EARLY HISTORY. 163 



a mallet, setting a chisel of 2in. broad upon the 

 three claws of his forefoot, at one blow doth smite 

 them clean off, and this is the manner of expeditat- 

 ing mastiffs." 



When one looks at the mastiffs upon the show 

 bench at the present day, it is difficult to think that 

 they can ever have been any serious danger to an 

 unwounded deer ; but the mastiff of old days was 

 probably a very different animal, and the term pro- 

 bably included the big prick-eared brutes described 

 as " alaunts," by Gaston de Foix. 



There were also officials called agisters, who 

 attended to the agistment of cattle on the forest, 

 and collected the money. They were in later times 

 the most important officers of the forest. 



These officers were common to all Royal forests, 

 but Exmoor had a custom of its own. The head 

 forester had the assistance of the fifty-two free 

 suitors of Withypool, who must have comprised the 

 major part of the population. Old records contain 

 many mentions of the free suitors, but the best 

 account of them is in a memorandum attached to a 

 survey of the forest, made by commissioners in 1651, 

 as being part of " the demesne of Charles Stuart, 

 late King of England." 



" Memorandum. That there are fifty-two free 

 Suitors which are freeholders or coppieholders, and 

 some leaseholders, within Withypoole and Hawk- 

 ridge, which do hold their lands of lords of several 

 mannors which do claime and are presented by a 



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