Social Life in the Old Forests. 35 



on the subject. We must remember that an ancient forest did 

 not simply mean a space thickly covered with trees, but also 

 wild open ground, with lawns and glades. Its derivation points 

 out to what sort of places it was originally applied.* The word 

 hurst, too, which, as we have seen, is so common a termination 

 throughout the district, means a wood which produces fodder for 

 cattle, answering to the Old High-German spreidachj The old 

 forests possessed, if not a large, some scattered population. For 

 them a special code of laws was made, or rather gradually deve- 

 loped itself. Canute himself appointed various officers Primarii, 

 our Verderers ; Lespegend, our Regarders ; and Tinemen, our 

 Keepers. The offences of hunting, wounding, or killing a deer, 

 striking a verderer or regarder, cutting vert, are all minutely 

 specified in his Forest Law, and punished, according to rank and 

 other circumstances, with different degrees of severity. J The 

 Court of Swanimote was, in a sense, counterpart to the Courts 

 of Folkemote and Portemote in towns. A forest was, in fact, 

 a kingdom within a kingdom, with certain, well-defined laws, 

 suited to its requirements, and differing from the common 

 law of the land. The inhabitants had regular occupations, 



* Manwood defines a forest u a certaine territorie of woody grounds and 

 fruitful pastures." A Treatise of the Lawes of the Forest. London, 1619. 

 Chap. i. f. 18. Wedgwood (Dictionary of English Etymology, vol. ii. 

 p. 34) shows the true meaning of the word, by connecting it with the 

 Welsh gores, gorest, waste, open ground, and goresta, to He open. 



\ See Mr. Davies's paper on the Races of Lancashire, Transactions of 

 the Philological Society, 1855, p. 258 In Domesday, as before, under Cla- 

 tinges, p. xviii. a, we find, " Silva inutilis," that is, a wood which has no 

 beech, oak, ash, nor holly, but only yews or thorns, equivalent to the 

 entry, ' Silva sine pasnagio," under Anne, p. xix. a. (See, too, Ellis, Intro- 

 duction to Domesday, vol. i. p. 99 ) Whilst under Borgate, p. iv. b, we 

 find, " Pastura quae reddebat xl porcos est in foresta Regis." 



J See Manwood, as before, ff. 1-5. 



