THE NEW FOREST: ITS AFFORESTATION, ANCIENT AREA, AND LAW IN THE TIME OF THE CONQUEROR AND HIS SUCCESSORS. BY W.J.C. MOENS, F.S.A., Reprinted from THE ARCHAEOLOICAL JOURNAL, Vol. I.X. No. 237, pp. 30-50. It poses the question ‘DID WILLIAM I. DEVASTATE TH

Author: W.J.C. MOENS, F.S.A.

Description: The author's premis begins: King Edward's law stated "I will that every man shall have hunting in his woods, lands and demesnes and shall abstain from my hunting wherever I will to have a park, on pain of death." The Laws of Edward The Confessor were considered the very root and origin of all the laws of England, confirmed by William I, William Rufus and Henry I as described by the latter's Charter in the Exchequer's Red Book. Early annalists denounced King William I for non-observance of these laws - forest law and common law being different from each other. The New Forest and Hampton Court Forest (afforested by Henry VIII in 1539) are the only two forests still in existence which have authentic particulars. It was probable that the churches which annalists claimed were destroyed would have been made of wood, and their condition would have deteriorated and become ruined by disuse. The article contains extracts from the Domesday Survey which the author claims substantiates the theory of the existence of an earlier forest. It explains the term "in foresta" as open waste or unenclosed forest subject to the rights of common, which could not be dealt with except by grant and licence from the Crown. It goes on to detail the Charters of Henry III of 1216 and 1217 which limited the Swainmote to three times a year, the Courts of Attachment only every 40 days and introduced Forest Rights. Henry III's Charter of 1225 appointed justices to make perambulations of the forests in Hampshire and fourteen other counties. The perambulation of Edward I's commissioners in 1279 reduced the area of the New Forest by new metes and bounds and the paper describes its new borders; the area was further reduced by commissioners in 1299 and these metes and bounds were followed in the perambulation of 1670 (Charles II) and were defined by the encroachment commissioners of 1801. Edward I's Charter of 1301 and letters patent which disafforested the districts outside the boundaries of the recent perambulations meant that the inhabitants lost their commoning rights yet the Crown and forest officials still applied forest law to them. The Ordinatio Forestae passed by Parliament in 1305 clarified that those in woods which were disafforested "should not have common or other easements in the forest" unless they applied to the King to have their common etc.; but the Ordinatio Forestae of 1306 reinstated forest rights to these inhabitants - rights if preserved and exercised were attached to lands owned and occupied in Hampshire, Dorsetshire and Wiltshire. Edward III confirmed in 1327 the perambulations made by his grandfather, Edward I, "should be as they were then ridden and bounded, and also that every man might take the profits of his woods by the view of the Foresters, without being attached at the forest courts". The orginals of claims made in 1635 and 1670 and admitted by the Commissioners under the provisions of the New Forest Act 1854 are preserved in the Public Record Office and the settlement by rights of common identifies by tithe numbers the lands to which rights are still attached; some of these not being included in the claims of 1670. The writer having identified the area of the forest before 1300 through his studying of charters explains how early annalists were correct: Mapes wrote the "Conqueror took away much land from God and men and converted it to the use of wild beasts and the sport of his dogs for which he demolished (query, laid waste by disuse) thirty-six churches and exterminated (query, forced to leave the district) the inhabitants" but states that not wishing to blame the reigning sovereign such annalists could have blamed the Conqueror for the actions of his successors. The author claims that 'forest justice seats' were not held for some 76 years in the 17th Century and the attachments remitted to the Court of Exchequer, and that dwellers were not 'at ease': "for yf every owner be suffered to build houses upon his land at his will, will the highways be made streets and the woods turned into gardens and no place of harbor left for the deere." The author then lists the Domesday evidence of churches, alludes to William Rufus' destruction of 30 churches with their churchyards reduced to pasture. Refers to the granting of Beaulieu to the abbot by King John being "without the regard of the forest" and the same amelioration occurring in the portions of the New Forest disafforested in 1279 and 1300; cf. ancient demesne lands of the manors of Brockenhurst, Minstead, and Eling etc.; and vaccaries (30 cows and 1 bull each) ten of which were enclosed by the Crown. The map opposite page 20 shows graphically the area of the forest as reduced in 1300 which could have included churches/chapels and the author maintains that the devastation of the New Forest was much greater than in older afforested districts whilst the areas of open waste, no longer evident in other forests, were maintained by the early Norman kings and remained subject to forest law.

Publisher: LONDON: HARRISON AND SONS, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, Printers in Ordinary to His Majesty.

Period covered: Jul-02

Format: Reprint, booklet.: Printed, with self-cover.

Primary Reference: 300000006

Last import: December 21, 2022