ANCIENT AND MODERN FORESTRY 15 



were also placed under ban and reserved as royal 

 hunting grounds, within which, under colour of 

 Forest Law, horrible tyranny and oppression were 

 exercised upon the Saxon villeins forming the 

 rural population. 



One of the most famous of the ancient forests 

 was in Hampshire, near the borders of what had 

 originally been known as the Ytene forest ( Ychene, 

 Eithin, c furze '). Between the time of Edward 

 the Confessor (1042-1066) and the survey for 

 Domesday Book at least 17,000 acres were 

 afforested, and in making the New Forest 

 William I. afforested manors, large portions of 

 which were already forest. Local names end- 

 ing in ham, ton, and tune are the sole remaining 

 traces distinguishing the sites of what were once 

 Saxon manors or villages. 



William the Conqueror's action in * afforest- 

 ing ' the New Forest in 1079 was certainly 

 just about as ruthless as could well have been, 

 but the highly-coloured versions of it recorded 

 by monkish historians cannot be accepted as 

 trustworthy. 1 The wholesale destruction of 

 thirty-six parish churches, or more, together 



i See Robert Mudie's " Hampshire" on this matter. EDS. 



