lo , DEER AND DEER PARKS. Ch. I. 



point with a great degree of probability, though that there were black, that 

 is dark, deer long before his time in England, cannot admit of question, 

 they are expressly noticed in Eeland's Itinerary.' 



Besides the parks noticed in Domesday, mention is frequently made 

 of hayes in that invaluable survey ; hayes,^ derived from the Saxon, mean- 

 ing literally a hedge, appear to differ from parks as being not intended fpf 

 the permanent preservation of deer, but as , a means to entfap" them from 

 the forests or woods in which they had roamed at large, in the same manner 

 as elephants are caught at the present day in India, and deer in North 

 America. From the hayes they could be transferred to parks securely 

 fenced with . wooden pales, whence they were hunted when it . was the 

 pleasure of the king or owner. In pre-Norman tinies, indeed, as we know 

 from the laws of Canute and Edward the Confessor, the king arrogated to 

 himself pnly his own forests, and permitted his subjects to hunt in their own 

 lands ; but the Norman conqueror assumed to himself the exclusive right 

 of hunting, and very sparingly granted that privilege to some of his greatest 

 nobles, both lay and clerical. For ages, indeed, the right of hunting in the 

 lioyal Forests was guarded with the utmost care ; thus so late as the ninth 

 year of Edward III., William de Montecute, who is described ' In armis 

 strenuus, providus in conciliis, et in cunctis agendis, pronus, utilis, et 

 fidelis,' received, for term of his life, the special reward of being allowed 

 to hunt and sport in all the King's forests for one day during his journey 

 to the Court.^ The same privilege had been more generally accorded by the 

 well-known concession of Henry III. to the Spiritual and Temporal Peers, 

 as we find by the Charter of the Forest in the ninth year of his reign. 



> Leland's Itinerary, vii. p. 40. Fol. 50. Scirepescire, I. 256. 6. Haga, in the sense of 



2 Hay, Haia, Heia, Haga. See an interesting hedge, is found in a charter of King Edward 



note on this word in Whitaker's ' Histoiy of the Elder, anno 900, in Thorpe's ' English 



Whalley,' 4to. 1818, p. 205. That hays were Charters,' p. 146. 



used as means to entrap deer, or kids? is ex- a Patent Rolls, 9th Edward III., p. 123, 



pressly proved by Domesday, e.g. ' Rogerius de 2nd pt. 



Laci teii Cortune, Ibi est haia capreolis capiend.' 



