SOME REMARKS ON BRITISH FOREST HISTORY. l6l 



of Ine's laws dealt with the forest. If a man burns a single 

 tree in the forest, he is fined sixty shillings, for " fire is a 

 thief": if a man goes into the forest and cuts down trees, he 

 is fined thirty shillings for the first tree felled and so on up to 

 ninety shillings, but no more, for "the axe is a tell-tale" 

 (cap. 43 in 13a, pp. 108, 109). Further, if anyone cuts 

 down a tree under which thirty swine could take shelter, 

 he is to pay a fine of thirty shillings (13a, cap. 44). Two 

 centuries later, under Alfred, the law appears to have been 

 modified : " If a man burn or hew another man's wood without 

 leave, let him pay for every great tree with five shillings, 

 and afterwards for each, let there be ever so many, with 

 fivepence — and a fine of thirty shillings" (14, cap. 12; ibid. 

 PP- 56, 57; 15, P- 176). These laws tell us two things: that 

 timber is property of value, partly because it affords pannage for 

 swine, and that it is carefully preserved. Again, if we turn 

 to Domesday, two centuries later still, the deductions we must 

 draw are the same : woods of no value (for they existed then 

 as now) were exceptional : the rights to timber and to pasture 

 were jealously regarded and carefully preserved (8, pp. 289 ff.). 

 One thing to be noted, essarts — clearings in the forest for 

 agriculture — are rarel} mentioned in Domesday (8, pp. 284 ff.) : 

 this may be mere chance ; but no one, it is clear, can point 

 to Domesday as evidence of any rapid denudation of the 

 woodlands in pre-conquest days. 



Domesday does, however, give us evidence, our earliest 

 evidence, of Norman forest law and the reverse of the process 

 of settlement. There was a forest law before the Conqueror, 

 but it seems to have respected private rights and not to have 

 borne harshly upon cuItivators(i3^). Although we must reject as 

 a fable the legendary devastation wrought by William in creating 

 the New Forest (16, i. 411 ff. ; 17, xvi. 427 ff.), there is no 

 doubt that Norman forest law was detrimental to agriculture. 

 It operated not so much by giving arable over to wood and 

 waste, as by rendering proper cultivation impossible : forests 

 were " a vantage ground from which privileged animals carried 

 out their inroads against the cultivated districts" (8, pp. 297-8). 



And here we may repeat what has been not infrequently 

 stated, but more often forgotten, that a mediaeval forest was 

 land subject to forest law. " Wide stretches of the island 

 belonged to the forest, private estates as well as royal demesne, 



VOL. XXXV. PART II. L 



