24 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
forester were present, to show that theft was not 
being committed. It removed many of the fla- 
grant abuses under which the people had suffered 
so heavily throughout the whole of the hundred 
and fifty years of Norman rule. Since the early 
days of Henry II. the forest administration had 
occupied a definite and important position side by 
side with the common law. This charter was to 
the forest administration very much what Magna 
Charta was to the constitution at large. In both 
cases rights were defined and liberties assured, 
thus making the future happier and more secure 
than the past had been. 
In the following year (1218) a perambulation 
or Pourallee of the royal forests was made to de- 
termine once and for ever their true extent and 
boundaries ; and the lands thus disafforested were 
classed as Purlieu. These were ‘clear places’ or 
tracts adjoining the forest, and once forming part 
of it, which were bounded by immovable marks 
noted on the record of the perambulation. In 
that same year an ordinance was made restricting 
the king from making any grants of woodland in 
perpetuity till he came of age in 1227. When 
he did come of age, it may be remarked, as illus- 
