CHAPTER XXIX 

 THE FORESTS OF SOMERSETSHIRE 



THE county of Somerset was possessed of five consider- 

 able forests, namely, Mendip, Selwood, North Petherton, 

 Neroche, and Exmoor, the last of which stretched a little 

 distance into the county of Devon. Though these forests lay 

 wide apart from one another, more than fifty miles as the crow 

 flies separating Exmoor in the north-west of the county from 

 Mendip in the north-east, the whole of the Somersetshire 

 forests were under the general control of one chief warden or 

 keeper. William du Plessis was hereditary keeper or master 

 forester of the five Somerset forests in the middle of the 

 thirteenth century, and Sabine Pecche, his descendant, in 

 1300. 



The forest pleas that were held for this county in 1257 show 

 a remarkable exception as to the beasts of the forest in the case 

 of the warren of Somerton. Within the bounds of this 

 warren the king preserved the hare as a beast of the forest. 

 At that eyre Philip the Knight and Robert Sinclair, the two 

 verderers, presented, before William le Breton and his fellow- 

 justices, that, on yth December, 1255, Richard le Rus and his 

 fellows, whose names were unknown, took four hares in 

 Somerton warren. The verderers further presented that in 

 Christmas week, 1256, a certain hare was found dead. An 

 inquisition was therefore made by the four townships of Somer- 

 ton, Kingston, Pitney, and Wearne, who returned that the 

 hare died of murrain. There is no like record affecting the 

 hare in any other known forest proceedings throughout the king- 

 dom, and it was probably peculiar to this comparatively small 

 warren. To compel the four adjacent townships to hold an 

 inquest on every hare found dead or wounded in accordance 

 with the laws pertaining to beasts of the forest throughout 



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