CHAPTER XI 



THE FORESTS OF YORKSHIRE PICKERING 

 AND GALTRES 



PICKERING 



THIS forest district was known in early times as Pickering 

 Lythe or Liberty, for which the term Pickering Vale 

 seems to have been almost an equivalent at the beginning 

 of the fourteenth century. But Pickering Vale possibly only 

 included the cultivated or pasturage portions, and not the 

 wastes of the actual deer forest. The antiquity of the wood- 

 land and stretches of the forest is clear, for the silva of Domes- 

 day was sixteen miles long and four broad, and was, perhaps, 

 co-terminous with the whole soke. 



The constable of the castle of Pickering was always also the 

 keeper of the forest and the steward of the manor. The forest 

 had a great repute for its wild boars about the beginning of the 

 thirteenth century. In 1214 Peter Fitzherbert, who was con- 

 stable of the castle, received orders from King John to render 

 assistance to master Edward, the royal huntsman, who was 

 coming with his hounds to kill wild boars in Pickering Forest, 

 and to see that the meat was well salted and in safe custody. 

 Later in the same year the king warned the constable of the 

 coming of Wyott, another of his huntsmen, with his men and the 

 royal hounds for a like purpose. The boars were to be sought 

 .in a certain part of the forest where the king was wont to hunt 

 them, and Peter was again to see that the meat was well salted, 

 and the heads soaked in wine. The boar's head was one of the 

 oldest standard dishes for an English Christmas, and as this 

 order was given in November, the wine-soaked Pickering 

 boars' heads probably graced the Christmas board at Worcester, 

 where John kept that feast in the year 1214. 



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