Forest laws in England and Normandy in the twelfth century

Abstract

One of the oldest ideas about the Norman conquest is that William the Conqueror introduced into England from Normandy the legal concept of 'foresta', land where hunting and the environment in which it took place were protected by draconian laws. The laws were not imposed on a blank canvas, and a combination of different factors, such as earlier extensive royal hunting rights, the king's will, the application of forest law to land 'outside' that organized in manors and assessed for geld, and the status of escheated land as temporary royal demesne, all worked towards a great expansion of the afforested area. In England a great deal of non-royal demesne was under forest law, whereas in Normandy ducal forests were broadly speaking ducal demesne. In England the competing interests of royal sport and revenue and those of the political elite combined with population pressure to make the forests a toxic political issue in a way not paralleled in Normandy.

Royal and non-royal forests and chases in England and Wales

“…of soil, covert, laws, courts, judges, officers, game, and certain bounds’ . Forests contained land that belonged to and was used for all other purposes than game preservation and hunting by subjects as well as kings . People could not hunt over their own land in forests, while the king could chase his game, known as ‘venison’ (mainly deer of various kinds and wild boar), anywhere inside forest bounds.…”