260 THE ROYAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND 



there was a distinct recognition of the difference between robur 

 and guerctis, even when both were merely intended for fuel pur- 

 poses. Nicholas de Farnham had had a grant from the Crown 

 of four roers out of Shotover forest for firing, and on 6th April, 

 1230, Henry III. ordered that, if this grant had not been 

 executed, four oaks for fuel (ad focum suum) should be sub- 

 stituted for the roers. Fuel wood was granted from Shotover 

 in the same year to the hospital of St. John Baptist at Oxford. 

 The Bishop of Chichester obtained a grant in the next year of 

 four dry roers for his hearth at Oxford. Another interesting 

 grant of 1231 was that of eleven loads of fence timber to Elias, 

 chaplain of the Earl of Cornwall, to enclose his church of 

 Horsepath. 



On 26th June, 1231, the king, at the instance of Ralph 

 Archdeacon of Chester, Richard Archdeacon of Leicester, 

 William de Thany Archdeacon of the East Riding, and of 

 the Chancellor of Oxford, and the whole University, granted 

 that Thomas de Compton, Henry de Kinneton, and three 

 others, who had been found in the forest of Shotover with 

 bows and arrows, and had for that trespass been arrested and 

 detained in the king's prison at Oxford, should be set at 

 liberty, and issued his mandate to the sheriff of Oxford to 

 that effect. 



At a later date in the same year, thirteen Shotover trees 

 were supplied to the Dominicans of Oxford for fuel purposes. 



An eyre for forest pleas was held at Oxford, before William 

 le Breton and three other itinerant justices, which opened on 

 24th January, 1256. At this eyre the pleas of the forest of 

 Wychwood and Shotover were heard, as well as of that part 

 of the forest of Bernwood which lay in Oxfordshire. 



The Close Rolls of Edward I. record various royal gifts from 

 the Oxfordshire forests. In 1276, Philip Mimekan, keeper of 

 Shotover, was ordered to supply Sir Francis de Bononia, LL.D., 

 with eight oaks and their loppings for his fire ; and at the 

 same time the keeper of Bernwood received the remarkable 

 order to supply Sir Francis with two young bucks and four 

 young does, together with four live hares and six live rabbits, 

 to be placed in the king's garden at Oxford, in accordance 

 with a verbal promise made by the king to the doctor. The 

 keeper of Wychwood was directed, in 1277, to supply both the 



