1 66 THE RED DEER OE EXMOOR. 



without any adequate compensation — the lord of the 

 manor and some principal freeholders got something, 

 but the small " suitors " got nothing — is a subject on 

 which the older men will still wax eloquent. 



With this force at his command, the Norman 

 forester in fee ruled the district with a rod of iron. 

 The period was one of continual friction concerning 

 forest laws between Crown and people, not only in 

 Somersetshire, but all over England. There was 

 continual encroachment by the Crown met by 

 continual protest, and the struggle continued with 

 varying fortunes till the beginning of the thirteenth 

 century. 



The great victory was won when John was forced 

 at Runemede to sign the Carta de Foresta and the 

 forest clauses of the Magna Carta ; but then ensued 

 a long period in which the force of sheer inaction was 

 opposed to the demands of the people, and it was 

 not, in the case of Exmoor, till 1298 that a satis- 

 factory perambulation of the forest was made and 

 the encroachments declared free of forest law, and 

 how many years after that it was before the award 

 was actually put in force we do not know, but 

 certainly it was many years, probably only a short 

 time before the Black Death, sweeping over England, 

 changed the whole state of country life, an event 

 which happened shortly before the forestership 

 passed from the descendants of de Wrotham to the 

 Mortimers. 



