foresters. The Crooked Stick by Hugh D. H. Soar says that “in addition to regular foresters there were in the Royal Forest of Kingswood near Bristol arrow men who’s day-to-day task, it would seem, was to keep order within the forest boundaries.  Housed within a tower of Bristol’s castle, contemporary documents suggest that they had a less-than-savoury local reputation.”.

There is also evidence that the foresters-in-fee were colloquially called woodwards and that the under-foresters were called rangers, however the term ranger (coming from the fact that the forester ranged across the land) does not appear until after 1350. The riding foresters were also called bow-bearers because they had the right to carry a strung bow in the forest, where as their sub-ordinates needed a warrant from the Warden to do so.

To confuse things further the term serjeants-in-fee can also come up as a term for a form of forester that held land in return for service.  This was because the term serjeant was the holder of a serjeanty, a type of feudal land-holding in England and should not be confused with the later army rank of sergeant!

The foresters would be paid around 2d per day and in addition receive a certain amount of wood and venison.  If you’ve read the other article on 14th Century Coins and Costs you’ll realise 2d does not seem much in comparison to an unskilled labourer, however the wood and game would certainly make being a forester materially attractive.

It’s worth noting that according to the 1184 Assize of the Forest the forester’s own responsibilities and penalties for not protecting the King’s wood are quite clear;

And the lord king has commanded that, when a forester has the lord king’s own woods in his charge, if those woods are destroyed and he can by no means show good cause for the destruction of the woods, vengeance shall be taken on the forester’s own body and not otherwise.

Skills of a Forester

So you want to be forester?  Well in order to be a good one, according to Le Livre du Roi Modus et de la Royne Racio (The Book of King Method and Queen Reason) a 15th century French treatise on hunting, a forester must have the following minimum skills;

Shoot a bow – to be used against the venison and against poachers in equal measure!

Train a scenting hound – there were a number of jobs and titles that were associated with the different types of hounds.  These will be detailed later in this article.

Stand properly in your tree (stable stand) – construction of a stable stand for his own use as well as for the use of other “higher ranking” hunters would have no doubt been a necessity.  Incidentally if the prey was to be hunted in open country artificial stands called “hays” were also constructed.  A derivative of the word “hay” was said to be used when driving game towards stable stands and it’s from here that the archers alleged war cry of “Hahay, hahay!” is said to come from.  During the Weardale Campaign of 1327 the archers of Edward III’s army while at York got into a fight over a game of dice with the servants of the Hainaulter knights.  Jean le Bel recounted that “all the other archers of the town and the others who were encamped among the Hainaulters gathered up their bows, [crying] hahay hahay like pigs, and wounded many of the servants and forced them to retire to their hostels … these archers, of whom there were a good two thousand, had the devil in their bodies and shot, with amazing skill, to kill everyone, both lords and varlets”(P181 “The Great Warbow: From Hastings to the Mary Rose” by Matthew Strickland and Robert Hardy).  The Hainaulter men-at-arms counter attacked and by the end left 316 archers dead.—history does not record whether there really was cheating at the dice or not.

Remember the placement of archers who shoot with you – before high visibility jackets and risk assessments safety was still a concern.  William II (died 1100) had been killed by a stray arrow while out hunting (one account blamed the king’s red hair – it apparently made another archer mistake him for a squirrel).  Great stock was placed on a forester who knew where bowmen in his vicinity were placed and where their arrows would go.  Just like today really.

Observe the wind – as any hunter will tell you, if you’re upwind from an animal the wind will carry your scent down to them and alert the prey to your presence.  “Knowing which way the wind is blowing” would certainly be important and its a phrase that’s entered common usage for predicting which way things are going.

Cut arrow shafts – you can imagine the forester sitting down with a spare few minutes and whittling a few arrow shafts can’t you?
Skin a hart – not only skin it, but butcher it and prepare the meat and hide for transport.
Direct your scenting hound – an obvious skill if you’re dealing with hounds.

Sound your hunting horn – one of the best low tech ways of keeping touch with such a large group of people, especially important with a large group of armed people, was to use sound.  As such, the hunting horn with its one note sounding in a series of strokes and mots could be used to convey a surprising number of messages.  Sadly today we apparently don’t know the exact sounds made but perhaps the remnants of the medieval hunting signals can be heard in the modern day fox hunting calls.  It may be of little surprise to hear (geddit?) that some people surmise that these hunting calls were the forerunner to the bugle calls of later armies.  Indeed there is partial evidence to suggest that the Menée stroke (assembly call) was used as a prelude to the battle of Agincourt (1415).  Classes were held to instruct all those who needed to know the different calls and although we don’t have the full English list, the French versions, which could not have varied very much are listed below:

• Assemblée: The gathering.
• Chemin: The Road or way to the meet.
• Queste: The search for the quarry.
• Requeste: The search anew when the quarry turned to cover.
• L’eaue: A water obstacle.
• Chasse: The hounds running.
• Retraite: The withdrawal & return homeward.
• Ayde: At bay or a request for help.
• Vehue: The sight of the quarry.
• Mescroy: The changing of the line of scent.
• Relaies: The need for a relay of hounds.
• Prise: The death of the quarry.
• Appel de Chiens: Calling together of the hounds.
• Appel de Gens:  Calling the hunters together.

Equipment of a Forester

Three classic items would’ve apparently marked someone out as a forester; a bow, their green garb and possession of a hunting horn.

A good hunters’ horn was said to be made from horn 12” to 14” long, curving up no more than 4” from end to end.  A slight curve along its length was preferable so that it could hang against the contours of the forester’s body when not in use.  The horn was bound with fibres to provide extra protection and should always sound louder than the fewterers’ (the gazehound handler – see later) or the woodsmens’ horn.

The optimal type of hunting bow listed in Roi Modus is one that should be around 6’ 5” in length, made of boxwood or yew, strung with a silk bowstring (because apparently a silk bowstring was quieter, would last longer and could cast a heavier arrow than a hemp bowstring), have horn nocks and have a buckskin arrow pass to reduce the noise of the arrow against the bow when shot.

The fistmele (bracing height between the belly of the bow and the strung string) should be one palm’s width and two fingers which is very low in comparison to the standard fistmelé which is the height of a clenched fist with the thumb held upright (the thumbs up sign – where we get the phrase “rule of thumb”).

Roger Ascham writing in the 16th century says that a low strung bow will shoot faster as opposed to a high strung bow which is easier to draw because it’s already “partially drawn” but will shoot slower.  Most modern bowyers would probably argue that a bow strung low or high will break faster (you’ve been warned!)

Roi Modus says that the arrows should be at least 35” in length and fletched with low cut and short fletchings if using a light shaft, or high cut and longer fletchings if using a heavier shaft.  The arrow head should be barbed and be 4 fingers width across (4”) and 5 fingers width long (3 ½ “).  The arrow head should be aligned so that the barbs are in the same plane as the arrow nock.  When shooting a Mediterranean draw should be used (three fingers) as opposed to the two fingered Flemish draw (no reason given although the Mediterranean draw, like now, was probably just more popular).

Barbed arrow heads were forbidden within a forest area unless of course you had leave to use them as part of your duties as a forester or you were part of a legitimate hunting party.  Although Roi Modus lists this ideal type of bow it’s doubtful that all foresters would be able to afford to routinely use silk bow strings.  In Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” the yeoman archer is described as having arrow shafts fletched with peacock feathers and being dressed in Lincoln green.  Peacock feathers are certainly listed as being a high quality fletching feather and so, unlike the mass produced goose fletched war arrows, the forester could and would expect to retrieve these good arrows after they’d been shot.

Lincoln green was a colour named after the cloth woven in the city of Lincoln and certainly would’ve helped the forester blend in. There are numerous references to foresters disguising themselves with leaves and foliage to help mingle into the green wood.  As modern hunters and the military know today, it helps to arrange any branches or twigs so that they point down towards the ground rather than up in the air as movement will be exaggerated by any foliage arranged to point skyward.

From Robin Hood Of Loxley –

By the time of Domesday Book in 1086 William the Conqueror had himself established twenty-one Royal Forests and the Norman Kings continued apace until at one time there were eighty “royal forests” encompassing virtually all of England’s vast wooded areas, which covered a staggering thirty percent of England.

The Royal Forests were so extensive that it was impossible for any monarch to hunt all of the forests during his lifetime even working at it around the clock, so the common belief that the royal forests were established for the pleasure of the kings hunting is incorrect and in most cases the hunting was done by professionals in order to provide meat for feasts and as gifts.

The medieval kings were actually quite poor, and their ability to give presents of venison as rewards to those who served them well, meant much in terms of their authority, and the fact that they were able to make presents of rare timbers large enough to build ships and houses gave them still further influence among their barons.

In reality there were tremendous benefits that accrued to the Crown from extensive afforestation. First, policing of the forests demanded a large network of forest officials who formed what was virtually a private army of the king. (These officials along with the sheriffs and clergy will have been the bane of Robin Hood’s life.) Secondly, fines and special forest taxes extracted by this bureaucracy provided a considerable and perpetual source of revenue for the Crown so it is not surprising that the monarchs fought as hard as they did to protect their forest prerogatives and what began as a reasonable idea to reserve some large game to royalty grew into a power base that the monarchs were reluctant to relinquish.

COVERAGE

The legal boundary of a royal forest was frequently much larger than that of the woodland contained within it, so in the case of Sherwood the actual boundary of the forest may have been much larger than the wooded area itself. The boundaries of the forests were set by the king’s surveyors and were periodically renewed in people’s memories by people actually walking round the boundaries.

The royal forests occupied strategic positions, and unfortunately the history of the forests during the reigns of William I to Edward I is one of repeated royal abuse which affected the lives of the villagers and townsfolk who lived within the forest boundary whether they were rich or poor. The forests were fertile, they were a valuable resource and every Norman king from William I to Edward I was at one time or another condemned for his particular brand of jurisdiction in relation to the royal forests but even so the kings sought to extend their boundaries by whatever means possible in order to impose their forest prerogative.

The East Midlands particularly was a forest strong hold and it contained what appears to be about one-third to one-half of all the royal forests. The Forest of Essex, which was the largest single forest of all England, was situated on the north bank of the Thames and there was an unbroken chain of six or seven forests, which extended for approximately one-hundred miles across the centre of the East Midlands extending to Sherwood Forest on the north bank of the River Trent.

THE TERRAIN

A forest for the Normans and their successors was an area of unenclosed countryside, consisting of a highly variable mixture of woodland, heathland, scrub, and agricultural land. Its purpose was to raise deer, which needed a variety of land, i.e. woodland to rest and hide in during the day, and more open land in which to feed at night. It does not necessarily denote a wooded area in the modern meaning. Even in William’s time a lot of what was called Forest was actually heath. It was a place for the keeping of deer and certain other animals. In 1598, Manwood in his Treatise of the Laws of the Forest defined a Forest thus: “A forest is a certain territory of woody grounds and fruitful pastures, privileged for wild beasts and fowls of the forest, chase, and warren, to rest and abide there in the safe protection of the King for his delight and pleasure. “The four beasts of the forest were red deer, fallow deer, roe, and wild pig, which together were called “the venison”.

LEGALITIES

The origin of the word forest comes from the Latin phrase forestis silva, where silva meant “woodland” and forestis meant “outside.” The word “afforestation” is a legal term and means outside or “beyond the main central area of administration, or outside the common law” and although in time the phrase became shortened to forest it still retained a sense of separateness and exclusion and it was this sense that the Normans brought with them when they invaded England in 1066. In common with other large areas within the country, Forest Law imposed a kingdom within a kingdom, where the inhabitants were subjected to draconian laws to preserve, increase and protect game of all species and in this context a Forest, is land subject to special laws designed to protect deer and other animals of the hunt which the king reserved for his own right to hunt for himself and those he authorised.

Within afforested areas, Forest Law was applied in addition to Common Law, it was a distinct legal system with its own courts and officers and the sole aim of forest law was to preserve the venison and vert (green undergrowth for feeding the venison) for the King’s pleasure and Royal edicts were administered by Crown officials, with no appeal or redress. The primary purpose was the supply of venison; it is likely that it was professional hunters, not the monarch who did most of the hunting.

William the Conqueror said in his defence that the Saxon Kings had always applied forest law, but that is untrue, it is a fact that Cnut claimed hunting rights in his own woods, but only his own woods and trespassers and poachers were punished by Common Law, not a Forest Law. Forest Law was a Norman institution imported from the continent and in English eyes it was an unprecedented tyranny.

EFFECT ON THE PEOPLE

In a few early cases, for example when William the Conqueror created the New Forest, which technically is called afforestation it meant that the inhabitants were disposed of their homes and whole villages and churches were demolished, but such drastic actions became impractical as the number of royal forests increased, simply because there was nowhere else for people to go, so they had to stay where they were, which meant that they became “residents” of a forest, and that caused them tremendous hardship because of the additional laws and regulations that were imposed on forest dwellers.

The restrictions of Forest Law were very harsh, a forest resident could not cultivate land, he could not hunt the large game which was the possession of the king, and very often neither could he hunt the small game, such as hares, also the felling of timber was prohibited, and it is recorded that in some cases inhabitants were even forbidden to gather acorns which was deemed as offences against the “vert” and this control of the under-wood by the Crown meant they had no wood to burn for fuel. Neither could they cultivate the ground nor enclose their land to keep the deer out, and as modern farmers will confirm deer can be very destructive. In effect, the imposition of a royal forest was a burdensome tax on its inhabitants which cost them dearly in terms of inconvenience and loss of crops, so that the king’s own crop, i.e. the deer could thrive. To compensate for the restrictions on enclosure of land so that it didn’t interfere with the run of the deer, the forest dwellers were permitted to turn their stock out into the waste, which is a privilege that continues to this day as a legal right (common land) and was something that had always been allowed before afforestation was imposed, but this custom was regularized in new laws which imposed additional restrictions at certain times of the year, such as winter, to preserve the browse for the deer and other common practices such as cutting peat for fuel were also regulated.

Even worse, was the burdensome “forest law” which was stricter than the common law of England and was administered by an army of forest officials who were often corrupt and were only answerable to the king. (The setting for Robin Hood) This was not only unpopular with the poor but also with the nobility whose lands might also be included in a royal forest, and although the wealthy could expect to be granted limited forest privileges by the Crown, they had as much reason to despise the royal practice of afforestation as did the lower classes. This is evident from the Magna Charta to which King John’s signature was compelled not by the lower and middle classes but by great barons, who required that the royal prerogative in regard to the extension and jurisdiction of the forests should be curbed.

William II (Rufus) (1087-1100) increased the severity of penalties for flouting Forest Law. For killing the King’s deer the punishment was death and for other offences the punishment was mutilation. Those that shot at a deer had their hands cut off and blinding was the penalty for disturbing the deer.

Henry I (1100-1135) at his coronation issued a Charter promising to modify or abolish the excesses of Forest Law. In fact he maintained the system and increased its efficiency. He used it to his pecuniary advantage by extracting financial penalties for misdemeanours. But he did grant rights of warren for those under Forest Law (hunting of fox, wolf, cat, hare, rabbit, badger & squirrel) and he also protected a small number of cultivated enclosures within the Forest and he may also have introduced fallow deer into England.

Henry II (1135-1154) extended the boundaries of the Forest, thereby increasing pressure on the surrounding cultivated land but he was rather more merciful regarding breaches of Forest Law, trespassers were committed to prison, although by the end of his reign the forests in England had been increased to their largest extent.

THE FOREST ADMINISTRATORS

The word PUTURE was applied to the allowance of meat and drink given to foresters and their attendants; ASSARTS were areas of forest grubbed up for arable use; AGISTERS controlled the letting of cattle into the forest to feed and a DRIVE was the process of collecting together these cattle to count them; a LODGE was temporary housing in a forest during the hunting season and a STANDING was an observation point where the hunter stood; the official name for a forest controlled by a magnate other than the king was a CHASE and there was a panoply of rites for those involved in formal hunts which included the ceremony of presenting the FEWMETS (faeces or droppings) of the deer to the presiding magnate to show the quality of the stag pursued, and the ceremonial GRALLOCHING or EVISCERATION of the deer after the kill.

The forests had an army of staff to look after them: SENESCHALS, JUSTICIARS, REGARDERS and VERDERES administered the forest laws (of these, only the verderers now survive as a titled office, and that only in one place – the New Forest, one of William the Conqueror’s original first forests). The courts that heard offences were either COURTS OF EYRE (travelling courts to hear serious offences, from the Latin iterare, ‘to travel’, which also gives us words like ‘ITERATION’), or of SWAINMOTE (a court held three times a year principally to control the pasturage of pigs in the forest; this word comes from Old English and literally means ‘a meeting of swineherds’ – The LARDINERS (sometimes important magnates) stored the carcasses of the deer; foresters cared for the animals and vegetation.

A BAILIFF is the Sheriff’s officer: a legal officer who serves under a sheriff and is empowered to take possession of a debtor’s property, forcibly if necessary, to serve writs, and to make arrests. A FORESTER is an officer of a forest (not a woodsman as some think) who works for the King (or another landowner) and he is sworn to preserve the Vert and Venison of the same forest, and to attend upon the wild beasts within his Bailiwick, and to attack offenders there, and the same to present at the courts of the same forest. The VERT was the medieval name for the growing things in the forest, especially the timber trees used for construction and the underbrush cut for firewood; venison here means the live animals of the chase, not necessarily deer. The foresters were assisted by under-officers called variously wardens, rangers, underkeepers, bow-bearers, and under-foresters (Chaucer was once one, as a sinecure, another way the medieval kings could use the mechanism of their royal forests to reward people). An example of the sort of petty bureaucracy forest-dwellers had to put up with was LAWING, or EXPEDITIAN, in which the claws of mastiffs and hounds belonging to local people were removed to prevent them from attacking the royal deer; the only excepted animals were those small enough to wriggle through a specially-sized iron stirrup.