FORESTRY Under the head of Venatio de Duffeld frith full particulars are given of all the venison taken in the forest and its disposal. The grand total for the year was : 1 hart, 96 bucks, and 25 does. Of these in addition to those salted and those sent for the earl's use at Donnington, Kenilworth and Melburne 6 bucks and 4 does went as tithe to the prior of Tutbury ; 2 bucks and 2 does to John de Swynnerton, 2 bucks and 4 does to Roger FitzNigel ; I buck and 2 does to Roger de Okeovor ; I doe to John Purchaz ; 3 does to Lady Matilda de Holand ; I buck to the lord of Crick ; I buck to Geoffrey Dettrick ; i buck to Edmund de Sprotton ; i buck to Lord Henry de Percy ; i buck to Peter de Raban ; i buck to Henry de Bradburne ; i buck to Roger de Mounteney ; i buck to the prior of Norton ; i buck to Richard le Foun ; and i buck to Lord Peter de Lymesey, all through the letters of the earl and of Lord Robert de Holand. Also 9 does for Lord Robert de Holand through his own letter. Under the heading Quercus, the master forester also made a list of the trees felled through divers orders of the earl. They are summed up as 1 6 oaks (quercus) and 6 robora. 1 The list of those to whom these trees were given distinguish the two sorts, and in some cases style it lignum, which may be taken to mean a beam of timber or the mere bole of the tree. Thomas de Ashburne, 2 oaks ; Cecilia, relict of Adam de Beaurepeir, i robur ; Nicholas Hubert, 2 robora ; Peter de Chapman, i lignum ; Alexander de Ripley, i lignum ; Ralph Bertram, I robur ; William de Bentley, i robur ; William de Ireton, 3 oaks ; Alice, wife of John le Claver, I lignum ; John Purchaz, 3 oaks ; Robert le Turner, i lignum ; Roger de Okeover, 2 ligna; John Bradburne, chaplain, i robur, and John Purchaz, i oak; through the letter of Lord Robert de Holand. The stock of the forest is next set forth under the heading ' Instaur de Duffeld.' The account is rendered by Robert Frely and Nicholas FitzGiles, the stockmen (tnstauratorei) of Duffield. The receipts, including about 14 of arrears, amounted to j6i Js. 8^d. The sale of 32 of the lord's oxen realized 23 y. $d., an exceptionally good price. A bull and 1 6 cows in calf sold for fy 13*. The skins and flesh of 4 cows, the skins of 6 cows, the skins and flesh of 4 steers, and the skins of 27 calves sold for 441. yd. The milk of 88 cows brought in ^9 2s. 6d. There were but few sheep on the outskirts of the forest ; the ewes were milked, but the sheep accounts were annexed to that of Hartington. The rest of the receipts came from mowing and carrying the hay of two tenants. The payments included 301. id. in wages for those who looked after the cattle and calves in Postern park; 365. ^d. for mowing, and 185. id. for haymaking and carrying the hay of 87 acres in the same park ; and 2is. 6d. for carrying 105 loads of hay from Longley meadows, Postern park, Morley park and Bullsmoor to the cowhouses of Postern and Belper. The sum of 35. 8d. was paid for stubbing up two acres of waste and hedging it in for the sustenance of calves and colts, and 35. id. for two quarters of oats for sowing the same. The dairy at Postern had i6s. %d. expended on its various buildings and 4*. yd. was spent on mending the road by the Ecclesburn to permit of the carriage of timber for the work. The sum of i6s. S^d. was spent on hedges and ditches round 'Maxenclif and ' Mareclos ' in the same park, and 4*. in repairing the fence of Bullsmoor. The expenses of Richard de Holand and three youths at Ashburne when selling stock came to iSd. and the cost of driving oxen and cows to different markets for sale cost 2s. ^d. A shilling was expended on drugs for sickly cattle, and lod. on a crib and a hamper for calves. The full return of the stock of Duffield Frith for that year was 38 oxen, 157 cows, 5 bulls, 33 heifers, 51 steers, and 73 cows. Of these there were sold, consumed or died in the course of the year, 30 oxen, 51 cows, 2 bulls, 4 steers and 34 calves. The ministers' accounts of 13267 yield, inter alia, many particulars as to the repairs of the royal lodge of Ravensdale ; 2 those of 1327-8 the repairs of the knight's lodge 1 The precise meaning of robur and in what it differed from quercus is by no means easy to ascer- tain. The two terms appear side by side in almost every old forest account throughout England. There is a dissertation on this in Turner's Picas of the Forest (147-8) citing many uses of the word robur ; it is there considered that it is equivalent to pollarded trees of oak or any other kind of tree. A wider range of references, and especially those of a later date than the thirteenth century, would probably qualify much that is there stated. Probably it may usually mean an oak that has been pollarded ; but is it not possible that quercus and robur, in at all events some forest rolls, may refer to the two indigenous varieties of oak sesslliflora and pedunculata ? The old foresters could not possibly have failed to notice the difference of their appearance, and particularly the decided difference of texture in their timber.
- Mins. Accts. Duchy of Lane. 6124.
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