Agricultural History Review, Volume 55 Part 2 (2007), p. 312

The royal forests were a point of contention for the English since they were first created by William the Conqueror after he took control of England. The new conqueror created royal forest preserves and maintained control over the right to hunt deer, wild boar and hare, to cut trees, and to clear any area for agriculture (assart). Perhaps about a quarter of England was reserved as royal forests in the twelfth century and in the thirteenth century there were still seventy royal forests. The control over the forests deprived the upper classes of the right to hunt in royal forests without a warrant from the king and promised stiff penalties to ordinary men who wanted to claim a bit of protein or wood for their own use. The royal forests were a new imposition and resistance to forest laws never died out. Poaching and other encroachments were common. Magna Carta also addressed the issue of forest rights.

Birrell, who has written on the royal forests, has provided a very valuable resource for students of the forest with her book of records of Feckenham Forest. While still one of the most important forests in the middle ages, it is only a part of what was reserved in 1086, according to the Domesday Book. A map shows the extent of the forest in 1300. Royal rights to forest lands had to be protected with keepers, who patrolled the forests, and courts that could arrest offenders. The chief forest court was the eyre. Itinerant justices work as a team and moved from forest to forest on specific circuits. They visited at several year intervals and the trials and reviews of the king’s forest rights went on for weeks. The justices called together hundreds of men who had property near the forest. It was a cumbersome business and died out by the end of the thirteenth century.

Birrell has published the plea rolls from the eyres of 1262, 1270, and 1280. A bill of complaint about felonies and trespasses is late thirteenth century. In addition she has included early rolls of assarts in the forest, a perambulation of the forest in 1300, and an inquisition of 1362. These records, located in The National Archives, are now available through her translations in full or in abstract. A glossary of terms at the end makes the cases easily accessible. An index of persons, places, and subjects aids researchers in pursuing their specific interests in the records of the royal forest.

Forest rolls are under-utilized for the study of economic and environmental history. The records show the importance of the forests for timber, as a source of additional agricultural land through assarting, and for the use of acorns for feeding pigs. Environmental history is just becoming an important area of historical research and forest records would be an exciting source on both the illegal pursuit of animals and also on the use of the vert (or the green materials and land of the forest). Those studying the economic and social history of a region could enrich their accounts by looking beyond manorial records to see how the forests supplemented local economies. For those who would like to know about the role of forests in the life of the nobility and other poachers, the forest rolls are invaluable.