ITS HISTORY. 



Although in some cases, such as the New 

 Forest, cultivated lands were laid waste to gratify 

 the royal pleasure, villages and enclosures were 

 often allowed to exist within the limits ; but 

 it is important to observe that they and their in- 

 habitants were subject to the full stringency of the 

 Forest laws. One end which the kings had 

 in view, in enacting these laws, and which em- 

 bodied a policy natural to a conquering people, 

 and found in all the countries subjugated by the 

 Germans, was to keep weapons out of the hands 

 of the people. Another reason was the extortion 

 which severe laws enabled the Crown to practise. 

 But the primary object, to which everything else 

 had to bow, was the preservation of the Forest 

 animals, especially the deer — the King's right of 

 " vert and venison," as it was called. Not only 

 were these animals forbidden to be killed, under 

 penalties of mutilation and even death, but the 

 fences were kept down to such a height that a doe 

 with her fawn could readily jump them,^ and the 

 owners could not even drive the deer from their 

 crops, on which they fattened ; nor could new 

 houses be erected, because of the "increase of 

 men and dogs and other things, which fright the 

 deer from their food ;" or the cultivation changed, 

 or trees cut down in enclosed lands without special" 

 leave granted by the Forest Courts. Dogs were 

 ^'' expeditated" that is, three claws of the fore-feet 

 were cut off close to the ball of the foot to prevent 

 their chasing the deer, and one writer says that 

 only such dogs were allowed " as would go through 

 the Lord Vesci's stirrup, who was Justice in Eyre 



^ This condition has had an important legal bearing on 

 the fate of the Forest, even in modern times. 



