Friday 7 May 2010

Charter of the Forest


The Charter of the Forest is a little-known charter sealed in England by King Henry III. Carta de Foresta was, in substance, part of the great constitutional reforms imposed by his barons upon King John. It was issued in 1217 as a supplement to Magna Carta, which the previous King (King John) wished to repudiate and annul with Papal authority as a "shameful and demeaning agreement, forced upon the king by violence and fear". In contrast to Magna Carta, it provided some real rights, privileges and protections for the common man against the abuses of the encroaching aristocracy.[1]

At a time when the Royal forests were the most important potential source of fuel for cooking, heating and industries such as charcoal burning, this charter was almost unique in providing a degree of economic protection for serfs and vassals.

The Charter provided a right of common access to (royal) private lands that would wait until the Union of England and Scotland in 1707 to be equaled within the realm.

It repealed the death penalty for taking royal game and abolished mutilation as a lesser punishment.

The Charter was the statute that remained longest in force in England (from 1217 to 1971), being finally superseded by the Wild Creatures and Forest Laws Act 1971.


External links

Royal forest


The term forest does not mean forest as it is understood today, as an area of densely wooded land. Royal forests usually included large areas of heath, grassland and wetland — anywhere that supported deer and other game. In addition, when an area was initially designated forest, any villages, towns and fields that lay within it were also subject to forest law. This could foster resentment as the local inhabitants were then restricted in the use of land they had previously relied upon for their livelihoods; however common rights were not extinguished, but merely curtailed.A royal forest is an area of land with different meanings in England (and Wales) and Scotland quite apart from the differing contextual interpretations in Continental Europe derived from the Caroligian and Merovingian legal systems. In England a forest was an area so designated by royal prerogative where forest law applied. The law was designed to protect the venison and thevert i.e. the animals of the chase and the greenery that sustained them. Forests were designed as hunting areas for a monarch or (by invitation) the aristocracy (see medieval hunting). The concept was introduced by the Normans to England in the 11th century, and at the height of this practice in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, fully one-third of the land area of southern England was designated as royal forest. Forest law prescribed harsh punishment for anyone who committed any of a range of offences within the forests; by the mid-17th century, enforcement of this law had died out, but many of England's woodlands still bear the title Royal Forest. The concept of royal forests as a mode of land management in England appears to have been introduced from continental Europe in the late eleventh century. At that time, the practice of reserving areas of land for the sole use of the aristocracy was common throughout Europe during the medieval period. There is no evidence of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs creating forests.[citation needed]

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Forest law

William the Conqueror, a great lover of hunting, established the system of forest law. This operated outside of the common law, and served to protect game animals and their forest habitat from destruction. In the year of his death, 1087, a poem, "The Rime of King William", inserted in the Peterborough Chronicle expresses English indignation at the forest laws.


Offences

Offences in forest law were divided into two categories: trespass against the vert (the vegetation of the forest) and the venison (the game). The five animals of the forest protected by law were given by Manwood as the hart and hind (red deer), boar, and hare and wolf. (In England, the boar had become extinct in the wild by the 13th century, and the wolf by the late 15th century). Protection was also said to be extended to the beasts of chase, the buck and doe (fallow deer), fox, marten, and roe deer, and the beasts and fowls of warren, the hare, coney,pheasant, and partridge.[1] The rights of chase and of warren (i.e., to hunt such beasts) were often granted to local nobility for a fee but are a quite separate concept.

Trespasses against the vert were rather extensive: they included purpresture, the inclosure of a pasture or erection of a building on forest lands, assarting, clearing forest land for agriculture, and felling trees or clearing shrubs, among others. Note that these laws applied to any land within the boundary of the forest, even if it were freely owned; although the Charter of the Forest in 1217 established that all freemen owning land within the forest enjoyed the rights of agistment and pannage (see below).

In addition, inhabitants of the forest were forbidden to bear hunting weapons, and dogs were banned from the forest; mastiffs were permitted as watchdogs, but they had to have their front claws removed to prevent them from hunting game.

Disafforested lands on the edge of the forest were known as purlieus; agriculture was permitted here and deer escaping from the forest into them was permitted to be killed if causing damage.


Rights and privileges

The kings rapidly discovered that abridging their rights in the Royal forests could provide a useful source of income. Local nobles could be granted a royal licence to take a certain amount of game. The common inhabitants of the forest might, depending on their location, possess a variety of rights: estover, the right of taking firewood, pannage, the right to pasture swine in the forest, turbary, the right to cut turf (as fuel), and various other rights of pasturage (agistment) and harvesting the products of the forest. Land might be disafforested entirely, or permission given for assart and purpresture.]

Officers

The justices of the forest were the Justice in Eyre and the verderers.

The chief royal official was the Warden. As he was often an eminent and preoccupied magnate, his powers were frequently exercised by a deputy. He supervised the foresters and under-foresters, who personally went about preserving the forest and game and apprehending offenders against the law. The agisters supervised pannage and agistment and collected any fees thereto appertaining. The nomenclature of the officers can be somewhat confusing: the rank immediately below the constable were referred to as foresters-in-fee, or, later, woodwards, who held land in the forest in exchange for a rent, and advised the warden. They exercised various privileges within their bailiwicks. Their subordinates were the under-foresters, later referred to as rangers. The rangers are sometimes said to be patrollers of the purlieu.

Another group, called serjeants-in-fee, and later, foresters-in-fee (not to be confused with the above), held small estates in return for their service in patrolling the forest and apprehending offenders.

The forests also had surveyors, who determined the boundaries of the forest, and regarders. These last reported to the court of justice-seat and investigated encroachments on the forest and invasion of royal rights, such as assarting. While their visits were infrequent, due to the interval of time between courts, they provided a check against collusion between the foresters and local offenders.

[edit]Courts

Blackstone gives the following outline of the forest courts, as theoretically constructed:

  • Court of attachment, sometimes called the Forty-Day Court or Woodmote. This court was held every forty days, and was presided over by verderers and the Warden, or his deputy. The foresters attached persons who had committed crimes against the forest law and brought them before this court to have them enrolled; however, it did not possess the power to try or convict individuals, and such cases had to be passed upwards to the swainmote or the court of justice seat.
  • Court of regard, held every third year to enforce the law requiring declawing of dogs within the forest.
  • Swainmote or Sweinmote was held three times a year: the fortnight before the feast of St. Michael, about the feast of St. Martin, and the fortnight before the feast of St. John the Baptist. It was presided over by the Warden and verderers, the foresters and agisters being in attendance. The first two occasions were to regulate agistment and pannage, respectively; the third was for the purpose of trying offenders before a jury of swains, or freemen of the forest. (The name of the court is sometimes said to be derived from swine, probably a misapprehension through its regulation of pannage.)
  • Court of justice-seat or eyre was the highest of the forest courts. It was to be held every three years, to be announced forty days in advance, and was presided over by a Justice in Eyre. It was, in theory, the only court that could pass sentence upon offenders of the forest laws.

In practice, these fine distinctions were not always observed. In the Forest of Dean, swainmote and the court of attachment seem to have been one and the same throughout most of its history. As the courts of justice-seat were held less frequently, the lower courts assumed the power to fine offenders against the forest laws, according to a fixed schedule. The courts of justice-seat crept into disuse, and in 1817, the office of Justice in Eyre was abolished and its powers transferred to the First Commissioner of Woods and Forests. Courts of swainmote and attachment went out of existence at various dates in the different forests. A Court of Swainmote was re-established in the New Forest in 1877.

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History

william I, original enactor of the Forest Law in England, harshly penalized offenders. He "laid a law upon it, that whoever slew hart or hind should be blinded," according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. William Rufus, also a keen hunter, increased the severity of the penalties for various offences to include death and mutilation. The laws were in part codified under the Assize of the Forest (1184) of Henry II; he also afforested large tracts.

Magna Carta, the charter forced upon King John of England by the English barons in 1215, contained five clauses relating to royal forests. They aimed to limit, and even reduce, the King's sole rights as enshrined in forest law. The clauses were as follows (taken from the text of Magna Carta):

  • (44) People who live outside the forest need not in future appear before the royal justices of the forest in answer to general summonses, unless they are actually involved in proceedings or are sureties for someone who has been seized for a forest offence.
  • (47) All forests that have been created in our reign shall at once be disafforested. River-banks that have been enclosed in our reign shall be treated similarly.
  • (48) All evil customs relating to forests and warrens, foresters, warreners, sheriffs and their servants, or river-banks and their wardens, are at once to be investigated in every county by twelve sworn knights of the county, and within forty days of their enquiry the evil customs are to be abolished completely and irrevocably. But we, or our chief justice if we are not in England, are first to be informed.
  • (52) To any man whom we have deprived or dispossessed of lands, castles, liberties, or rights, without the lawful judgement of his equals, we will at once restore these. In cases of dispute the matter shall be resolved by the judgement of the twenty-five barons referred to below in the clause for securing the peace (§ 61). In cases, however, where a man was deprived or dispossessed of something without the lawful judgement of his equals by our father King Henry or our brother King Richard, and it remains in our hands or is held by others under our warranty, we shall have respite for the period commonly allowed to Crusaders, unless a lawsuit had been begun, or an enquiry had been made at our order, before we took the Cross as a Crusader. On our return from the Crusade, or if we abandon it, we will at once render justice in full.
  • (53) We shall have similar respite [to that in clause 52] in rendering justice in connexion with forests that are to be disafforested, or to remain forests, when these were first afforested by our father Henry or our brother Richard; with the guardianship of lands in another person's `fee', when we have hitherto had this by virtue of a `fee' held of us for knight's service by a third party; and with abbeys founded in another person's `fee', in which the lord of the `fee' claims to own a right. On our return from the Crusade, or if we abandon it, we will at once do full justice to complaints about these matters.

After the death of John, Henry III was compelled to grant the Charter of the Forest (1217), which further reformed the forest law and established the rights of agistment and pannage on private land within the forests. It also checked certain of the extortions of the foresters. An "Ordinance of the Forest" under Edward I again checked the oppression of the officers, and introduced sworn juries in the forest courts.


The Great Perambulation and after

In 1300 many (if not all) forests were perambulated and reduced greatly in their extent, in theory to their extent in the time of Henry II. However, this depended on the determination of local juries, whose decisions often excluded from the Forest lands described in Domesday Book as within the forest. Successive kings tried to recover the "purlieus" excluded from a forest by the Great Perambulation of 1300. Forest officers periodically fined the inhabitants of the purlieus for failing to attend Forest Court or for forest offences. This led to complaints in Parliament. The king promised to remedy the grievances, but usually did nothing.

Several forests were alienated by Richard II and his successors, but generally the system decayed. Henry VII revived "Swanimotes" (forest courts) for several forests and held Forest Eyres in some of them. Henry VIII in 1547 placed the forests under the Court of Augmentations with two Masters and two Surveyors-General. On the abolition of that court, the two surveyors-general became responsible to the Exchequer. Their respective divisions were North and South of the river Trent.

By the Tudor period and after, forest law had largely become anachronistic, and served primarily to protect timber in the royal forests. James I caused enquiries to be made into assartlands of various forests. The commissioners appointed raised over £25000 by compounding with occupiers, whose ownership was confirmed, subject to a fixed rent. Under Charles I, several forests were disforested, the king receiving a portion of the waste land of the forest, which he then sold. The last serious exercise of forest law by a court of justice-seat (Forest Eyre) seems to have been in about 1635, in an attempt to raise money.


After the Restoration

A Forest Eyre was held for the New Forest in 1670, and a few for other forests in the 1660s and 1670s, but these were the last. From 1715, both surveyor's posts were held by the same person. The remaining royal forests continued to be managed (in theory, at least) on behalf of the crown. However, the commoners' rights of grazing often seem to have been more important than the rights of the crown.

In the late 1780s, a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the condition of Crown woods. North of the Trent only Sherwood Forest survived. South of it there were the New Forestand three others in Hampshire, Windsor Forest in Berkshire, the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, Waltham or Epping Forest in Essex, three forests in Northamptonshire, and Wychwoodin Oxfordshire. Several of these no longer had swainmote courts, so that there was no official supervision. They divided the remaining forests into two classes, according to whether the Crown was or was not the major landowner. In certain Hampshire forests and the Forest of Dean, most of the soil belonged to the Crown and these should be reserved to grow timber, to meet the need for oak for shipbuilding. The others would be inclosed, the Crown receiving an allotment in lieu of its rights.

In 1810, responsibility for woods was moved from Surveyors-General (who accounted to the Auditors of Land Revenue) to a new Commission of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues. From 1832 to 1851 "Works and Buildings" were added to their responsibilities. In 1851, the commissioners again became a Commissioner of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues. In 1924, the Royal Forests were transferred to the new Forestry Commission.


Surviving ancient forests

]Forest of Dean

Main article: Forest of Dean

The Forest of Dean was used as a source of charcoal for ironmaking within the Forest from 1612 until about 1670. It was the subject of a Reafforestation Act in 1667. Courts continued to be held at the Speech House, for example to regulate the activities of the Freeminers. The sale of cordwood for charcoal continued until at least the late 18th century. Deer were removed in 1850. The forest is today heavily wooded, as is a substantial formerly privately-owned area to the west, now treated as part of the forest. It is managed by the Forestry Commission.


Epping Forest

Main article: Epping Forest

The extent of Epping Forest was greatly reduced by inclosure by landowners. The Corporation of London wished to see it preserved as an open space and obtained an injunction to throw open some 3,000 acres (12 km2) that had been inclosed in the preceding 20 years. In 1875 and 1876, it bought 3,000 acres (12 km2) of open waste land. Under the Epping Forest Act 1878, the forest was disafforested and forest law abolished in respect of it. Instead the corporation was appointed as Conservators of the Forest. The forest is managed through the Epping Forest Committee.


New Forest

Main article: New Forest

An Act was passed to remove the deer in 1851, but abandoned when it was realised that the deer were needed to keep open the unwooded "lawns" of the forest. An attempt was made to develop the forest for growing wood by a rolling programme of inclosures. In 1875, a Select Committee of the House of Commons recommended against this, leading to the passage of theNew Forest Act 1877, which limited the Crown's right to inclose, regulated common rights, and reconstituted the Court of Verderers. A further Act was passed in 1964. This forest is also managed by the Forestry Commission.


Royal forests in England

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.


See also


References

  • Margaret Ley Bazeley, 'The Extent of the English Forest in the Thirteenth Century', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th Ser., Vol. 4. (1921), pp. 140–172.
  • Raymond Grant, The Royal Forests of England (Sutton, Stroud 1991).
  • Grafton Regis Millennium Project. Grafton Regis History and Heritage CDROM (2004) disc 1. in the Forests and Parks section gives information on the law and management of Whittlewood and Salcey forests.
  1. ^ Manwood, John. "1". A Treatise and Discourse of the Lawes of the Forrest. Retrieved 2006-10-17.
  2. ^ Turbutt, G., (1999) A History of Derbyshire. Volume 2: Medieval Derbyshire, Cardiff: Merton Priory Press


External links



The Charter of the Forest of King Henry III

The Charter of the Forest and its relationship to Magna Carta

Henry III's Charter of the Forest was issued on November 6, 1217, in the second year of Henry's reign. It followed the reissue in 1216 and again in the same year, 1217, of Magna Carta, first promulgated by Henry's father, John, in 1215, and the two statutes need to be seen as complementary. The editors of the translation in English Historical Documents (set out below) pointed out that a new additional article (Clause 20) in the 1217 text of Magna Carta makes clear that the drafting took place after a decision had been taken to make a separate charter for forest questions. Clause 20 reads: 'No river bank shall henceforth be made a preserve, except those which were preserves in the time of king Henry, our grandfather, in the same places and for the same periods as they used to be in his day.' This is to be compared with Clause 38 of the 1216 reissue in which it was declared that 'All forests that were made forest in the time of king John, our father, shall be immediately disafforested; and so be it done with river-banks that were made preserves by the same John in his time', a wording taken from Clause 47 of John's original statute of the previous year. The Charter of the Forest was issued again in 1225, alongside a reissue of Magna Carta, with a number of minor changes to the wording.

A facsimile of the Charter of the Forest

The facsimile of the Charter of the Forest shown here and in sections below is that of the 1217 statute printed in the Statutes of the Realm, Vol. 1 (London, George Eyre and Andrew Strahan for the Record Commission, 1810), Charters, opposite Page 20. It is taken from the manuscript of the Charter held in the archives of Durham Cathedral. The Latin text is transcribed on Pages 20 and 21.

An English translation of the Charter of the Forest

The following translation of the Charter of the Forests as issued in 1217 is that which appears in Harry Rothwell (ed.), English Historical Documents, Vol. 3, 1189-1327 (London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1975), No. 24, at pp. 337-40.

Henry, by the grace of God, king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy, Aquitaine, and count of Anjou, to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, justices, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants, and to all his bailiffs and faithful subjects, greeting. Know that out of reverence for God and for the salvation of our soul and the souls of our ancestors and successors, for the exaltation of holy church and the reform of our realm, we have granted and by this present charter confirmed for us and our heirs for ever, on the advice of our venerable father, the lord Gualo, cardinal priest of St Martin and legate of the apostolic see, of the lord Walter archbishop of York, William bishop of London and the other bishops of England and of William Marshal earl of Pembroke, ruler of us and of our kingdom, and our other faithful earls and barons of England, these liberties written below to be held in our kingdom of England for ever.

[1] In the first place, all the forests which king Henry our grandfather made forest shall be viewed by good and law-worthy men, and if he made forest any wood that was not his demesne to the injury of him whose wood it was, it shall be disafforested. And if he made his own wood forest, it shall remain forest, saving common of pasture and other things in that forest to those who were accustomed to have them previously.

[2] Men who live outside the forest need not henceforth come before our justices of the forest upon a general summons, unless they are impleaded or are sureties for any person or persons who are attachedfor forest offences.

[3] All woods made forest by king Richard our uncle, or by king John our father, up to the time of our first coronation shall be immediately disafforested unless it be our demesne wood.

[4] Archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, knights and freeholders who have woods within forests shall have them as they had them at the time of the first coronation of the aforesaid king Henry our grandfather, so that they shall be quit forever[1] in respect of all purprestures, wastes and assarts made in those woods between that time and the beginning of the second year of our coronation. And those who in future make waste, purpresture or assart in them without licence from us shall answer for wastes, purprestures[2] and assarts.

[5] Our regarders shall go through the forests making the regard as it used to be made at the time of the first coronation of the aforesaid king Henry our grandfather, and not otherwise.

[6] The inquest or view of the expeditating of dogs in the forest shall henceforth be made when the regard ought to be made, namely every third year, and then made by the view and testimony of law-worthy men and not otherwise. And he whose dog is then found not expeditated shall give as amercement three shillings, and in future no ox shall be seized for failure to expeditate. The manner, moreover, of expeditating by the assize shall generally be that three claws of the forefoot are to be cut off, but not the ball. Nor shall dogs henceforth be expeditated except in places where it was customary to expeditate them at the time of the first coronation of king Henry our grandfather.

[7] No forester or beadle shall henceforth make scotale or levy sheaves of corn, or oats or other grain or lambs or piglets or make any other levy. And by the view and oath of twelve regarders when they make the regard as many foresters are to be set to keep the forests as shall seem to them reasonably sufficient for keeping them.

[8] No swanimote shall henceforth be held in our kingdom except three times a year, namely a fortnight before the feast of St Michael, when the agisters meet to agist our demesne woods, and about the feast of St Martin, when our agisters ought to receive our pannage-dues; and at these two swanimotes foresters, verderers and agisters shall appear but no one else shall be compelled to do so; and the third swanimote shall be held a fortnight before the feast of St John the Baptist for the fawning of our beasts, and for holding this swanimote foresters and verderers shall come but no others shall be compelled to do so. And in addition every forty days throughout the year the verderers and foresters shall meet to view attachments of the forest both of the vert and of the venison on the presentment of those foresters and with the attached present. The aforesaid swanimotes however shall only be held in counties in which they were wont to be held.

[9] Every free man shall agist his wood in the forest as he wishes and have his pannage. We grant also that every free man can conduct his pigs through our demesne wood freely and without impediment to agist them in his own woods or anywhere else he wishes. And if the pigs of any free man shall spend one night in our forest he shall not on that account be so prosecuted that he loses anything of his own.

[10] No one shall henceforth lose life or limb because of our venison, but if anyone has been arrested and convicted of taking venison he shall be fined heavily if he has the means; and if he has not the means, he shall lie in our prison for a year and a day; and if after a year and a day he can find pledges he may leave prison; but if not, he shall abjure the realm of England.

[11] Any archbishop, bishop, earl or baron whatever who passes through our forest shall be allowed to take one or two beasts under the supervision of the forester, if he is to hand; but if not, let him have thehorn blown, lest he seem to be doing it furtively.

[12] Every free man may henceforth without being prosecuted make in his wood or in land he has in the forest a mill, a preserve, a pond, a marl-pit, a ditch, or arable outside the covert in arable land, on condition that it does not harm any neighbour.

[13] Every free man shall have the eyries of hawks, sparrowhawks, falcons, eagles and herons in his woods, and likewise honey found in his woods.

[14] No forester henceforth who is not a forester-in-fee rendering us a farm for his bailiwick may exact any chiminage’[3] in his bailiwick; but a forester-in-fee rendering us a farm for his bailiwick may exact chiminage, namely for a cart for half a year 2d and for the other half year 2d, and for a horse with a load for half a year 1/2d and for the other half year 1/2d, and only from those who come from outside his bailiwick as merchants with his permission into his bailiwick to buy wood, timber, bark, or charcoal and take them elsewhere to sell where they wish; and from no other cart or load shall any chiminage be exacted, and chiminage shall only be exacted in places where it used to be exacted of old and ought to have been exacted. Those, on the other hand, who carry wood, bark, or charcoal on their backs for sale, although they get their living by it, shall not in future pay chiminage. In respect of the woods of others no chiminage shall be given to our foresters beyond [that given] in respect of our own2[4] woods.3[5]

[15] All who from the time of king Henry our grandfather up to our first coronation have been outlawed for a forest offence only shall be released from their outlawry without legal proceedings and shall find reliable pledges that they will not do wrong to us in the future in respect of our forest.

[16] No castellan or other person may hold forest pleas either of the vert or the venison but each forester-in-fee shall attach forest pleas of both the vert and the venison and present them to the verderers of the districts[6] and when they have been enrolled and closed under the seals of the verderers they shall be presented to the head forester when he arrives in those parts to hold forest pleas and be determined before him.

[17] These liberties concerning the forests we have granted to everybody, saving to archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, knights, and other persons, ecclesiastical and secular, Templars and Hospitallers, the liberties and free customs, in forests and outside, in warrens and other things, which they had previously. All these aforesaid customs and liberties which we have granted to be observed in our kingdom as far as it pertains to us towards our men, all of our kingdom, clerks as well as laymen, shall observe as far as it pertains to them towards their men. Because we have not yet a seal we have had the present charter sealed with the seals of our venerable father the lord Gualo cardinal priest of St Martin, legate of the apostolic see, and William Marshal earl of Pembroke, ruler of us and of our kingdom. Witness the aforenamed and many others. Given by the hands of the aforesaid lord, the legate, and of William Marshal at St Paul’s, London, on the sixth day of November in the second year of our reign.

Footnotes

[1] i.e. of payments at the Exchequer

[2] purprestures: required by the context, an accidental omission, supplied from the Forest Charter of 1225

[3] A toll levied on transport in the forest.

[4] literally, demesne

[5] An obscure Latin sentence, not found in the 1225 or later reissues of the Forest Charter. This would seem to be its meaning.

[6] provinciarum

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