A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



Wolves still proved troublesome in the winter months, and deer were found torn by these 

 unauthorized hunters, while poor men who took the venison to their use were summoned 

 before the justices. 1 



The forest law showed itself no respecter of persons, and a few cases in which men of rank 

 were concerned may suitably conclude our quotations from the forest pleas of 1282. The Bishop 

 of Hereford's woodward,* who had been convicted of poaching, was presented by his master as a 

 fit person to have care of the king's venison. In requital the Crown seized the bishop's wood. A 

 riding forester (foristarius chiminarius) of the Earl of Warwick killed a roe (capriolum) in Cinderford 

 Moor in the third year of Edward I, and hid the venison under the bed of Stephen the miller of Cinder- 

 ford ' et loquendum de dicto comite qui talem forestarium posuit in foresta in officio forestarii.' The 

 Bigods* were already showing their characteristic qualities and defying the king's officers. Present- 

 ment was made that Roger earl of Norfolk when with his household he came to Striguil (Chepstow) 

 was wont to spread his nets outside his own chase and set his dogs within the forest to drive the game. 

 His predecessor Roger Bigod also sent in his dogs in the same way, and the foresters thrice removed 

 them, but were unable to make an attachment owing to the power of the earl. Moreover all the 

 poachers of the king's venison were made welcome within the earl's liberty when the county had 

 become too hot for them, and made their head quarters there. One final case * may be mentioned 

 as of some legal interest. John Tregoz when hunting in 1260' in the wood of Penyard, which 

 was disafforested by the king ' as it is said,' started a stag which he pursued into the forest and there 

 took. He did not appear at the following eyre, but it was supposed that as he held by barony he 

 would be amerced Coram Rege. It now appeared that he was not, and he declared with truth that on 

 the former occasion he was not a baron, his father being alive, but only ' bachelarius.' The matter 

 was adjourned for the king's consideration at the next Parliament. 



The perambulation 6 made on Ash Wednesday, 1282, in connexion with this eyre shows that 

 the forest was divided into ten bailiwicks, Abbenhale (Abenhall) and Little Dean under RalfdeAbben- 

 hale, Blakeney under Walter de Austune, Bleyth (Bley) under Ralf Hatheway, Berse under William 

 Wodeward, Staunton under Richard de la More, Bicknor under Cecily de Michegros, Lea under 

 Nicholas de Lea, with Ruardean and Great Dean in the special custody of the constable of 

 St. Briavel's. The crown still claimed as forest the area between the extended boundaries recited 

 in the Close Roll of 12 Henry III already referred to, but in the dawn of the fourteenth century, 

 during the last years of the first Edward and the reign of his successor, 7 the outlying portions of the 

 Forest of Dean were disafforested, and the area again approximated to the earlier conditions before 

 even Hewelsfield had been added to it. 



Our limits of space do not allow more than an allusion to the constant grants to privileged 

 persons either of timber or venison, from the Forest of Dean. Occasionally at an early period 

 even as many as 100 oaks 8 were given at a time, as to the abbot of Pershore in 1233 ; while in the 

 years following the Earl Marshal ' was enjoined to take fifty good oaks as near as may be to the river 

 Wye for the repair of his keep of Chepstow (ad turrim suam de Striguil gutandani}. As to venison 

 deer were occasionally taken for the king's use in quite a wholesale fashion. On 20 August, 10 1278, 

 for instance, the constable of St. Briavel's was ordered to allow the king's huntsman to take a hundred 

 bucks in Dean Forest, which were to be salted and delivered in barrels at Westminster by the 

 quindene of the Michaelmas following/ Constant reference may also be found on the rolls to the 

 levy of miners and archers for the king's wars and the provision of material for ammunition. 11 On 

 15 February, I336, 12 the king sent Richard Game the king's fletcher whose wage was bd. a day 



1 Forest Proc. Tr. of Rec. No. 30, mm. 6 and 8 d. The underwood in the wood of Hope Maloysel 

 (Manscl) was a special covert for wolves ; Pat. 9 Edw. I, m. 19, and cf. licences issued to wolf-hunters in the 

 Forest of Dean about this time ; ibid. mm. 20, 23. 



2 Ibid. m. 7. d. 



* Ibid. m. II d. It was found in 1228 that the Earl Marshal had the warren of Tudeham 'et ibi 

 potest capere coopertum quicquid de venations invenit'; Close, 12 Hen. Ill, m. 10^. Early in the reign of 

 Edw. I a jury declared that the Earl Marshal's free chase extended of old time ' a ponte de Strugull usque ad 

 campum de Alumpton,' but in the time of Hen. Ill he (the earl) had gone beyond these ' metes ' as far as the 

 'campum de Hualdcsfeld'; Hund. R. i, 176. 



4 Forest Proc. Tr. of Rec. No. 30, m. 12 d. '44 Hen. III. 



' Printed in part in Trans. Brist. and Glouc. Arch. Soc. xiv, 356 et seq. from Forest Proc. Exch. Tr. 

 of Rec. No. 31. 



7 Cf. Perambulation cited by Fosbrooke, Glouc. 98 et seq., also a further one recited (Forest Proc. Anc. 

 Chanc. 45, P.R.O.), and for the reign of Edw. II note the evidence of Pat. 1 5 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 9, that 

 by writ of his predecessor a perambulation was made by which the forest was diminished by one-fourth. This, 

 however, may only have been in confirmation of the disafforestation of the latter years of Edw. I. But note a* 

 to one parcel a specific assertion of disaffbrestation under Edw. II ; Pat. 3 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 19. 



8 Close, 17 Hen. Ill, m. 9. Close, 1 8 Hen. Ill, m. 9. " '" Close, 6 Edw. I, m. J. 

 11 For early references to the provision of war material from the forest, see ' Mining ' in this volume. 

 " See writ to the Exch. enrolled ; Close, 1 1 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 33. 



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