The Story of our English Woodlands. 39 



as were the German villages described by Tacitus), fell at once 

 under State control. Thus, in Anglo-Saxon times, the severest 

 punishment was meted out to wood-stealers, destroyers of 

 young trees, etc., and a law of King Ina enacts that — "If any 

 one set fire of a felled wood, he shall be punished, and besides 

 pay three pounds ; and for those who clandestinely cut wood, 

 (of which the very sound of the axe shall be sufficient convic- 

 tion), for every tree he shall be mulcted thirty shillings. A tree 

 so felled under whose shadow thirty hogs can stand shall be 

 mulcted at three pounds," etc.^ The wording of this statute 

 also gives evidence of the practice, prevailing up to the time of 

 the Conquest, of valuing the woodlands, not by the quantity of 

 their timber, but by the number of swine which their acorns 

 or mast could maintain.^ It was, in fact, not before the 

 sixteenth century, that tree planting was undertaken for the 

 profits derived from the timber, and even the protection of the 

 natural growths was not thoroughly taken in hand till Tudor 

 times. The fact is that the ancient forest laws deal with game 

 rather than with timber ; and as we believe that hidden amidst 

 the shades of the mediaeval woodlands lurk secrets soon to be 

 brought into light by the agency of modern research, we shall 

 deal with this branch of our subject somewhat in detail. 



Strabo describes the British woods as the cities and villages 

 of the people. Later on a forest is understood to signify a 

 harbour for wild beasts, and as such was subject to seignorial 

 control. Manwood terms it " the highest franchise of princely 

 pleasure," ^ thus distinguishing it from the inferior franchises of 

 chase, park, and waiTen. It is clear, therefore, that what were 

 "the cities and villages of the people " in Strabo's days had, 

 some time or another, been converted into the pleasure resorts 

 of royalty. In fact, when the village community became a 

 manor, and again, when the manorial rights of an oligarchy 

 became subject to monarchical control, the proprietorship of 

 the wooded waste underwent important changes. The un- 

 inhabited parts of the country were theoretically under the 



* A Discourse of Forest Trees, Evelj-n's Syira, Book II. c. vi. p. 287. 



* Domesday Book, vol. i. fol. 2, p. 5. 



" Treatise of the Lawes of the Forest, John Manwood, 1615. 



