FORESTRY 



were dispatched to Brill Forest to take with 

 their dogs two or three red deer, against the 

 coming of the king to Woodstock, 1 * while in 

 September, 1233, Roger de Quincy was granted 

 ten live bucks and does from this forest towards 

 stocking his park at Chinnor.* 1 



Pleas of the Forest for the county of Bucking- 

 ham were held at Buckingham on Monday after the 

 feast of St. Mark, 1 255, before William le Bretun 

 and three other justices. These pleas were partly 

 concerned with trespasses committed in the 

 small section of the Northamptonshire forest of 

 Whittlewood that came over the border into 

 Buckinghamshire, but more especially with the 

 Buckinghamshire division of Bernwood Forest, 

 usually known as the forest of Brill. Con- 

 sequently the eyre had to be attended by both sets 

 of forest ministers. 84 



One of the cases of presentment from Whittle- 

 wood Forest involved the question of the cruel 

 custom ofexpeditating or lawing the dogs within 

 a forest area, so as to hinder them from chasing 

 the deer. By the forest law of Henry II this 

 mutilation was only done to mastiffs, but it 

 gradually came about that it was applied to all 

 dogs. The Forest Charter laid down that a 

 view of the lawing of dogs in the forest was to 

 be held every third year, and a fine of 31. paid 

 for each found unlawed. This lawing consisted 

 in cutting off the three claws of the forefoot, 

 leaving only the ball. The right to have un- 

 lawed dogs within a forest was occasionally 

 granted by the crown to persons of position. 

 Thus, the bishop of London, the dean and chap- 

 ter of St. Paul's, and the canons of Waltham 

 held grants exempting their house dogs in Essex 

 Forest ; whilst the earl of Arundel and other lay- 

 men had complete exemption. Two mastiffs 

 belonging to Simon de Pateshull were found in a 

 wood at Heyburne, belonging to Simon, worrying 

 a brocket (a hart of the second year) which had 

 been wounded in the right haunch. He was 

 charged at the eyre not only with this offence, 

 but with the unlawed condition of his mastiffs. 

 Simon, however, was able to put in a chartered 

 exemption from dog-lawing, but he was fined 

 two marks for the conduct of his mastiffs. 



Some of the cases considered at this eyre went 

 back as far as 1 248. Three delinquents were 

 charged with having hunted in that year in the 

 wood of Stockholt, in Whittlewood Forest, with 

 bows and arrows, and with resisting the riding 

 foresters who sought to attach them. In the 

 same year, Alexander, chaplain of Wotton, and 

 two men with him who escaped and whose 

 names were unknown, committed a forest offence 

 in Bernwood. When the justices in eyre came 

 round, seven years later, Alexander, who was on 

 bail, was dead ; a return had to be made of his chat- 



" Close, 1 6 Hen. Ill, mm. I 5, 7, 6. 

 a Ibid. 17 Hen. Ill, mm. 1 1, 9, 3. 

 14 Exch. Accti. Forest Proc. T.R. 251. 



tels, which were only worth lit. yl. t with 

 an unvalued burse containing relics. Amongst 

 other interesting cases may be mentioned that of 

 Hugh de Molond in 1249, who was found going 

 out of the forest with a bow, which he handed 

 to his brother Richard. The foresters found at 

 his house a bow and four barbed arrows. Hugh 

 and Richard were both imprisoned and bailed ; 

 the justices fined the former a mark and the 

 latter half a mark. 



At this Buckingham eyre it was stated that 

 John Durant, woodward of Roger de Wotton of 

 his wood of Stockholt, had been presented by 

 his lord before Robert Basset, the steward of the 

 forest ; and afterwards presented by his lord 

 before Edward de Bosco, forest justice, at Selves- 

 ton. William Curtis, woodward of Simon de 

 Sancto Licio for his part of the wood of West- 

 bury, had been presented by his lord before the 

 forest steward, and afterwards presented and 

 sworn before Hugh of Goldingham, the forest 

 justice. Walter de Clanfield, woodward of 

 James le Savage for his part of the wood of 

 Westbury, had also been presented and sworn in 

 like manner.* 4 



In 1266 an inquisition was held at Hartley, 

 in Bernwood Forest, as to the bailiwick of John, 

 the son of Neal, which he held in that forest 

 by hereditary right (forester in fee of Boarstall), as 

 the king wished to be certified as to his rights and 

 customs and services. The jury testified that he 

 held by hereditary right the bailiwick from Stony- 

 ford as far as a certain water called the Burne, 

 running between Steeple Claydon and Padbury ; 

 that he had rights of cheminage or way-leave, 

 of after-pannage, of all rents, of dead woods and 

 of the loppings and roots of all trees given or 

 sold or taken for his own use by the king. Two 

 other rights are sufficiently interesting to be set 

 forth as Englished by Mr. Turner : 



He has and he ought of hereditary right to have 

 throughout the aforesaid bailiwick trees felled by the 

 wind, which is called cablish, and that in the form 

 underwritten, to wit, that if the wind fells ten trees 

 in one night and one day, the lord king will have 

 them all ; but if the wind fells less than ten tree* in 

 one night and one day, the aforesaid John will have 

 them all. 



Also this same John has of right all attachments 

 and issues of attachments made of small thorns, to 

 wit, of such a thorn as cannot be perforated by an 

 auger (tarrera) which is called ' Restnauegar.' 



The meaning of this last clause is that the 

 undergrowth of small thorns was John's per- 

 quisite, and that the question of what was small 

 and what was large was tested by whether the 

 thorn stem was sufficiently large to be pierced by 

 a standard auger. 



The last clause of the verdict of this inquest 

 was to the effect that John had to guard this 



u See Turner, Select Pleat of tbt Foreit (Selden 

 Soc.), Ixviii. 



'35 



