206 THE ROYAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND 



Occasionally these gifts from Sherwood consisted of ready- 

 trimmed timber; thus in 1228 the king sent twenty beams 

 [copulas] from the forest to the church of the distant priory of 

 Wormegay, Norfolk, then in progress; and in 1229 forty 

 rafters (chevrones) to the abbot and canons of Croxton. A 

 single oak was also sent in the latter year into Norfolk to one 

 Richard de St. John, chaplain of Henry de Burgs ; the bailiff 

 was directed to fell one as near as possible to the river Trent, 

 as it had to reach Norfolk by water carriage. In the same 

 year a single oak was granted to the prior of Bligh to make 

 a door for his hall. In 1231, William Bardulf had a grant from 

 Sherwood Forest of twenty tree trunks suitable for timber 

 (fusta ad maeremium inde faciendum}. 



Henry III. dealt generously with the fallow deer of Sher- 

 wood. Thus in 1229 he gave two does to Beatrice, wife of 

 Walter de Evermuth, constable of Lincoln Castle ; ten does 

 and a brocket to John, the constable of Chester, to be placed in 

 his park of Dunyton ; ten does and two bucks to Hugh Dis- 

 pencer to help to stock his park at Loughborough ; and twenty 

 does and two bucks for the Bishop of Carlisle's park at Mel- 

 burne. In 1230, fifteen more does and five bucks were sent to 

 Hugh Dispencer's park at Loughborough, whilst a further 

 donation of ten does and two bucks was made to the same 

 park in the next year. The Bishop of Lincoln received twelve 

 Sherwood does and three bucks in 1231 towards the stocking 

 of his park at Stowe. 



At the eyre of 1251, held at Nottingham before Geoffrey 

 Langley, chief justice of the forests north of the Trent, an 

 inquisition was held respecting the ministers of Sherwood 

 Forest. It was then reported that there were within the forest 

 three keepings, namely, the first between Leen and Doverbeck, 

 the second the High Forest, and the third Rumewood ; and 

 that Robert de Everingham, as chief keeper, ought to have 

 a sworn chief servant (a riding or itinerant forester, as de- 

 scribed in other forests), who was to go through all the forest 

 at his own cost to attach transgressors, and to present them 

 before the verderers at the attachment courts. In the first 

 keeping, the chief keeper was to have one riding forester with 

 a servant, two foot foresters, two verderers, and two agisters. 

 In this keeping there were three parks or hays, namely, Best- 



