Forest Courts
Forest
Court Records for Sherwood Forest
Because it was a Royal Forest it had its own Laws and the Court
convened every couple of years, as you can see the crimes were
not taken too seriously, later in Victorian times you would be
Transported for lesser crimes.
It was customary for the
lord of the Manor to allow his tenants to make use of his woods
and wastes for certain specified purposes. There were usually rights
to let animals forage there, for example, though the type of animal
and the appropriate season would be carefully specified. In addition
there were rights to use the woodland resources directly, known
as estovers [from a Norman French word meaning Necessities] It
would be aqreed that tenants had the right to take timber for certain
specific purposes called boots or botes a French word for certain
specific purposes. The most common of these were house boot, the
right to take timber for repair of one's house [in our area, husbote]
and hedge boot [locally known as haybote] the right to timber for
hedge stakes or fencing. The people of the manor of Mansfield certainly
had these two rights in their local woods by the time of Henry
I I, and probably earlier, but there were many other purposes for
which they needed timber. The only way to get it was to break the
forest law, but, not being stupid the government had taken the
advice of forestry experts and set a carefully graded scale of
fines for such offences.
The foresters actually wanted to be rid of some timber, such as
old and rotting trees, or unwieldley branches, so the penalty for
cutting these was only a few pence.
Hence it was no shame to appear in the forest courts for such minor
offences, and as a result, the court records name vast numbers
of people.
There were regular courts held by
local officials [such as the frequent, very localized “attachment courts”
and the famous Swanimotes which must once have been a major event in the Mansfield
calendar, but every so often a justice of the forest would visit, like a modern
circuit judge, to hear the most serious cases, [and to review the activities
of the local administrators .
There were two of these justices, one for each half of the nation, with the
river trent as the division between their territories.
In 1287 the justices of the forest beyond the Trent, William of Verscy, visited
Sherwood to hear some cases of trespass against the vert and venison [officially
protected flora and fauna) of the forest. It had been some years since the
last
great court before the itinerant justice, so the forest officers,reported
on a huge
number of cases, from about 1263 onward (in many, the defendants had died
years
before). The records were kept in Latin on this occasion (Norman French was
also
used sometimes) but just as dwellers in the Arctic have many specialised words
for
types of snow, so here many unusual terms were used, often taken straight
from local
English dialects, which would have meant nothing to Julius Caesar. Virtually
any
type of deer could be described in a single word: adult fallow bucks were
"damos",
hinds "damas", but fallow bucks in their second year were "priket
is", and so on'.
Similarly, there were single words to describe windfall trees ("cablicium"),
pollarded trees ("stubbis") and so on. In fact with the passage
of several centuries
since the Crown gave up most of its forest rights, the meaning of some terms
has to
be worked out by comparing occurrences in different texts (for example a "stub"
is
now an ordinary tree stump in many areas).
Anyway, here are some cases relating to the Mansfield Woodhouse area, beginning
with trespass of venison.
1267: On the Saturday after the feast of St Bartholomew (Aug 24) and the next
3
days, Sir John de Grey and others hunted :n various parts of Sherwood, including
the
woods of Wodehous and Nettelworth. They killed 4 red deer hinds and 1 fallow
deer
hind. John has since died.
1269: On the ?Wednesday before the feast of St Egidius (Sep 1), William of
Leyborn
chased one red deer hart from Pleseley Park and killed it in the woods of
Wodehous
(he also killed 2 fallow deer bucks in the wood of Arnold a day or so later).
He has
since redeemed himself by a payment of £10.
It is clear from these and other records that the woods of Woodhouse then
extended
to its northern boundary, a situation which, as we shall see, was to change
somewhat
over the next century.
1272: On the Saturday after the feast of St Andrew (Nov 30), Richard of Wodehous,
William of Wodehous and 13 others from neighbouring communities in Notts,
and
Derbys. went into the forest equipped with longbows, crossbows and a cart.
They took
a fallow doe in Derewelldale in the wood of Mansfield. Though Richard and
most at
the others have since redeemed themselves (he paid 10s), William and 2 others
have
not, and are to be outlawed.
It should be noted that most hunters used hounds, preferably greyhounds, to
chase
the deer (again, there were strict laws regarding the keeping of dogs in the
Royal
forests). The above syndicate evidently did not have access to such a luxury,
hence
the need for a large hunting party.
Trespasses of vert, as noted above, are much more common. The records of this
great court do not even give dates, just occasional marginal indications of
the
years. Fines paid seem usually to be given in full under the first record
involving
a particular person, with "Above" ("Supra") noted in later
entries. Places of
habitation are not always given, though usually cases for a particular place
are
grouped together (but bear in mind that those taking timber from Wodehous
woods mav
well have come from other communities nearby). Each offender had to provide
two
sureties (or six for more serious charges). The following, are just a few
samples of
the records from the 1287 court. To.save space, I have abbreviated Wodehous
as Whs.
4; for 1263-6 include:'
son of Adam of Whs, to pay 1/2 mark, for trespass of growing branches--&
7 saplings.
Sureties Walter Bolour & Roger Attewell of Whs.
Alan son of Gilbert of Whs, 2s, for trespass of 2 growing oaks & 4 saplings.
Sureties Walter Ie Bolour & Robert Ie Bolour.
Mathew at-Well, 1/2 mark, for 3 saplings & other trespasses. Sureties
Alan of the Cellar
& Robert son of Ede.
Sylvester at-Town-head of Whs, 2s, for trespass of growing branches. Sureties
John
son of William of Whs.
As a footnote to this it is noted that in 1263 we had John/Walter & Robert
Bolour but in 1292 we are down to Walter & Robert, we can assume from
this that John was father to these two?
In volume 2 of the Forest Courts it is noted that Robert's father was still
alive in the 1280s.
home.htm