A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



Scotch forest has been known to erect, on 

 that part of his ' march ' where the ground 

 was suitable, a fence over which his neigh- 

 bour's deer might easily jump, but once inside 

 could not get back without going perhaps 

 many miles round. Exactly the same thing 

 used to be done six or seven hundred years 

 ago in Cumberland ; landowners near forests 

 were accustomed to empark their estate and 

 construct deer-leaps, or ' saltatoria,' contri- 

 vances to enable beasts of the forest to enter 

 the park and prevent them coming out again. 

 If a deer leap was too near a forest, the jus- 

 tices in eyre could cause it to be removed as 

 a nuisance. 1 



In 1225 the abbot of Holmcultram paid 

 a fine of 20 marks for assarting and cultiva- 

 ting 10 acres of the king's wood in Caldbeck, 

 and for enclosing the same between the lawn 

 of Warnell and the river Caldew. But the 

 enclosure must be so constructed that on the 

 side of the lawn of Warnell towards the forest 

 they should make a low hedge, so that the 

 deer may enter and go out, and on the other 

 side next the Caldew they shall make a high 

 hedge and a good one, so that the king's 

 deer may not get out of his forest by that 

 hedge.* 



' Strakur ' was a dog used in poaching ; 

 the name occurs frequently in the Cumber- 

 land Forest Eyre Rolls of 15 Edward I. 

 From this it may be gathered that poaching 

 was a common offence in the county as early 



1 In 1256 an agreement was concluded between 

 Thomas son of Thomas de Muleton and the prior 

 and convent of Lanercost whereby the canons 

 might enclose with a ditch or hedge their part of 

 Warthcolman, and have a ' salterium ' therein 

 (Reg. of Lanercost MS. ix. 4). At the Cumber- 

 land forest eyre of 1285 a presentment was made 

 that Isabel de Clifford held a park wherein there 

 were two deer-leaps, one being a league, and the 

 other a league and a half, from it. ' For a long 

 time they have been a nuisance to the King's 

 forest ' (Pleas of the Forest, pp. cxvii.-cxviii., Selden 

 Society). 



In the Close Rolls there are frequent mention 

 of ' mandates ' or orders concerning deer in 

 Cumberland. In 1205 King John ordered Sir 

 Richard de Lucy to supply the Constable of Ches- 

 ter with thirty stags ' on this side of the water of 

 Carlisle ' (Close Rolls, John, Rec. Com. i. 45b). 

 There is a mandate from the same king in 1 207 to 

 Richard de Egremont to permit the constable of 

 Chester to take ten stags in the forest of Carlisle 

 (Close Rolls, John, Rec. Com. i. 9ob). Henry III. 

 ordered Thomas de Muleton to permit the Earl of 

 Albemarle to take two stags in 1223, and ten in 

 1225, in the same forest (Close Rolls, Hen. III. 

 Rec. Com. i. 549, and ibid. ii. 5ob). 



2 Fine Roll, 9 Hen. III. pt. 2,m. 4 ; Bain, Calen- 

 dar of Documents, i. 908. 



as 1287. In the fourteenth century the 

 poachers did not spare even the bishop. In 

 1375 Bishop Appleby was obliged to excom- 

 municate ' the sons of iniquity ' who had 

 broken into his park of Rose and ' totally 

 destroyed ' all the beasts of chase therein, 

 as well with dogs as with nets and other 

 engines. 8 



Those who are interested in the general 

 subject of red deer in the county, and the 

 complicated system of forests instituted by 

 the Normans, the names of which are so 

 familiar to us at the present day, should 

 refer to a recent book published by the 

 Selden Society called Select Pleas of the Forest. 

 It is perhaps worth mentioning that the word 

 ' forest,' which has been used in Cumberland 

 for eight hundred years, never necessarily 

 meant a country covered with wood, but 

 always a district where there were, or had 

 been, deer. The word has the same signifi- 

 cance in Scotland at the present time. 



From that dim period when ' the whole of 

 Britain was a land of uncleared forest, and 

 only the downs and hill-tops rose above the 

 perpetual tracts of wood,' * down to nearly 

 the end of the eighteenth century, red deer 

 roamed wild over Cumberland. Mr. Mac- 

 pherson has given reasons for believing that 

 the dying out of the last herd in Ennerdale 

 took place about I78o. 6 If Hutchinson 

 is correct they were very scarce in that imme- 

 diate neighbourhood considerably earlier, for, 

 writing in 1 794, he mentions that a red deer 

 was chased into Wastwater and drowned, 

 ' within the memory of several persons 

 living.' 8 



If falconry was ever much practised in 

 Cumberland we know little about it, though 

 scattered references to the sport are met with 

 in the old registers and rolls. It was the 

 most aristocratic of all field sports, but un- 

 suited to any densely-wooded country. In 

 the register of Bishop Welton it is related 

 that ' while Sir William Lenglis, knight, was 

 hunting in the neighbourhood of Brunstock, 

 in the autumn of 1360, he set his falcon to 

 flight, but the bird disappeared from view and 

 did not return. Evoking the power of the 

 Church he caused the bishop to have notice 

 given to all the churches of the district of 

 his loss, with a declaration of the penalties 

 to be inflicted on those who detained the said 

 falcon.' 7 In 1486 Bishop William Senos 



3 Reg. of Bishop Appleby, MS. f. 262. 



4 Origins of English History, p. 222. 



5 Fauna of Lakeland, p. 61. 



6 History of Cumberland, i. 5 80. 



7 Reg. of Bishop Welton, MS. f. 73. 



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