294 English Coppices and Copsewoods. 



in the construction of churches, religious houses, and the 

 castles of the great nobles and landowners — for all of which 

 purposes the wood of the oak was much preferred to that of 

 any other tree — most ot the requirements of the common-folk, 

 both in towns and in rural tracts, could quite well be supplied 

 by the coppices or underwoods. At the time of the Norman 

 Conquest houses were usually constructed only of wattle or 

 interlaced branches plastered over with mud to keep out the 

 wind, and no inconsiderable portion of the buildings in 

 cities and towns was thus roughly formed of inferior 

 materials. This rude state of affairs apparently continued 

 for about five hundred years, for the Rev. Wm. Harrison 

 in his Description of England, incorporated in the Holinshed 

 Chronicles (1586), speaks of the people in the country districts 

 as no longer being content to live in houses made of sallow 

 poles and such-like, but encroaching on the timber supplies of 

 the country by using oak and other woods of the better class. 



In most counties of England few tracts that were still at 

 all heavily wooded escaped being afforested to a greater or 

 less extent. Despite the savage severity of the forest laws 

 during the Norman and the Plantagenet periods, and the pro- 

 hibitions and heavy penalties then existing with regard to 

 the clearance for agriculture and pasturage of woodlands 

 situated within the bounds of any royal forest, the total area 

 under woods and coppices most probably shrank very con- 

 siderably throughout the country ; and as this diminished, 

 while the population and the herds of cattle and other animals 

 increased, it became necessary to protect the coppices and 

 copses from being damaged during their early years by the 

 cattle, horses and sheep which were allowed to roam about the 

 holdings and the commons. And no doubt the large herds 

 of almost sacred royal deer did even more damage than these 

 to the young stool-shoots, suckers and saplings which sprang 

 up when coppices were periodically cleared within the forests 

 and the purlieus (or disafforested tracts) adjacent thereto. 



To afford the necessary protection to the young coppices and 

 copses against deer, cattle and other farm stock, only one 

 course was open, and that was enclosure by means or stout 

 fences. Without this, regeneration and reproduction could 



