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.
[Illustration: _PLATE VII_
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.