A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE Matthew de Hathersage, a baron, who had considerably increased his power in the county by marrying the heiress of Musard, was presented for having a buckstall in his great wood at Hathersage, which was distant barely two bowshots from the king's forest. The baron contended that his ancestors had always had a buckstall in their wood, and that formerly it was still nearer the bounds of the Peak forest. The upshot of the matter was that the decision was against Matthew, who had to pay a fine of 20 marks. 1 The fines imposed for venison trepasses varied at this eyre from ,100 to 131. 4<f. and seem to have been proportioned in accordance with the position of the offender as well as the comparative gravity of the offence. The long intervals between the eyres and the frequent changes of the forest custodian, together with the wildness of the country, seem to have led to the Peak forest being hunted with a certain amount of impunity by not a few of the nobility and gentry of Derbyshire and of the adjacent parts of Yorkshire and Cheshire. The game at this period was entirely red deer, save for the single instance of a presentment against Robert de Wurth for killing a roebuck, for which offence a huge fine of 100 was imposed. The amount of this fine had nothing to do with the nature of the game, but was caused by the non-appearance of the accused, accompanied probably by some aggravating circumstances not recorded on the brief entry on the plea rolls. When the justices at the 1251 pleas came to the consideration of vert offences and encroachments various particulars were missing. Matthew de Langesdon and Adam de Stanton, hereditary verderers, were each fined 2os. for not producing their fathers' rolls. There seems to have been much carelessness among the various officials in the keeping of their respective yearly lists of offences. Peter del Hurst, regarder of one section of the Peak forest, was fined ioj. for the non-presentment of assarts and purprestures in his rolls. A considerable number of agisters were at the same time declared in mercy for not producing their agistment rolls according to the custom and assize of the forest. There is, however, a fairly long list of vert offences (about 60) that had accrued within the crown demesnes since 1218, the damage done being in most cases valued at 6d. The majority of the offenders the offences were probably trifling had simply to find pledges for their future observance of the forest assize. Heirs were held responsible for their fathers' offences in two or three cases. Many of these vert trespassers were of good position. The worst case at this eyre was that of Roger Foljambe, who was fined the large sum of twenty marks for many transgressions : his pledges were John Foljambe and Walter Coterell. The question of assarts was always an important one at forest pleas, particularly as licences and offences relative thereto yielded a considerable revenue. Assart rolls were presented to the justices at this eyre from the days when William, Earl Ferrers, was bailiff", at the beginning of the reign, down to the current year. The word ' assart ' signifies the reduction of waste or woodland to a condition of cultivation. The punishment for a trespass of this kind was a fine at the next eyre, and a further sum per acre for the crops sown on it. This latter pay- ment was usually is. per acre for every crop of winter corn and 6d. an acre for spring corn. The tenant of an assart was as a rule allowed to retain it, but he had to account for the crops at the next eyre. But there was considerable diversity of practice and custom on this ques- tion. In most forests, as in the Peak, assarts were resumed by the crown whenever the pleas were held, save in those cases where there had been a licence by the bailiff" or keeper, or (in some cases) by a forester of fee. Thus in the first roll of assarts presented at this Peak eyre, on which twenty-two cases are entered, two of these assarts that had been made without warrant many years before were taken into the king's hands ; and in one case, where William the smith (deceased) had made an assart of three acres without warrant in the liberty of the abbot of Basingwerk, in the days of Robert de Lexington (122833), the then abbot was allowed to retain it as tenant. The abbot of Basingwerk, in the time of John de Grey, was reported as having assarted i acres at Whitfield without the demesne, and enclosed it so as to prevent the free roving of the deer and their fawns, and this without warrant ; at the time when the justices were sitting the fence had been removed, and it was declared in the hands of the king. The usual custom in the Peak, at this time, seems to have been for the tenant 1 A buckstall was an extended trap or toil for deer of which nets usually formed a component part: but the definition generally given 'a net for taking deer' is not sufficient. Earth ramparts and wattled work were also used in its construction : it was a kind of cunning enclosure wherein the deer could be taken alive, as is implied in the term deerhay : a ' buckstalle vel derehay ' is named in presentments of Clarendon forest, Wilts. Under later legislation the maintaining a buckstall anywhere save in a private park was forbidden under a penalty of 40. 402
