FORESTRY 



The greater the value set upon timber the more reprehensible would its waste be considered. The 

 unpopularity in his province of Boniface, archbishop of Canterbury, is said to have been largely due 

 to the waste which he committed in the woods of his Sussex manors, 25 and the prior of Shulbred in 

 West Sussex was reprimanded by Archbishop Winchelsey for making excessive waste in the woods 

 of his house, and was strictly charged to fell no timber, or even cut firewood or sticks ' except after 

 due deliberation and for the clear need of the church.' 26 In the same way the value of timber 

 formed a great temptation to the holders of wardships, from the king downwards. 



Thus the bishop of Durham, who held a lease of Midhurst, complained that the king, through 

 his escheator, had, on the death of John de Bohun, lord of that manor, made great waste of its 

 timber in felling eighty-seven oaks, beeches, and young trees, in the park called ' Hyenok,' and other 

 timber in the wood called ' la Codray,' now Cowdray. 27 In 1315, when Edmund earl of Arundel held 

 the wardship of John de Bohun, this manor was found to have been further denuded of trees over 

 woodland of 2,OOO acres, wherein the earl had caused to be felled 1,600 oaks valued at half a mark 

 each, and ninety beeches worth 30*. each. 28 An immense and detailed catalogue of complaints of 

 exactions by officials and encroachments by territorial lords is contained in the Hundred Rolls. The 

 rolls for Sussex 29 contain a great deal of interesting matter in connexion with the parks, chases, and 

 forests of the county, too much indeed to be detailed here. For the jurors reported no less than 

 thirty-eight cases of usurpations of exclusive hunting rights, or claims to extensive tracts of land as 

 chases and warrens. From some of them it would appear that there had existed what we may call 

 a ' common of hunting ' 29a in respect to animals which were not beasts of the forest, just as there was 

 a ' common of pasture.' Thus it was complained against Peter of Savoy that when lord of the 

 rape of Pevensey he had usurped hunting rights over the district between Pevensey and 

 Seaford, where all the free-tenants, tarn militts quam a/ii, had been accustomed to hunt 

 with their hounds ; while John de Warenne, lord of Lewes, claimed similar exclusive hunting 

 over Portslade, Poynings, and Perching, where Hugh de Bussey and all the free tenants 

 were wont to hunt fox, hare, and pheasant. Several complaints of illegal imparkations are recorded, 

 two parks having been inclosed near Horsham, and one in the hundred of Bosham. Earl Warenne 

 had newly raised claims of right of chase over almost the whole of his barony of Lewes, in places 

 where ' he never had or ought to have any right of hunting," even into the lands of Sir Robert de 

 Aguillon, sending his armed men to prevent the knight and others from hunting with their hounds 

 where they had been accustomed to hunt by immemorial right. Still more tyrannically he had 

 prevented his tenants from inclosing their lands to save their crops from being entirely eaten up by 

 his beasts of forest, chase, and warren, so full to overflowing were his preserves. With such a 

 master it was small wonder if his servants proved equally lawless and arrogant. So zealous was the 

 watch his foresters kept over the chase of Ditchling that many wayfarers wending along the king's 

 highway that led through the chase suffered assault at their hands. Even when Matthew de 

 Hastings the sheriff came riding through Hayley (an ancient park lying north of Ditchling Beacon) 

 the master-forester of Cleres and various sub-foresters arrested him and his men and took away 

 their arms. 



The archiepiscopal manor of Pagham also suffered, the king's escheator having sold 114 oaks 

 from three woods there, and the royal bailiff another thirty oaks from the same manor. From the 

 parks of Slindon and Tangmere (also possessions of the see) the same officials, together with John 

 de St. John and Robert Walerand, took thirty-four deer. At the other end of the county the sheriff 

 Matthew de Hastings felled thirty-four oaks in the woods of the abbey of Fecamp, probably at Brede, 

 for the repairs of the castle of Hastings. In the time of the third Edward we find some particulars 

 relating to the woodlands of Sussex in the ' Inquisitiones Nonarum.' In them the jurors complain 

 of various imparkations by the territorial lords, which, if not illegal, were at least not conducive to 

 agricultural prosperity, since they turned profitable pastures or plough-land into unproductive parks. 

 At Heathfield, on the verge of Dallington Forest, Sir Andrew Peveral had imparked certain lands 

 that were formerly sown. At Burwash another holding had been inclosed in the park there, and 

 two others in Etchingham Park. Similar imparkations of arable and pasture had been made in 

 Ticehurst, in the park called Pashly. At Mayfield arable land had been included in the arch- 

 bishop's park of Frankham, a park already large enough to contain nine acres of fish-ponds. Even 

 this was not enough, for the archbishop thirteen years later procured the royal licence for a further 

 enlargement of his park. 30 At Catsfield they complained that the abbot of Battle had a quarter 

 of the parish in his park of Bromham. In the north-west of the county John de Ifield had 



K Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Sen), v, 221. K Cant. Archiepis. Reg. Winchelsey, fol. j6b. 



" Inq. p.m. 13 Edw. I, No. 139. is De Banco R. Easter, 9 Edw. II, m. 133. 



19 Rot. Hund. (Rec. Com.), ii, 201-20. 



Wa In 1305 Walter de Almodington being accused of breaking a close at Hunston said that the place in 

 question was not a close but 'communis chacea cuilibet transeunti,' Assize R. 934, m. yd. 

 *> Pat. 28 Edw. Ill, m. 10. 



295 



