A HISTORY OF SURREY 



first genuine code of forest laws having general application throughout 

 the realm, and in doing so he placed the forest law upon a distinct and 

 definite footing independent of the common law. Although these new 

 forest laws substituted fines instead of the barbarous mutilations of hands, 

 feet and eyes incurred under the harsh Norman laws— under which even 

 the death penalty was exacted by William Rufus— yet the regulations 

 were still very stringent and oppressive within a royal forest. A land- 

 owner could cut nothing but fuel in his own woods, and that only in 

 the view of the king's forester ; while the clergy, though exempt from 

 common law, were made subject to forest law. 



Whether forest jurisdiction was ever actually extended to the whole 

 county or not, it is at any rate certain that great dissatisfaction was 

 aroused locally, and to such an extent indeed that very soon after coming 

 to the throne Richard I. found himself compelled to disafforest, on 

 4 December, 1189, all the tracts lying east of the river Wey and south 

 of the Guildford Downs, or about three-fourths of the county,' while 

 the remaining one-fourth to the west of the Wey and the north of the 

 Downs was still burdened with the royal rights declared by afforestation. 

 This latter tract then formed the Surrey bailiwick of Windsor Forest.' 



Under King John there was again a strong inclination to re-afforest, 

 but this was diverted by the knights of Surrey paying a fine of 200 

 marks ; ' and for another 1 00 marks they obtained a confirmation of 

 Richard I.'s charter of disafforestation. The north-western corner of 

 the county forming the ' Bailiwick of Surrey ' had a bailiff of its own for 

 the administration of forest law, in contradistinction to the rest of the 

 county under the jurisdiction of the sheriff and of the common law. 

 The bailiwick included all the townships and parishes west of the Wey 

 and north of the Guildford hills except Chertsey, Egham and Thorpe, 

 which were exempted from the bailiff's administration owing to their 

 being estates belonging to the Abbey of Chertsey. 



The afforestations of King John in many parts of the kingdom 

 became so extensive, and the administration of the forest laws so 

 stringent, that* — 



'certain gentlemen of great accompt . . . made their repaire to the king, and earnestly 

 besought this king John, to graunt them, that they might have all those new afforesta- 

 tions, that were so afforested by King Henry the Second his father. King Richard the 

 first his brother, or by King John himselfe, disafforested againe : and also, that he 

 would likewise graunt and confirm unto them, such liberties and privileges, concerning 

 Forrestes, as they in certain Articles had already amongst themselves agreed upon and 

 set down.' 



The result was Magna Charta in 121 5, sections 44, 47, 48 and 53 

 of which were provisional clauses relating specially to the forests and 

 relieving the people from some of the most oppressive of the forest laws. 



> Pipe Roll, 2 Rich. I. Rot. 1 2b, Surrey. 



» See map of Mediaeval Surrey, i. 340. 



' Pipe Roll, 5, John Rot. 1 8a, Surrey. 



< Manwood, A Treatise of the Forrest Lawes (1598), fol. 128. 



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