II.: Origin of the Forests.

Before the Norman Conquest the Kings of England do not seem to have laid claim to any exclusive prerogative in this respect. The only ordinance of Canute on the subject, admitted to be authentic, enacted merely that every man should have his own hunting, while the King should have his. The rights of the Crown, however, were strengthened by the events of 1066, and by the hardening of feudal theory which followed. All unoccupied waste lands became royal property; and these were the natural resorts of the larger sorts of game. The King established a claim to an exclusive right to hunt the more important species of animals ferae naturae, known as “beasts of the forest”—embracing the red deer (harts and hinds), the fallow deer (bucks and does), the roe deer of both sexes, and the wild boar, with, exceptionally in one forest, the ordinary hare. Henry I. formulated the forest law, and it was probably due to him that “forest” acquired its technical meaning. With the special meaning came the express claim to a monopoly of hunting, together with supreme and exclusive jurisdiction. The disorders of Stephen’s reign lowered the Crown’s authority, and Henry II. found the forests much curtailed. He had no intention to acquiesce in this, but it was not till 1184 that he attempted, by the Assize of Woodstock, to formulate the rules of the forest law. In this sphere, as in so many others, Henry II. built on foundations laid by his grandfather. John’s attitude to the forest laws was not consistent. The monk of Barnwall relates how, in 1212, John allowed some relaxation in the severity of the forest code. More characteristic of his normal attitude was the order issued on 28th June, 1209, that hedges should be burned and ditches levelled, so that, while men starved, the beasts might fatten upon the crops and fruits.