EPPING FOREST. 109 
into the Forest to feed upon acorns and beechi-mast. 
They had in many cases also the right of lopping 
and pollarding the trees in the waste in the winter 
months, for the supply of wood for fuel for their houses. 
In some Manors these rights of cutting wood were 
strictly regulated, and were called “assignments.” In 
the Manor of Loughton, it will be seen later that the 
inhabitants generally claimed and exercised the custom 
and right of lopping the trees for firewood. It is 
probable that in early times similar customs had been 
enjoyed by the inhabitants of other Manors, and that the 
‘‘assignments ” were in some manner a substitute for 
them. In most of these Manors there were also, till a 
comparatively recent period, common fields, or common- 
able land, such as have already been described. But 
these were all inclosed early in the present century.* 
The origin of the Forest is lost in antiquity. It 
was probably afforested long before the Norman 
Conquest, for though no mention is made of it in 
Domesday Book, yet the paucity of inhabitants in 
these parts, as shown in that survey, tends to prove 
that the district was uncultivated and covered with 
timber. There are a few references to it in very early 
charters, but the earliest description of it is the record 
of a perambulation made immediately after the Charter 
de Foresta, in the ninth year of Henry III., by which 
* Seven hundred acres were inclosed in Chigwell Manor ; 340 in 
Chingford ; 534 in Epping ; 360 in Leyton; 833 in Waltham and its 
dependent Manors. These must all have been common fields, and 
not wastes of Manors or Commons. 
