44 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
in his beat; he had also to attend each Justice 
Seat, and, if called, had to present his hatchet 
to the Justice in Eyre. If a subject had any 
wood in a forest and his Woodward neglected 
to appear at the Justice Seat, the wood could 
be seized for the king till the owner paid a 
fine; and it was a finable offence if the owner 
of woods within a royal forest appointed a Wood- 
ward to look after them where there had been 
no such office before. 
During the time of Edward I. several im- 
portant statutes and ordinances were passed 
dealing with forest law. Apparently the roll 
of offences in forests, chases, and warrens had 
grown to be very heavy, for in 1275 legisla- 
tion took place against Trespassers in Parks 
and Ponds, and in 1278 the Assiza et Consuetu- 
dines Foreste were promulgated, prescribing more 
clearly than previously the action to be taken and 
the penalties to be incurred for certain offences 
committed within the forests. It affirmed that 
‘all trees,’ whether fruit-bearing or not, ‘and an 
ash if it be old,’ were vert, and therefore possessed 
by the king, while it was made penal to fell 
an oak even within the demesne wood if within 
