Ch. I. SINCE THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 13 



Before we take leave of the ' Parci, or Parchi', of D'omesdaiy, the 

 venerable predecessors of the almost innumerable parks which at one time 

 were found dotted about in every corner of the island, it may be well to 

 notice a very common error as to the park at Woodstock being the oldest 

 in England, and which Sir Henry Ellis, in his valuable ' Introduction to 

 Domesday,' appears to have been the first to notice and detect. ' Stow, in 

 his Annals' (ed. 163 1, p. 143), remarks Sir Henry, 'and Sir Williarn 

 Dugdale in his History of Warwickshire (ed. i. p. 183), appear to have 

 been misled by John Ross (Rous) into the opinion that the Park of Wood- 

 stock in Oxfordshire, said to have been made by King Henry the First, 

 was the earliest in England.' Dugdale's authority is so great, that one 

 cannot wonder that this error should be so universal, and he is quite borne 

 out by the author on whom he relied, and whose statement I have given 

 in a note,' though we know it is without foundation. 



The devotion to the chase by which our Norman kings and their 

 nobles were distinguished, and the severe, nay cruel Forest Laws, which 

 was the consequence of that passion, need not be illustrated here. It will 

 be sufficient to observe that both forests, chases, and parks (we hear 

 nothing of hays at least in their original sense) multiplied after the 

 Norman Conquest,'^ though we have no means accurately to enumerate or 



' 'Eciam in Anglia parcum de Wodstok Rossi, Hist. Regum Anglics, ed. Hearne, 8vo, 



(Henricus Primus fecit) cum palacio infra pise- Oxon, 1745, p. 138. 



dictum parcum, qui parcus erat primus parcus ^ It has been supposed, by some antiquaries, 

 Anglise, et pro eo fiendo plures villas destructse that one reason for the great number of parks 

 sunt, et continet in circuitu septem milliaria which existed in England in early times may 

 Anglicana. An erant ibi aliquse ecclesise vel be attributed to domestic economy, and that 

 capellae destructse nescio. Et constructus erat their original purpose was for the fatting of the 

 circa annum xiiii. regni hujus regis vel parum deer driven in from the forest, the venison of 

 post. Hujus rei exemplo ceteri domini impar- which was salted down for the winter supply 

 caverunt certas terras suas. Unde Henricus of the lord's household. That such was some- 

 comes Warrewici parcum de Wegenok juxta times the practice is proved by the following 

 Warrewyk incepit, et in principio solum terram extract from the Close Rolls of the 26th 

 quae usque hodie "the old Perke," dicitur, Edward I. (1298): ' Rex custodibus Episcopates 

 continebat ; sad modo valde dilatatur. ' — Joannis de Ely (at that time vacant) mandamus, quod 



