Chapter V: The Forest Agistments

Apart from the beasts of the forest and chase, or the wild animals, every forest district had its quota of domestic animals, feeding regularly or occasionally within its bounds. These were subject to the strict oversight and direction of the agisters, whose office has already been explained. In almost every case, these animals were the property of the tenants of the forest or its purlieus. Dartmoor was a remarkable exception to this rule, inasmuch as almost every parish in Devonshire had certain rights of pasturage if it chose to exercise them.

All forests were liable to have agistment and pannage suspended altogether or in parts, for a certain year or more, if the circumstances of the case seemed to need it. Particular mention of this is made in a charter of Henry III. to the priory of Ivy Church in Clarendon forest.

In several forests, notably Essex, there was also a regular winter interval, though variable in duration, when all agistment was prohibited, for the purpose of reserving the food for the deer; this was called _Winter Heyning_. Mention is made subsequently of the fence month.

SWINE and PANNAGE.—Swine were usually only allowed in forests during the season called the time of pannage, when they fed upon the acorns and beech mast which had then fallen. The mast season lasted from 14th September to 18th November. Under the English forest laws of Henry II., four knights were appointed to see to the agistment, and to receive the king’s pannage, which in well-wooded forests amounted to a considerable sum. No man might agist his own woods in a forest before those of the king were agisted; the agistment of the royal woods ended fifteen days after Michaelmas. The usual agistment fee was a penny for each pig above a year old, and a halfpenny for every pig above half a year old. The swainmotes were constantly engaged in the late autumn, throughout England, in fining those who had unagisted pigs in the forest. The pannage fees were usually paid at a special swainmote held about Martinmas, which was sometimes, as in Duffield Frith, called the pannage, or “tack” court. Each tenant who had common rights “tacked,” or declared the number of his pigs turned into the forest. Any untacked were forfeited, and the tenant was also fined according to the steward’s pleasure. When the tenant had as many as seven swine, the king had one, but returned 3_d._ for it to the tenant; if eight, the king had one, returning 2_d._; if nine, 1_d._ was returned; but if ten, one was taken with no return. This remained the Duffield rule to the end of its days as a forest. There is also a good deal of evidence of this being carried out in other forests; particularly the proviso of the king having the best one of every ten pannaged swine.

Guildford park, in the Surrey portion of Windsor forest, was agisted in 1257 with 156 pigs, and in that case the king’s claim was the heavy one of every third pig, amounting to 52 pigs worth 2_s._ each. In 1260 the same park was agisted with 240 pigs; but for that year 4_d._ was paid for each pig.

At a pannage court held at Birkley lodge on 29th October, 1523, for all the wards of Needwood forest, the pannage fees for 185 pigs amounted to 27_s._ 0½_d._, being at the usual rate of 1_d._ a pig, and ½_d._ for a young pig.

Fines for collecting and carrying off both acorns and beech mast were not uncommon at the autumn swainmotes.

It should be remembered that any freeman, in the case of swine and other animals, had a right, by the Charter of the Forest, to agist any free wood of his own, though situated in a forest, in accordance with his desire, and take his own pannage. The charter also granted leave to any freeman to drive his swine through royal demesne woods, in order to gain his own wood or some place outside the forest.

WILD PIGS OF THE NEW FOREST (1791)]

CATTLE.—The agistment of cattle in certain stretches of the forest, as well as their pasturing on particular lands, was usual throughout England. From an early date it was customary to insist upon all such cattle being branded for identification. Thus, in the accounts of 1321-2 of Needwood forest occurs an item of 3_d._ paid for an iron for branding the cattle. It was, for the most part, the duty of the reeves of the forest parishes to mark with some distinctive sign the cattle entitled to feed upon the wastes. In the case of the Essex forest, the mark consisted of a letter surmounted in each case by a crown. The marking irons were usually eight inches in height; Mr. Fisher has given examples of a considerable number. Representation of the cattle marks of the different parishes of Pickering forest are given in Home’s _Town of Pickering_ (1905).

Dartmoor was the most conspicuous example of a vast forest district given up chiefly to the pasturage of cattle. The accounts and court rolls, from the time of Edward III. to James I., give full details of the large amount of cattle turned out in each of its four divisions. They numbered at times upwards of five thousand head, and the charge right through this long period was 1½_d._ each. They came from all over Devonshire, and the annual great drives, to see their correct marking and numbering, are described in the section on that forest. “Drifts” of cattle for a like purpose also occur in the Needwood proceedings.

Several of the forest rolls from the time of Edward I. to Elizabeth, yield particulars of the vaccaries or great cowhouses with pasturage attached, which were on the royal demesnes, and were included in the forest accounts, whether under direct management or let out to farm. Instances occur in the cases of Duffield, Pickering, Clarendon, and Cheshire, and notably in the later history of Peak Forest.

It may here be noticed that the place-name _Booth_, by itself or in combination, is usually indicative of the site of the residence of those who acted as cowherds. This is particularly noticeable in the neighbourhood of Edale, Derbyshire, where there were five separate vaccaries in the time of Elizabeth.

HORSES.—The agistment of a limited number of horses, and more particularly of mares with colts, was common throughout England’s forests. Records of their agistment in the parks of Duffield forest occur in the accounts of several centuries. It was generally recognised that they did more damage than cattle or sheep, and therefore their escape fines were heavier. Thus at a Belper (Duffield forest) woodmote court of 1304, various offenders, presented by the foresters, paid 12_d._ as fines for suffering foals and mares to wander in the ward, whilst the fines for plough-cattle and sheep were from 3_d._ to 1_d._

In subsequent particulars as to the Peak, reference will be found as to the establishment of stud farms within a forest area.

The ministers’ accounts of the issues of Pickering castle and forest in 1325-6 show that there was a stud (_equicium_) of two black stallions, called “Morel of Merton” and “Morel of Tutbury”; seventeen mares; six three-year-olds (_pullani_), four two-year-old colts (_staggi_); three two-year-old fillies (_pultre_); four yearling fillies (_pultrelle_); eight other young horses (_pulli de remarencia_); and ten foals from the mares (_pulli de exitu_).

SHEEP.—A charter of Canute contains the grant of a right to feed a flock of sheep in a forest. At the Domesday survey there were a large number of sheep in parishes pertaining to the forest of Essex. But the Norman forest laws distinctly forbade sheep pasturing in forests without licence. The reason usually alleged for this restriction, as stated in a seventeenth-century action at law, was in respect of the dislike “which the Redd and fallow Deare doe naturallie take of the sent and smelle of the sheepe; as also for that the sheepe do undereate the Deare, and hurt and spoyle the coverte, and thereby prejudice and wrong the Deare both in their feeding and layer.” This, however, was flatly denied by the other side, who said that “dayly experience proveth the contrary; and that yt is an usuall thing to see a deere and a sheepe feed together in one quillet of ground, even upon one mole-hill together.”

When the tenants of Broughton, in Amounderness forest, Lancashire, claimed at an eyre of 1334 common pasture in the forest of Fulwood, sheep were excepted because they failed to produce any special grant for the pasturing of such animals.

In the later forest days, when the breeding of sheep in this country had greatly increased, grants for their admission into forests became much more common. The agistment rolls of Dartmoor forest for 1571-2, which had previously been confined to cattle and horses, include a considerable number of sheep, in flocks varying from three hundred to ten. The illegal introduction of sheep into Peak Forest in Elizabethan days, and their consequent wholesale impounding, is described in a subsequent chapter. The freeholders of Needwood forest, in 1680, decided that sheep found pasturing in the forest were to be forfeited, and twelve shillings a day fine for each sheep!

Sheep-farming on the royal demesnes in districts associated with forests, and therefore found in forest accounts, occur occasionally, notably in the forests of Pickering and Peak Forest. The sheep are usually divided into wethers (_multones_), ewes (_oves_, or _oves matrices_), two-year-olds (_bidentes_), hogs, or male one-year-olds (_hogastri_), gimmers, female sheep from first to second shearing (_jercie_) and lambs. Milking ewes and the making of sheep-cheese was usual throughout mediæval England. Certain particulars relative to this custom will be found under the Peak Forest.

GOATS.—The turning out of goats to pasture, even in the wildest parts of a forest, was unlawful; save in occasional very restricted areas, under express licence. By tainting the pasture, they effectually banished the deer. The Scotch law of the forest provided that if goats were found for a third time in a forest, the forester was to hang one of them by the horns on a tree; whilst for a fourth time he was forthwith to slay one, and leave its bowels in the place, in token that they were found there.

In the lodgment or adjudication of claims before the eyre, goats are often expressly excluded. Thus the prioress of Wykeham, at the fourteenth-century Pickering eyre, claimed common of pasture in certain woods and adjoining wastes for all animals except goats; and when not mentioned, they were certainly tacitly excluded. On the other hand, at the same eyre, the claims of Gilbert de Ayton to pasture goats in the moors and woods of Hutton Bushel, within the covert and without, at all times of the year, and of Ralph de Hasting in his woods and moors at Allerston, Cross Cliff and Staindale were allowed. Certain stray goats found in the forest of Mara, Cheshire, in 1271, were forfeited to the master forester. The tenants of Broughton, in the Lancashire forest of Amounderness, had common pasture granted them at Fulwood, in 1334, for all animals save goats. At a swainmote in Wyersdale forest, in the same county, held at Whitsuntide, 1479, eight transgressors were presented for keeping goats; the goats numbered forty-one, eight of which belonged to the prioress of Seton. No fewer than fifty-six persons were presented at the Epping Forest justice seat of 1323-4 for keeping goats on the forest contrary to the assize.

When Henry III. was tarrying at Stamford in 1229, he was approached by the men on the royal demesne of Kingscliff and the neighbouring townships, complaining piteously that Hugh de Neville, the keeper of Rockingham forest, and his bailiffs prohibited them from turning out their goats in the forest of Cliff according to ancient custom. The goats must have been in considerable numbers, for the men asserted that they could not support their lives if this prohibition was sustained. The king thereupon ordered that they should be permitted to pasture their goats in the more open part of the wood (_in clariori bosco_), and wherever they would do the least injury to the forest.