20 SYLVICULTURE. 



(1) In early times, throughout England, and to a less extent 

 also in Scotland and Ireland, the chief use of the woodlands was 

 for hunting and for the pannage or feeding of large , herds of 

 swine. In 1066 William the Conqueror found great tracts of 

 woodlands and agricultural lands and villages reserved as royal 

 hunting-grounds for the Saxon kings, and he extended the 

 boundaries of these and called them Forests, two of the largest 

 being the New Forest in Hants and the Forest of Dean in 

 Gloucestershire, which were both formed before 1086. All lands 

 thus set apart for the king's red deer were said to be " afforested " ; 

 and new Forest Laws were applied to the administration of these 

 royal forests, of a far more stringent and cruel kind than had 

 previously obtained under Saxon and Danish rule. The cruel 

 oppression of the people whose lands were afforested increased 

 under William II., Henry L, and Stephen. Henry II. made 

 extensive new afforestations, but was forced to relax the severity 

 of the Forest Laws by the passing of a statute known as the 

 Assize of Woodstock, 1184. This placed the Forest Law upon 

 a definite footing and made it independent of the Common Law. 

 Special Forest Courts were ordered to be held regularly for each 

 forest, the Woodmote every forty days, the Swainmote thrice a- 

 year, and the Justice Seat or Eyre of the Forest, the highest 

 court, once every third year, though in course of time irregulari- 

 ties and abuses crept in. In 1215 Magna Charta modified the 

 Forest Laws, and in the time of Henry III. (1216-72) new 

 charters were obtained, as also during the fourteenth and 

 fifteenth centuries, when those owning or holding land in or 

 near a royal forest were subject to vexatious oppression. This 

 state of affairs went on, with modifications, till 1640, when the 

 Act of Limitation of Forests was passed, which virtually 

 abolished the Forest Courts, although the office of Chief Justice 

 in Eyre was only terminated by Act of Parliament in 1817, 

 when his duties were vested in the first Commissioner of Woods 

 and Forests. What still remains of these ancient royal forests 



