1 1 4 THE ROYAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND 



he was taken to the castle and there imprisoned. On being 

 taken before the justices, he and his companion got off with 

 the light fine of 13^. ^d. each. On loth July, 1311, a servant 

 lad of William Nafferton, vicar of Scalby, and two other men, 

 carried a hind, which one of them had killed, to the vicarage, 

 but without the vicar's knowledge ; there they skinned it, and 

 Dionysia, the vicar's maid, was an accessory, for she had part 

 of the venison ; part she sent as a gift to Emma Pinchon, 

 laundress of Newby, and the rest she sent out to the fields to 

 the vicar's ploughmen for their dinner. One of those who 

 carried the venison to the house was fined 6s. 8^., and the 

 rest were outlawed. Outlawry was the usual penalty for these 

 venison trespassers where the offender was poor and could not 

 readily be found. It is highly probable that not a few of such 

 outlaws eventually returned to their parishes or homes in the 

 lighter cases. 



Many of the delinquents of the earlier years since the last 

 eyre were doubtless dead, and where that was known to be the 

 case the information was struck off. But one case brought 

 before the justices in 1334 went back as far as 1289. In that 

 instance two men of Farndale, who killed two hinds in Parnell- 

 dale on ist July, 1289, were fined, the one 26s. 8d. and the 

 other 40^., thirty-five years after the offence was committed. 



The enormous amount of business of every kind that ac- 

 cumulated for the justices to supervise at these long-deferred 

 eyres generally caused the proceedings to be very protracted. 

 This one at Pickering, with occasional sittings at Hackness 

 for the liberty of the abbot of Whitby, actually lasted for two 

 years, though, of course, they were not continuous sittings. 



Among matters investigated by a jury at these pleas was the 

 general amount of venison taken in the forest since the last iter. 

 The returns made showed that when John Dalton was constable 

 and keeper, he took 134 harts, and 158 hinds, bucks and does, as 

 well as five hinds that Henry Percy took by his leave, and three 

 hinds, three calves (red deer fawns), two fallow deer, and two 

 roe deer, which he took and gave away as he pleased. When 

 he appeared before the justices, Dalton stated that when keeper 

 under Earl Thomas he took harts, hinds, bucks, and does, and 

 delivered them in accordance with the earl's orders and pro- 

 duced his warrants. Among others were seventy-two harts, 



