12 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



enough, or politic enough, to bestow it. Thus, 

 while under the Saxon kings there had been two 

 chases, the higher being reserved for the king, 

 and the lower enjoyed by the landholder, the 

 Normans at once seized and kept to themselves 

 all the pursuit of game. 



In Anglo-Saxon times the chief use of the 

 woodlands, except for hunting, fuel, and wood 

 for building, was for the pannage of pigs. Large 

 herds of swine were driven into the woods to 

 fatten on the mast of the beech-tree and the 

 acorns of the oak-groves. Before the end of the 

 seventh century (King Ine's laws, A.D. 690) the 

 value of a tree was estimated by the number of 

 swine that could find shelter under it, and penal- 

 ties were imposed on the burning of trees lest 

 the woods should be destroyed by fire. Under 

 Canute's supposititious laws the fine for destroy- 

 ing a holly-tree, or other tree whose fruit the 

 beasts ate, was twenty shillings, besides other 

 forfeiture, and even the cutting of brushwood 

 within the royal forests was forbidden. In 

 Domesday Book land is often described as being 

 a 'wood of so many pigs.' 



At the time of the Conquest the forests or 



