FORESTRY 



ot an assart to pay 4^. an acre to the crown, and at the time of the assart being made to pay 

 a fine to the bailiff for the warrant. In a list of assarts allowed by Warner Engaine at 4^. 

 an acre, the following are the proportions and the fines in six consecutive cases : I acre, 

 2s. fine ; 4 acres, 6s. fine ; I acre, 2s. Set. fine ; 3 acres, 6s. fine ; 2 acres, 45. fine ; and 

 3 acres, 3*. fine. When the tenants of Peak forest assarts died, their heirs paid double rent 

 for the first year, and the king had also the second best beast, the first going to the Church. 

 These Peak assarts, which were very numerous at this date, were for the most part small, 

 averaging about 5 or 6 acres ; they varied from 60 acres to J acre. 



Another form of forest encroachment was termed purpresture, a term difficult to define 

 because it was somewhat differently applied in different forests. More usually, as was the 

 case at this eyre, it signified the building of a house or homestead within the forest bounds. 

 The purprestures presented at this eyre were the rolls of new houses built since the last 

 pleas of 1216. One hundred and thirty-one persons had built new houses without warrant, 

 and were therefore in mercy, and were liable to fines. In almost a like number of cases, namely, 

 one hundred and twenty-seven, new houses had been raised within the king's demesnes with 

 the licence of the bailiff. An average increase of eight new houses a year during the first thirty- 

 five years of Henry III.'s reign speaks well as to the degree of prosperity then enjoyed by the 

 forest of the Peak. The mineral and turbary rights of this forest also came under review 

 at this eyre. Under turbary it is mentioned that the townships of Hucklow, Tideswell, 

 Wormhill, Toftes, Buxton, Bowden, Aston, and Thornhill took turves without requiring 

 licence. 



Another source of profit to the bailiffs was on escaped cattle ; under this head Earl 

 Ferrers took 12. 



The thirty-six jurors also made a return as to the rights of the foresters of fee. For 

 Campana, Robert le Archer, Richard Daniel, William de Wormhill, Roger Fitz Adam, 

 and Thomas Foljambe, whose ancestors had been enfeoffed by William Peverel, were the 

 foresters. The following rights were admitted that when the bailiff allotted pasture in 

 any of their bailiwicks to anyone, that then in the same place the foresters' oxen or cattle 

 had free pasture ; that their swine were quit of pannage fees ; that they were entitled to 

 wood for the repair of their houses and hedges ; that they took one pig, at their choice, at 

 the time of masting of those the king had in agistment ; and that if important business took 

 them from their bailiwick they might during absence appoint a deputy. Entry is also made 

 of the foresters of the two other wards. 



The foresters of Campana and Longdendale had the right to have a servant under 

 them who was suffered to make oath concerning vert and venison ; but this right was not 

 possessed by the foresters of Hopedale. From the fragments of a roll concerning the marriages of 

 the foresters of fee, it appears that on the death of a forester who left daughters and no 

 sons, only the eldest daughter could succeed to the fee. 



The accounts of Gervase de Bernake, bailiff of the Peak for 1255-6, are of special 

 value, as they contain almost the only specific entries that have yet been found among the 

 stores of the Public Record Office of damage done to stock by wolves. Mention is made 

 therein of a colt (' pullum masculum') strangled by a wolf in Edale. In a list of waifs 

 that accrued to the lord, there is reference to two sheep which were also strangled by wolves. 1 



Bailiff Bernake's accounts are also interesting because of the gifts that he made to the 

 Campana lodge or Chamber of the Forest. To the chapel he gave a sufficient vestment, 

 an albe, an amice, a sufficient rochet, a super-altar, an altar cloth made out of an old chasuble, a 

 silver chalice gilded inside, and an old missal and a gradual. To the hall he gave five tables, six 

 old small shields, and a chessboard ; also two tuns of wine, one full and the other having 

 a depth of 12 inches. He also presented various utensils to the kitchen. 



The Close Rolls of the beginning of the reign of Edward I. supply several particulars 

 with regard to the forest. Roger Lestrange is mentioned as keeper of the castle and forest 

 in June, 1274, and again in May, 1275.2 At the latter date Lestrange was directed by 

 the crown to permit Nicholas de Lenn to have, during good behaviour and until otherwise 



1 Ministers' Accounts, 1 f 9 . The reference, thirty years later, to the trapping of wolves, proves 

 that they were fairly frequent in the forest at the time of the eyre in 1286. There is another thirteenth- 

 century reference to Derbyshire forest wolves, which seems to have escaped the notice of county and 

 other writers. The Hundred Rolls of the beginning of Edward I.'s reign record that Roger Savage 

 was asked by what right he maintained dogs to take foxes, hares, wild cats, and wolves, and replied that 

 he was the successor of William Walkelin, who had a royal grant to that effect. 



8 Close, 2 Edw. I. m. 7 ; 3 Edw. I. m. 15. 



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