THE ROYAL FORESTS OF MEDIEVAL ENGLAND The Middle Ages A series edited by EDWARD PETERS Henry C. Lea, Associate Professor of Medieval History University of Pennsylvania CHARLES R. YOUNG THE ROYAL FORESTS OF MEDIEVAL ENGLAND University of Pennsylvania Press 1979 Copyright © 1979 by Charles R. Young All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Young, Charles R The royal forests of medieval England. (The Middle Ages) Bibliography: p. Includesindex. 1. Royal forests-England-History. 2. Great Britain-Politics and government-l066-1485. 1.Title. II. Series. DA188.Y68 333.7'5 78-65109 ISBN 0-8122-7760-0 Contents Preface vii Introduction 1 1. Organization by the Norman Kings 7 2. Reorganization Under the Angevin Kings 18 3. The Angevin System atvVork 33 4. The Forest Becomes a Political Issue 60 5. The ForestSystem at Its I-Ieight: Law andAdministration 74 6. The Forest System at Its Height: Economy 114 7. PoliticalandConstitutional Struggles, 1258-1327 135 8. TheLaterMiddleAges 149 Notes 173 Bibliography 205 Index 215 Maps The Forest in 1086 9 The Royal Forests, 13th Century 62 The Royal Forests, 1327-1336 152 v This page intentionally left blank Preface Many people know something about the royal forests of medieval England and that they were somehow important, but even most me dieval historians would be hard put to direct an inquiring reader to a goodbookonthe subject. Although the number of extantforest records is large, few of these have been published, and the subject has not attracted the scholarly attention warranted by its importance. This book is an attempt to provide a general history of the royal forests in England from their beginning (in the technical sense of the word) after the Norman Conquest to their decline in the later Middle Ages. The emphasis is placed upon the thirteenth century when the royal forest as an institution was at its height in development and signifi cance. As indicated by the chapter divisions, the aim is to consider valious aspects-political and economic as well as legal and admin istrative-that contributed to making the royal forest an important medieval institution. How these large areas known as royal forests (estimated atone-foulththe land of Englandin the thirteenth century) influenced life at the time has been a consistent interest that relieved what might otherwise have been the tedium of working out the details of administrative history and gives meaning even to those sections of the book where this interest is not made explicit. It is from this per spective that the history ofthe royal forests throws light upon a dimen sion of medieval life that was unique to the period. Although much work in original records remained to be done, nlY task was lightened by several publications with infolmation that could vii viii Preface be incorporated into a general history. Especially valuable were the studies of Margaret Bazeley, limited as they are to a particular time or place,and the admirable survey by Nellie Neilson in the chaptershe contributed to The English Government at Work, 1327-1336, which has value beyond the decade under examination. The pioneering intro J. duction by G. Turner to the volume offorest pleas that he edited for the Selden Society remains basic to any study of the royal forests. Perhaps most impressive was the accomplishment of Charles Petit DutaiIlis, who employed the intuition of a master historian to outline in one chapter the principal stages in the history of the royal forest in England with such skill that a detailed study of the records has not made it necessary to change his outline. To these important works should be added a number of studies of individual forests as indicated in the Bibliography. However, I also found that the subject had at tracted more than its share of romantic and antiquarian books and articles that contributed little or nothing, in spite of the hours spent in the British Museun1 tracking down sometimes obscure local publi cations. These have not been included in the Bibliography, which is meant to credit the studies from which I have drawn rather than to provide an inventory of publications on the subject. Ideally a general history of the royal forests in medieval England would have been preceded by detailed studies of individual forests written by scholars with local knowledge. Lacking these studies for many forests, my procedure has been to incorporate conclusions from studies of individual forests when possible and to searchfor the overall pattern of forest administration buried in the detail of record sources. Individual variation and eccentricity have been avoided in the attempt to ascertain the main trends. The nature of the evidence is such that very little of it is susceptible to meaningful quantification, but some figures are given when they illustrate general trends and patterns of development. Although difficulties in interpretation underlie the selec tion ofthese figures, the application of consistent clitelia should insure their comparative value even when their absolute value might be questioned. In all cases I have explained my procedures and pointed to some of the difficulties in order to allow the reader to decide what reliance to place upon my results. It seemed appropliate in a study of this scope to concentrate on the features of the royal forest that were typical. For this reason, when particular cases are cited a deliberate attempt is made to use only those representative of the majority of similar cases and to exclude the exceptional, whatever may be its in trinsic interest. This procedure also meant the exclusion of ambiguous evidence where reference to a royal forest was not completely clear Preface ix and areas of special jurisdiction (such as the Duchy of Lancaster until itbecame merged withthe crown) where forests were not strictly royal forests even when they operated on the same pattern and sometimes employed royal officials. If this method seems too modest in its objec tives, itis hoped that the gains in accuracy and clarity will offset what ever losses have been incurred in terms of variety and individuality. While working on this book, I have received assistance from several institutions and individuals, and I want at this tin1e to express my grati tude to them. My initial research was assisted by a grant from the American Philosophical Society and a Grant-In-Aid from the American Council of Learned Societies. Additional funds for summer research and travel were provided at various times by the Duke University Council on Research, the Cooperative Program in the Humanities of Duke University and the University of North Carolina, and the Na tional Endowment for the Humanities. I also wish to acknowledge the courteous assistance of the staffs of the Public Record Office and the Institute of Historical Research of the University of London. Virginia Ross and Jessica Dale helped comb through printed calendars of rec ords for references to forests under auspices of the Duke University Undergraduate Research Assistantship Program, and my son, Philip, one summer provided similar assistance. I am grateful for the encour agement of my colleagues and graduate students who showed enough interest to askhow my research was progressing or had the delicacy at crucial periods to refrain from asking. In particular I want to record my debt to Betty, my wife, who continued to serve-as she has throughout ouracademic career-as critic, typist, and counselor during our prolonged involvement with the royal forests.