72 THE ROYAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND 



interesting mention in forest proceedings and accounts. It 

 was chiefly valued, as it is in some parts at the present day, 

 for its inner bark, which was largely used for the making of 

 mats and cordage. 



This bark was termed bast or bass ; hassocks covered with 

 these bark strips, and fish mats are still often called basses. 

 In Duffield Frith, where the limes were numerous and specially 

 guarded, the regulations provided that " every keeper of wardes 

 shall have a baste rope of them that bee layd to basting when 

 the basting falls in their office, and all the wood that the 

 basters cut the first day is the keepers, and the residue that is 

 cut after in common to the king's tenantes." By another 

 ordinance, the tenants were entitled to the small boughs of 

 linte or lime trees blown down by the wind to the value of half 

 a load, and also to "the linte in baisting time," which was 

 common to them after the first day. 



Among the claims made by the tenants of Needwood forest 

 was that of "hoar lynte." This was the term used in other 

 parts, as well as in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, for the white 

 wood of the lime tree after the basters had stripped it of the 

 inner bark. 



In the time of Philip and Mary, the parker and sub-parker of 

 Redlington park, in the Rutland-Leicester forest, were pre- 

 sented for felling three lime trees ("Le lyneray trees") worth 

 6s. 8d. each. 



The maple (Acer campestre) was known under the name of 

 arabilis in the earlier forest proceedings, where it is of fairly 

 frequent occurrence; but towards the opening of the fourteenth 

 century the English word maple, in such forms as " mappill," 

 " mapull," and " mapeles," begun to take its place, and occurs 

 many times among the smaller trees or undergrowth in the 

 sixteenth century. 



The most interesting entry in the receipts for Colebrook 

 ward, Duffield Frith, for the year 1313-14, is the large sum. of 

 12 i8s. 6d. from the sale of wood for making bowls (bolas). 

 Common bowls were made of various woods, but the beauti- 

 fully polished non-porous bowls of well-marked maple wood 

 fetched a high price, and were often strengthened and adorned 

 with bands and plates of silver. Suitable wood for the making 

 of these "masers" was doubtless found in Colebrook ward. 



