24 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



no reasonable doubt, derived from the open-air assemblies, 

 or folk-moots, or witenagemotes of the shire, being there 

 held in primitive times, and this is well borne out by the 

 fact of the village of ' Shireoaks ' taking its name from an 

 enormous oak tree, the Shire Oak, under which the folk- 

 moots were held, and which stood then at the point of 

 junction of the three counties of Derby, Nottingham, and 

 Fork. Under the branches of this tree, it is said, shelter 

 was found for 230 horsemen. It is curiously described in 

 Evelyn's ' Sylva.' 



" The Nottinghamshire ' moot ' was held under a large 

 oak in the forest ; and very many instances are on record 

 of similar trees being used for the moots of other counties. 

 Thus the ' Shire Oak ' of Staffordshire stood by the side of 

 the road from Lichfield to Walsall, about four and a half 

 miles from the latter place ; that of Lancashire on ' Sher- 

 rocks (or Shire Oaks) Hill/ and so on. Then, as recounted 

 by Gomme, we have ' Shrieves Wood ' mentioned as one 

 of the boundaries of Clarendon Forest ; and a most im- 

 portant example, the ' Shyreack/ at Headingly, ki York- 

 shire, of which it is said, ' medieval tradition declares this 

 to have been the tree under which, in Saxon times, the 

 shire meetings were held, and from which the name of 

 Shireoak, or Shyrack, has been imposed upon the Wapen- 

 take/ and 'the Wapentake of Shireake seems to have 

 received its name from some such a convention at some 

 noted oak, or to use a local word, ' Kenspack-ake.' 



" What these * moots ' or shire meetings were, it is not 

 necessary to my present purpose to inquire into in detail, 

 but it may be well to say, that at these primitive open-air 

 assemblies, causes were heard and arranged ; disputes as to 

 ownership of lands, and what not, settled ; crimes or acts 

 of violence against the person adjudicated upon; and 

 indeed all matters that required the voice of freemen to 

 be heard, arranged. There can be little doubt but that 

 even in the earliest prehistoric times, some of the stone 

 circles which still remain to us might have been used for 

 the purpose, as well as oak or other trees ; and many 



