FORESTRY AND THE NEW FOREST 



beasts in view of the forester ; while, if no forester were present, a horn 

 had to be sounded to show that it was a legal right he was exercising and 

 no theft which was being committed. This Forest Charter was followed, 

 in 1218, by a pourallee or perambulation of all the royal forests in order 

 to determine, now and henceforth, their true boundaries and extent. 

 After these perambulations had been made, a new and more important 

 Charta Forests was brought on the statute book on February 10, 

 1225, about two years before the king attained his majority, in which 

 all lands throughout the kingdom afforested by Richard or Henry I. were 

 declared to be disafforested, except demesne woods of the Crown, while 

 afforestations made by Henry II. were also to be disafforested wherever 

 they could be shown to cause damage to the owners of the woods. The 

 substitution of fines for more grievous punishments was again enacted, 

 and, in fact, this statute can well be ranged alongside of the Magna 

 Charta as one of the two great enactments safeguarding the lives and 

 liberties of the king's subjects at that period and for long after. Its 

 sixteen sections 1 dealt with the following matters : 



(i) Certain Grounds shall be disafforested. (2) Who are bound to the Summons 

 of the Forest. (3) Certain Woods made Forest shall be disafforested. (4) No 

 Purpresture (or enclosure), Waste (or clearance), or Assart (or stubbing up roots), shall 

 be made in Forests. (5) When Rangers shall make their Range in the Forest. (6) 

 Lawing of Dogs in Forests. (7) In what only Cases Gatherings (i.e. collections of 

 oats, corn, lambs, pigs, etc.) shall be made in Forests, and the Appointment of 

 Foresters. (8) Where Swainmotes (and other Forest Courts) shall be kept, and who 

 shall repair to them. (9) Who may take Agistment (or fees for the grazing of 

 cattle in the royal forests) and Pawnage (i.e. the ' pawnes ' or money taken for the 

 pannage of swine in the royal woods) in Forests. ( i o) The Punishment for killing 

 the King's Deer, (n) A Nobleman (spiritual or lay) may kill a Deer in the Forest ; 

 but this was only if 'coming to us at our commandment.' (12) and (13) How a Free- 

 man may use his Land in the Forest. (14) Who may take Chiminage or Toll in 

 a Forest, for what cause, and how much. (15) A Pardon of Outlaws of Trespass 

 within the Forest. (16) How Plea of the Forest shall be holden. 



It is hardly possible in these days to realize how greatly such a charter 

 benefited the whole of the rural population throughout England. A 

 freeman was enabled ' henceforth, without danger ' to do acts ' in his own 

 wood ' that had apparently been previously forbidden, or had at any rate 

 led to exactions by foresters ; he could even, among other things, ' have 

 also the Honey that is found with his Woods.' Only a forester in fee, 

 paying farm to the king for his bailiwick, could collect chiminage from 

 trading licensees or toll ' of those only that come as Merchants ... to 

 buy Bushes, Timber, Bark, Coal (i.e. charcoal) and to sell it again.' But 

 section i o, no doubt, afforded by far the greatest relief from the past cruel 

 severity of the laws themselves and the brutal oppressiveness with which 

 they must have been exercised by the forest officials, when misused to 

 extort money from actual offenders or from those charged with offences, 

 real or trumped up for this purpose : 



1 The full text of the Cbarta Forest* will be found in Owen Ruffhead's Statute! at Large (1769), 

 i. 1 1-15, from which work many of the other quotations subsequently made are also taken. 



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