CHAP. CV, CORYLA‘CEZ. QUERCUS. 1747 
economy of our Saxon ancestors, gave particular directions relating to the 
fattening of swine in woods, since then called pannage, or pawnage. (Mart. 
Mill.) The same king made injuring or destroying trees penal; and those 
who did so clandestinely were fined thirty shillings, the very sound of the 
axe being sufficient conviction ; and the man who felled a tree under whose 
shadow thirty hogs could stand incurred a double penalty, and was mulcted 
to sixty shillings. (Hunter’s Evelyn.) In a succeeding century, Elfhelmus 
reserves the pannage of two hundred hogs for his lady, in part of her dower ; 
and mast is particularly mentioned, about the middle of the eleventh century, 
in a donation of Edward the Confessor. It appears from the Domesday Book, 
that, in William the Conqueror’s time, oaks were still esteemed principally 
for the food they afforded to swine; for the value of the woods, in several 
counties, is estimated by the number of hogs they would fatten. The survey 
is taken so accurately, that in some places woods are mentioned of a single 
hog. (Mart. Mill.) The rights of pannage were greatly encroached on by 
the Norman princes, in their zeal for extending forests for the chase; and this 
was one of the grievances which King John was obliged to redress in the 
charter of the liberties of the forest. (Chron. Sax.) 
The number of oak forests which formerly existed in Britain is proved by 
the many names still borne by British towns, which are evidently derived 
from the word oak. “For one Ash-ford, Beech-hill, Elm-hurst, or Poplar,” 
Burnet remarks, “ we find a host of oaks, Oakleys, Actons, Acklands, Aken 
hams, Acringtons, and so forth. The Saxon ac, aec, aac, and the later ok, 
okes, oak, have been most curiously and variously corrupted. Thus we find 
ac, aec, degenerating into ak, ack, aike, ack, acks, whence ax, exe ; often, also, 
aspirated into hac, hace, and hacks. In like manner, we trace oak, oke, ok, 
oc, ock, ceck, ocke, oks, ocks, ockes, running into oax, ox, oxes, for ox, oxs, with 
their farther corruptions, auck, uck, huck, hoke, and wok. As an example 
of this last extreme, the town Oakingham, or Ockingham, is at this day 
called and spelt indifferently Oakingham, Okingham, or Wokingham; and 
Oaksey or Oxessey are two common ways of writing the name of one 
identical place. Oakham, Okeham, Ockham, and Wockham, Hokenorton on 
the river Oke, Woking in Surrey, Wacton in Herefordshire and Norfolk, Okey 
or Wokey in Somersetshire, Oakefield or Wokefield in Berkshire, and Old 
or Wold in Northamptonshire, with the provincial Whom or Whoam, are 
other similar corruptions.” (Amen. Quer., fol. 11.) 
The history of the use of the British oak in building, carpentry, and for 
naval purposes, is necessarily coeval with that of the civilisation of the British 
islands. The timber found in the oldest buildings is uniformly of oak. Pro- 
fessor Burnet possessed a piece of oak from King John’s Palace at Eltham, 
perfectly sound, fine, and strong, which can be traced back upwards of 500 
years. The doors of the inner chapels of Westminster Abbey are said to be 
coeval with the original building; and if by this is meant Sibert’s Abbey of 
Westminster, which was founded in 611, they must be more than 1200 years 
old. The shrine of Edward the Confessor, which must be nearly 800 years 
old, since Edward died in 1066, is also of oak. One of the oaken corona- 
tion chairs in Westminster Abbey has been in its present situation about 540 
years. “In the eastern end of the ancient Chapel of St.Stephen, in the Castle 
of Winchester, now termed the County Hall, is Arthur’s round table, the chief 
curiosity of the place. It bears the figure of that Prince, so famous in the old 
‘romances, and the names of several of’his knights, Sir Tristram, Sir Gawaine, 
Sir Gerath, &c. Paulus Jovius, who wrote between 200 and 300 years ago, 
relates that this table was shown by Henry VIII. to his illustrious visiter 
the Emperor Charles V., asthe actual oaken table made and placed there 
by the renowned British Prince, Arthur, who lived in the early part of the 
sixth century; that is, about 1030 years ago. Hence the poet Drayton 
sings, — 
“And so great Arthur's seat ould Winchester prefers, 
* Whose ould round table yet she vaunteth to be hers,’ 
oxo 
