FORESTRY THE Domesday Survey of 1086 yields clear evidence that this small county was fairly well wooded in the early days of the Norman settlement. Not only was wood at that time of the first importance for building and inclosure purposes, and more especially for the providing of fuel, but as the flesh of swine was such a primary article of diet throughout England for the poorer classes, the woods with their acorns and occasional beech-mast were in- valuable for fattening purposes during the autumn season. Hence it came about that in various counties the commissioners were content to estimate the value of the woods by the number of pigs that they could, on the average, support at pannage time ; for the oak throughout Eng- land was at that period and for long afterwards the dominant tree. Now and again, but very rarely, a wood was returned as infructuosa^ or by some kindred expression, a term that signified a wood of ashes or of some other timber, where oaks and beeches were absent. In the case of Rutland the extent of wood- land is for the most part entered under the re- spective manors by linear measure, the size of the wood being roughly set forth in leagues and furlongs, and occasionally in square measure by acres. Out of the thirty-two manors of Rut- land twelve were destitute of woodland. The latter were chiefly manors on the fringes of three sides of the county, the wooded parts being in the centre and adjoining the Leicestershire or western boundary. These twelve woodless divisions were Thistleton, Teigh, Whissendine, and Ashwell on the north ; Little Casterton, Tolethorpe, Belmesthorpe, Tinwell, Tickencote, and LufFenham on the east ; and Liddington and Glaston near the south. Of the other manors Hambleton had the largest extent of woodland, for it measured 3 leagues by li leagues, and is described as under- wood but furnishing pannage in places (' silva minuta fertilis per loca'). Underwood is men- tioned again at Bisbrooke, where there was a patch i furlongs square. In several of these manors the wood is described as pastilis per /oca, a phrase probably synonymous with fertilis per loca, as at Greetham, Market Overton, and elsewhere. At Barrowden there were 6 acres of thicket or thorny growth {spinetum), 3 acres of the like at Tixover, and other patches at Great Casterton and Seaton. The forest of Rutland — usually known as the forest of Rutland and Leicestershire up to 1235, when the Leicestershire portion was dis- afforested — embraced in the 13th century the whole of the southern part of the county, and at least half the total area. It included all below a line drawn straight across Rutland from a little above Oakham on the west to Great Casterton on the east. It afterwards underwent consider- able reductions on the eastern side, and had much shrunk in area by the 17th century, when it was between 11 and 12 miles in length, extend- ing from just below Oakham in the north to Caldecott in the extreme south ; its greatest width was about 6 miles. A narrow parallel strip of Leicestershire originally belonged to the same forest jurisdiction. Misunderstanding as to the old term ' forest' is so persistent that it is not perhaps superfluous to state that the expression ' forest' in its mediaeval use had no necessary connexion with the idea of a dense or extended wood. ' A forest,' says Mr. Turner, * is a tract of land within which a particular body of law is enforced, having for its object the preservation of certain animals y^r*?^ naturae. ^ Its use was reserved for the king and for those who bore his definite licence, and its rights were maintained by local courts and by itinerant forest justices who held Pleas of the Forest at fluctuating periods. Several of these great hunt- ing tracts, such as the forests of the High Peak, Dartmoor, or Exmoor, could never have been more than very sparsely wooded in a few places at any time in their history ; but as other forests were much overgrown with timber and under- wood, and as a certain amount of thicket was always requisite as covert for the game, the term gradually came to be used for a large wood. As for Rutland, its forest district, like that of the New Forest, seems to have included a far larger amount of open moor or waste tiian of actual wood or underwood. ' Select Pleas of the Forest (Selden Soc). This excellent work should be consulted by all desirous of understanding old forest laws and customs. Dr. Cox's Royal Forests covers much of the same ground after a more popular fashion. 251
