Chapter II: The Forest Courts

The forest eyre was a court called into being by the king’s letters patent, by which justices were appointed to hear and determine pleas of the forest throughout a particular county or groups of counties, or occasionally in the special area of a county or counties. A short time before the eyre was held, letters close were directed to the sheriff relative to its business. By these they were ordered to summon (1) all dignitaries and other free tenants who had lands or tenements within the metes of the forest; (2) the reeve and four men from every township within the metes; (3) all foresters and verderers, both those then in office and those (or their heirs) who had held such office since the last pleas of the forest; (4) all those persons who had been “attached” since the last pleas; (5) all the regarders; (6) and all the agisters. The sheriffs were at the same time directed to see that the foresters and verderers brought with them all their attachments or attachment rolls since the last pleas, and that the regarders brought with them their regards duly sealed, and the agisters their agistments.

The proper interval between those forest eyres is supposed, from analogy of eyres for pleas of the Crown and common pleas, to have been seven years; but in practice, to the great inconvenience of all concerned, considering the multiplicity of business, the intervals were usually much longer, and almost wholly capricious. For example, Derbyshire affords more than one instance of intervals exceeding thirty years; whilst Pickering yields an instance of an interval of over fifty years, namely, from 1280-1334.

Every three years a thorough inspection not only of the woods, but also of every part of the forest, was expected to be made; this was termed the _Regard_. The duty of the twelve or more knights, who were called the Regarders, was to draw up answers to a long set of interrogatories termed the Chapter, which covered almost every possible particular as to the condition of the forest demesnes. But the most important function the regarders discharged was as to the _assarts_, or enclosures of waste with or without warrant, and to _purprestures_, or encroachments made by the building of houses or the like. In practice the full formal regard, with its complete roll of answers, was usually only made shortly before the holding of each eyre, when the sheriff was ordered by the Crown to see to the regard being duly performed.

The amount of business that had to be transacted at these eyres was very considerable, and usually involved repeated adjournments. The work would have been still greater if it had not been that a large number of the delinquents were naturally dead before ever the court was held; and that not a few of the former offenders, who had been released on bail, had passed out of the jurisdiction of the sheriff, and could not be traced. The proceedings of the court were, roughly speaking, divided into two parts—the pleas of vert and the pleas of venison. In both cases the chief object of the proceedings was the collection of fines and amercements for breaches of the forest laws, which—contrary to the usual opinion—had little, if any, trace of the old Norman severity. In fact, so far was this from being the case, that if a man was determined to poach venison, he met with far lighter punishment if the offence was committed in a royal forest, than if he was dealt with by the common or manorial law for a like offence in a private park. The first forest code (usually cited as the Assize of Woodstock) was extant in the time of Henry II.; it records the severities of his grandfather, when cruel mutilation and capital punishment, irredeemable by any forfeiture, were among the ordinary penalties; but all this disappeared in the thirteenth century.

The presence of the reeve and four men from each township was strictly enforced; and the fines for total absence, or absence at the opening of the court, of these and others who were summoned, were rigorously exacted. The consideration of the _essoins_, or excuses for non-attendance, was always the first business of the court. It was also usual for juries from the different hundreds to be summoned; but their duty, as well as that of the men from the townships, seems to have been confined to attesting the truth of any statements affecting their districts which might appear on the rolls, and to being amerced for any particular neglect that might be brought to light. As to any jury proper, at these pleas, for the purpose of pronouncing a verdict on the delinquents, there is no trace; such decisions were left entirely in the hands of the justices.

By article nine of the Forest Charter, a man might be imprisoned for a year and a day; but in practice, so far as the eyre was concerned, a fine seems to have been the invariable judgment of the justices. These fines were so apportioned to the position and means of the delinquents, that they could, as a rule, be readily paid; and there are various instances in which, after being pronounced “in mercy,” they were excused payment on the ground of poverty. The sheriff was ordered to arrest those who failed to appear, and sentence of outlawry was at last pronounced, after the due number of summons before the county court. The fines imposed on offending foresters, verderers, or other forest ministers were rightly of a much heavier character than those imposed on ordinary offenders.

With regard to the venison pleas, the chief forester was expected to answer for all manner of venison delivered by warrant or otherwise since the last eyre. Under these pleas also came all the presentments for illegal or supposed illegal venison trespass of every kind, including the receiving of venison illicitly killed, or the harbouring of known offenders.

The vert pleas dealt with all the charges connected with damage to timber or underwood, its felling, carrying off, unlawful sale, or misappropriation, as well as the grant of “fee” or gift trees. The question of vert is dealt with more in detail in the section on forest trees.

In addition to the question of assarts and purprestures, another important matter always brought before the forest eyre was the list of claims or privileges by royal grant or charter, the majority of which were usually held by the religious houses. Each case had to be duly discussed and sanctioned, or refused, or curtailed, at each successive eyre.

There was not a single forest wherein several monasteries had not particular privileges conferred in early days, and in some they were very numerous. Over the great stretch of Peak Forest, Derbyshire, the abbeys of Basingwerk, Beauchief, Darley, Dernhall, Dieulacres, Leicester, Lilleshall, Merivale, Roche, and Welbeck, together with the priories of Kingsmead, Launde, and Lenton, all had rights. Such rights referred for the most part to the felling of timber necessary for their churches and buildings, or their farmsteads and fences, as well as to the collecting of undergrowth or dead wood for fuel. The agistment of cattle at certain seasons and the pannage of swine were granted from time to time; whilst venison rights, more particularly in the shape of a tythe of the deer killed, pertained to some few religious houses. The tythe of the wild boars killed in Dean Forest went to the abbey of St. Peter’s, Gloucester, and the tythe of the deer hunted in Pickering Lythe was the perquisite of the abbey of St. Mary’s, York.

In addition to the forest pleas proper, certain special inquisitions as to the condition of the forest and the charges against trespassers were held by the local officials, but under the particular justice of the forest or his deputy. Such inquisitions were probably caused, in the first instance, by the infrequency of the eyres. By a tiresome confusion, these courts of general inquisition in latter days are sometimes termed swainmotes, though they differed as much from the real swainmote as from the forest pleas.

The swainmote of later times, about which Manwood is somewhat mistaken, as shown by Mr. Turner, was practically the same as the attachment court. The two terms, “swainmote” and “attachment” (and occasionally “woodmote”), are used interchangeably in later days in various local proceedings of the same forest, of which full records remain—as, for instance, in Sherwood, Windsor, Clarendon, and Duffield Frith. At one and the same time in the fifteenth century, local courts of a like character were being held in the forests of Windsor and Northants under the style of swainmotes, in Lancashire and Sherwood as attachment courts, and in Staffordshire and Derbyshire as woodmotes. These courts of attachment, if regularly kept, as ordered by the Forest Charter, met every forty-two days in each of the several bailiwicks or wards into which a forest was divided, but on different days of the week. Thus, at Sherwood Forest these courts were held at Linby, Calverton, Mansfield, and Edwinstowe on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday respectively in every sixth week; though not infrequently they had to adjourn for lack of any business to transact.

The true swainmote, according to Henry III.’s Charter, was only to be held three times a year, namely, fifteen days before Midsummer, when the agisters met to see to the observance of the fence month; fifteen days before Michaelmas, when the agistment of the woods began; and at Martinmas, when the agisters met to receive the pannage. But, as has been remarked, the name swainmote (the court of the free-forest tenant of Saxon origin) became in later times a usual _alias_ for the attachment court.

The Attachment, or Forty-day Court, as it was sometimes termed, was so called because its object was to receive the attachment of the foresters or woodwards, and to enter them on the verderers’ rolls. The legal term “attachment” (differing from “arrest,” which only applied to the body) had a threefold operation in the forest as at common law; a man might be attached by (1) his goods and chattels, or (2) by pledges and mainprize, or (3) by his body. The usual proceeding was that if the foresters found a man trespassing on the vert they might attach him by his body, and cause him to find two pledges (or bail) to appear at the next attachment court. On his appearance at that court he was mainprized (that is, set at liberty under bail) until the next eyre of the justices. If offending for a second time, four pledges were held necessary; if a third time, eight pledges; and for a fourth time, imprisonment until the eyre.

If, however, a man was taken killing the deer or carrying them away—which was called being taken with the manner, or _mainour_, an overt sign such as blood on the hands or clothes—he could be attached at once by his body, and imprisoned until delivered on bail by the king, or the justice of the particular forest, to appear at the next eyre.

SHERWOOD ATTACHMENT ROLL (EDWARD II)]

Those who lived in the forest, and were taken in the king’s demesnes cutting green wood or saplings, or even gathering dry wood from oaks, hazels, or other trees, could be amerced in the attachment court, unless the damage they had done was appraised at more than 4_d._, in which case the delinquent was to be attached to answer for his offence at the next eyre. Questions of the escape of cattle or sheep, and any breach of the particular agistment pannage regulations for the swine, were also dealt with by this court. When the trespasser was not a dweller in the forest, the forester or woodward, even in a vert case, was expected to attach his body and take him to prison (each forest had its own prison for forest offences), from which he could be released only by the order of the king, or the justice of the forest. In the matter of venison, these lesser courts had not originally any jurisdiction; but in later times pledges were often taken for the appearance of such trespassers at the eyre.

In addition to the general forest inquisition, there were also special inquisitions dealing with venison trespasses held under the bailiff of the forest in conjunction with the foresters and verderers. Several of these are extant of the thirteenth century. One of the most interesting rules of these special cases provided that if any beast of the forest was found dead or wounded, an inquest was to be held by the four neighbouring townships of the forest. The finder of the deer was to obtain pledges for his subsequent appearance; the flesh was to be sent to the nearest lazar-house, or given to the local sick and poor if there was not one within reasonable distance; the head and skin were to be given to the freeman of the township where it was found; and the arrow or other weapon to the verderer, who had to keep it for production at the next eyre.

Inquests were also held by the four neighbouring townships in cases of definite forest trespass; and the bows, arrows, or snares found upon a trespasser had to be delivered to the verderer for future production. Owing to such inquests being sometimes held at the same time as the gathering of a swainmote, the rolls of these local courts, if carelessly consulted, appear to be dealing with venison trespass when such was not the case.

It must be remembered that these forest inquisitions were only necessary when a beast of the forest was dead or wounded, or when an actual trespass had been committed in the forest.

The forest pleas or eyres were usually held in the county town, but occasionally those summoned had to appear in another county. This was the case with the delinquents and officials of Duffield Frith; that forest was in the honor of Tutbury, and the pleas were held at that Staffordshire town. Now and again a special booth or tent was erected to accommodate the justices, as was the case in part of Rockingham forest in the sixteenth century.

The swainmotes sometimes assembled in the open air, but far oftener in the respective lodges of the different wards, as in Needwood and Sherwood forests. Charges for the repairs of the lodges are of frequent occurrence in forest accounts. There was generally a central court-house or justice seat where special inquisitions were held, with accommodation if required for the keeper or chief forester, and with a chapel annexed, as in the New Forest and the Forest of the Peak. There is a Lancashire instance of a swainmote being held in a chapel.