FORESTRY 



As the forest justices were so seldom on circuit, they seem to have been all the more determined 

 to exact appearances whenever the eyre was held. The whole of the free tenants of the forest were 

 bound to attend the pleas. On the opening day three of them were absent. John Bardolf 

 successfully pleaded that he had not received his letter of summons, but Adam de Everingham was 

 fined 1 5*., and Joan widow of Ralph de Burton 6s. 8^., for their absence. The reeves and four- 

 men of each township within the bounds had also to be present. On the first day William 

 Goodrych and William de Normanton, both of Lenton, were fined collectively y. 4^., whilst 

 William Router, the reeve of Basford, had to pay 2s. Before the eyre was closed the justices issued 

 a series of pardons for both venison and vert offences. Amongst the eighteen pardoned were John 

 le Bret, rector of Annesley, and the vicar of Edwinstowe. 



Between the times of holding eyres the crown not infrequently intervened with pardons for 

 venison and vert trespasses. Thus between the eyres of 1287 and 1334 (to cite only two or three 

 Sherwood examples) Edward I pardoned William Simpson, parson of the church of Epperstone, in 

 1295, of both vert and venison trespass j 1 the abbot of Thornton, in 1305, for felling eight oaks 

 beyond the number granted ; 3 and Edward II pardoned John de Sandwyce and others in 1308 for 

 taking two harts and a buck. 3 



There was not a single royal forest wherein various religious houses had not special rights 

 granted them of fuel and other wood, of pannage or agistment, and sometimes of venison. Nor 

 was there hardly any royal forest to be found, within whose bounds one or more monasteries were 

 not established. Sherwood is a striking instance. Surrounded on all sides by the forest stretches 

 were the Cistercian monks of Rufford and the Austin canons of Newstead. On its northern verge 

 were the white canons of Welbeck, the most famous Premonstratensian house in England, and a 

 little further afield the Austin canons of Worksop, the Benedictine monks of Blyth, and the 

 Benedictine nuns of Wallingwell. On its western margin were the Carthusian monks of Beau 

 Vale, and the Austin canons of Felley ; on the south-eastern flank were the two other small Austin 

 houses of Thurgarton and Shelford, whilst at the southern extremity was the powerful house of 

 Cluniac monks of Lenton. Every one of these monasteries had certain Sherwood forest privileges, 

 some small and some great, as well as a few other houses situated outside the county bounds. 

 Thus the nuns of Wallingwells might send their wood cart once a week to collect windfallen 

 wood for their hearth and oven, whilst the RufFord monks could have wood for almost any purpose 

 they desired. Or, again, the canons of Felley could turnout their swine at certain seasons to fatten 

 on the acorns and beech mast, whilst the Lenton monks had a right to a tithe of the whole of 

 the venison killed throughout the forest. Besides, too, their definite chartered rights, which had to 

 be substantiated at every recurrence of the forest pleas, our kings were often ready, particularly 

 in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, to grant the religious temporary forest grants. To take 

 only a few examples of Edward I's Sherwood forest grants of this description, we find that the 

 king, in 1279, licensed the prior of Newstead to fell and sell 40 acres of his own wood; 4 and in 

 the next year the abbot of RufFord had license to clear out a trench, 40 ft. wide, round his own 

 wood, and make his profits out of the wood and underwood. 5 In 1300 the same king licensed the 

 abbot of RufFord to sell the windfalls (cabliecium) of his woods, and in 1304 to fell and sell 

 40 acres. 6 The prior of Newstead had leave in 1304 to enclose and cultivate 1, 800 acres of the 

 forest waste of Linby ; 7 and in 1305 the prior of Felley was granted the tithes of all the assarts 

 (clearances) in the hays of Linby, Rumewood, and Wellow, that had been assarted in the king's reign. 8 



It is greatly to the credit of the religious of these monasteries that they were hardly ever 

 presented for any form whatever of venison trespass, though this can by no means be said of their 

 secular brethren, the beneficed clergy of Sherwood and the neighbourhood. 9 



In the reign of Edward IV, and subsequently, various appointments of king's foresters of 

 Sherwood are entered on the patent rolls at a wage of 4^. a day. In 1474 John Stanbridge, a 

 yeoman of the king's chambers, was granted for life the office of the custody of the king's lodge of 

 Immeslowe in the north bailiwick and of being one of the foresters there, to hold by himself or 

 deputy agreeable to the master of the game, with wages of \d. a day out of the issues of Mansfield 

 in the forest ; but the appointment and wage were not to be taken as a precedent. But later in the 

 same month there was a like life appointment by the crown of a forester in the south bailiwick ; he 

 received a similar wage, and in addition to being a forester was also made keeper of the king's deer 

 at Langton Arbour. 10 



1 Pat. 23 Edw. I, m. 3. 3 Ibid. 33 Edw. I, m. 15. " Ibid. 2 Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 25. 



4 Ibid. 7 Edw. I, m. 2. s Ibid. 8 Edw. I, m. 6. 6 Ibid. 28 Edw. I, m. 15 ; 32 Edw. I, m. 5. 



7 Ibid. 32 Edw. I, m. 5. 8 Ibid. 33 Edw. I, m. 6. 



9 So far as the evidence of the Pleas of the Forest is concerned, the monks throughout England were but 

 very rarely poachers, contrary to the usual belief. Probably not a score of cases could be found against them in 

 all the stores of the Public Record Office. 



10 Langton Arbour, in Blidworth parish, is now known as Blidworth Dale. 



373 



