EARLY FORESTS 5 



scholars are almost unanimous in rejecting it. The best 

 defence of it is to be found in Mr. Fisher's Forest of Essex. 

 On the whole, it seems probable that this Latin code has a 

 certain value in showing the general drift and tendency of 

 Anglo-Danish forest law; but that its worth has been vitiated 

 by being dressed up at the hands of some Norman scribe, with 

 the object of lessening the hostility to the severity of the forest 

 laws introduced by the Conqueror. 



The Conqueror acquired, by right of conquest, not only the 

 demesne lands of the Confessor and of the nobles who had 

 opposed him, but also all the rights of the chase over great 

 woodland or open stretches of both cultivated and unculti- 

 vated ground, where royal hunting rights had previously 

 been exercised by Saxon or Danish kings. With William 

 and his immediate successors the chase was a passion, and 

 hence a code of singularly harsh and burdensome "forest" 

 laws soon came into operation. The Conqueror took advan- 

 tage of the autocratic position secured to him and his followers 

 by their military success, to carry out "afforestation" not 

 only over the restricted areas that had been the hunting 

 grounds of his predecessors on the throne, but over almost 

 all the old folkland that remained unenclosed. The term 

 "forest," that had been long in like use on parts of the 

 Continent, was then introduced into England, and made to 

 embrace vast districts, which included woodlands and wild 

 wastes of moor, as well as patches of cultivated land. With- 

 in these afforested tracts, he decreed that the right of hunt- 

 ing was vested solely in the Crown, and could only be 

 exercised by the king, or by those who were specially 

 privileged under royal licence to share in it. The feudal 

 idea about all wild animals, however monstrous and harsh 

 in operation, possessed a rough logical basis. It was argued 

 that all such animals were dona vacantia, or ownerless pro- 

 perty, and hence pertained to the king ; that hunting was 

 essentially the pastime or "game" of kings; and that there- 

 fore the right of exercising the chase, or taking all kinds of 

 beasts of venery, belonged solely to the king. 



The subsequent Norman kings added more or less largely 

 to the "forest" districts of England, making even whole 

 counties subject to this exceptional jurisdiction as, for instance, 



