The Royal Forest of Exmoor: the Middle Ages

THE ROYAL FOREST OF EXMOOR: THE MIDDLE AGES

In the late 12th century Exmoor forest may have extended from the sea on the north to the Devon river Yeo on the south and from the rivers Bray and Haddon in the west to the Exe and Horner Water on the east. The term ‘forest’ in medieval England did not refer to woodland. Lowland forests like the New Forest were wooded but upland forests such as Exmoor were not. A forest was a legal sanctuary for game animals preserved for the sport or table of the king. Jurisdiction varied from the complete implementation of forest law to a simple ban on hunting deer. It may be that for many of the outlying parishes only the latter applied.

Medieval Foresters

The office of royal forester or warden, responsible for all Somerset’s royal forests, was hereditary and was held by the lords of Newton Plecy in North Petherton. Exmoor forest was in the hands of under-foresters who probably bought their appointment from the forester and until 1298 had to make their living from imposing charges on the local people. Walter and Robert the foresters witnessed a grant to Forde Abbey in the early 13th century. In 1276 the jurors of Brushford manor, which lay outside the forest, complained that

‘John de Camera, a forester of Exmore, charged William of la Worthe concerning a certain stag he was thought to have taken from the …Forest…and imprisoned him until he had from him twenty shillings. And afterwards the country came and acquitted the said William of la Worthe.’

Two Exmoor verderers were answerable directly to the king and elected in the county court. They were unpaid but held forest courts, kept records of offences to present to the king’s court, and held inquiries into deaths of deer. Twelve regarders were required to inspect the forest every three years. Woodwards, appointed by the owners of woodland within the forest, did most of the work on the ground, catching poachers and finding dead deer or damage to the land.[1]

Forest law

The inclusion of estates, farms and villages in the forest in the 12th and 13th centuries, changed its nature and subjected people to forest law in their own homes. The Assize of the Forest in 1184 was a collection of laws designed to protect deer, wild boar, and other animals for hunting. Forest law protected the animals and the ‘vert’, the woodland and vegetation on which the animals depended. People in the forest forbidden to take game, cut trees, collect fuel, cut turf, clear or cultivate land, or graze livestock without payment. Under forest law farmers could not assart, that is extend their cultivated land by clearing and improving new land. There were restrictions on the dogs and weapons they could keep. New settlement was impossible without breaking the law.

Somerset fared worse than Devon with regard to forest law. In 1204 Devon Exmoor was disafforested, that is freed from forest law, although the charter was procured great expense, 1,000 marks or £666. In 1240 Dartmoor was disafforested and a number of pioneer farms were created there. Such expansion was impossible in Somerset Exmoor until the 19th century.[2] In 1204 Forde abbey obtained from King John freedom from most forest jurisdiction over their estates including Ashway in Dulverton. Attempts to disafforest Dulverton, Exton, and Winsford in 1219 were unsuccessful. There was conflict between the forest and settlements throughout the 13th century. The jurors of Carhampton hundred complained in the 1240s that the forester took the herbage of their common pasture but their presentment was dismissed as foolish because it concerned the forest.[3] Court records for 1257 and 1270, show that the Somerset parishes of southern Exmoor suffered from the restrictions forest law imposed. The royal forest courts or eyres were itinerant. On 26 November 1257 the eyre was held at Ilchester, some 50 miles away, a long journey for the men of Exmoor in early winter. Those accused of unlawful hunting usually fled and were outlawed but the settlements they came from faced heavy fines. Men from the north of Dulverton parish had committed offences against the vert, possibly through taking firewood. People were fined for making assarts, new fields, in the forest to grow corn. The rector of Hawkridge was charged 10s for having grown winter and spring corn on a 4-a. assart and 3s for sowing a new 1 ½-a. assart, probably greatly in excess of the value of his crops. The new assart was forfeit to the king. Elias of la Sele [Zeal] in Hawkridge and seven others were fined for sowing assarts.

The record of the court of May 1270, also in Ilchester, illustrates the growing pressure on the forest as an exclusive royal hunting ground. In 1257 few people had ignored the law and hunted in the forest, and they had fled. In 1270 many incidents of illegal hunting and removal of venison were recorded and several suspects were in prison. The royal forester was accused of failing to raise the hue and cry when poachers from Anstey had been hunting for three days. Most offenders came from within the forest but also from Bampton, Linton, and North Molton. The offences were up to ten years old, some suspects had died, and the offenders included gentlemen and clergy. Thomas de Tracy was hunting in Devon in 1266 but his stag ran into the forest and was caught at Hawkridge and taken to Tawstock. The rector of Oare was found guilty of receiving venison at the parsonage from his son and servant, which cost him a 20s fine. A more typical case was that involving Thomas le Shetere of Gourt and William Wyme of Bremley from Molland who entered the forest in 1267

‘with bows and arrows with intent to do evil to the venison of the Lord King, and shot one hind and afterwards chased her into the wood at Langcombe outside the metes of the forest and there took her and carried her away to their houses in Molaunde,…they were harboured in the house of John then the chaplain of Hauekrigge, who consented to their evil deeds. The same chaplain came and is detained in prison. And the others have not come…’

The sheriff of Devon was required to bring them to court, Dulverton, Ashway Ashwick, and Hurdecombe townships were fined, and the chaplain was pardoned for the sake of the king’s soul. The court also fined seven men from Exford and Withypool for making turbaries or peat cuttings for fuel in the king’s demesne.[4]

Although poaching was the main concern of the courts, for the majority of local people it was the restrictions on their farming and fuel gathering activities that caused most trouble. In 1279 a list of grievances included the following complaint from the people of Exmoor, probably landowners, against the frequent arrests made by foresters.

… the men who work in their waste ground to make enclosures to sow corn, although the king has no demesne, the foresters attach (arrest) these to come before them, and say that they have made waste and purpresture (illegal enclosure), if they do not their will to have peace; and from each man holding land they claim to have the skin of a lamb or a halfpenny, and say that it is their fee.[5]

Perambulations of the forest in 1298 and 1300 boldly stated that the manors and parishes lay outside the forest and had been wrongfully included and this was confirmed in 1301. It took several years for the forest officials, to accept the new boundaries and traditional practices like assarting and swaling, burning to improve grazing, continued to cause conflict. Gradually the forest administration decayed and the forest was leased in 1506. Edward II sent his huntsmen to Exeter to kill 20 stags in 1315 but that is the only such record. Exmoor was too remote to interest kings with access to forests closer to home.The deer were a valued resource because other people could be sold licences to hunt them and poaching continued to be severely punished. James Audley was presented in 1364 for having his park in North Molton so badly inclosed that the king’s deer could get in, and by inference remain.[6]

Grazing in the Forest

Many local people benefited from extensive grazing in the forest, which was an important source of income. The system of local forest courts, which brought together representatives of all the communities of greater Exmoor from both sides of the county boundary, ensured that grazing was efficiently maintained. Forest and manor courts enabled local communities to use the extensive forest and manorial commons to best advantage. The estates of the 11th-century foresters in Hawkridge and Withypool were probably let out with their duties and privileges. Until the 19th century those lands carried with them 52 ‘suits’, or rights, whose occupiers were known as ‘free suitors’. The lands are not named until the 18th century by which date they were a mixture of fields and farms into which the lands had been incorporated. The original basis on which suits were allocated is unknown and they had been divided or accumulated with the lands to which they belonged. A tenant was entitled to as many suits as were attached to the lands rented. As well as doing suit to the forest courts, suitors had to attend the drive of the forest on horseback. That happened nine times a year in the 17th century to round up the ponies, cattle or sheep. Similar drifts had probably been held for centuries. The free suitors also had to perambulate the forest and to serve on a coroner’s jury if a corpse was found in the forest. In return they had free grazing in the forest for each suit they held for 140 sheep, 5 horses, as many cattle as could be wintered on the land to which the suit was attached, and a sow and a number of young pigs depending on their age, all ringed. Free suitors could also take as much turf, heath, and fern as they could consume on their holdings and to fish in the rivers in the forest and in the lands to which the suits were attached. The ‘suitors at large’, everyone else who owed suit to the forest court including the owners of other land in Hawkridge and Withypool, had to pay for their grazing rights. Indeed without payments for grazing it is difficult to see how the Crown could have afforded to maintain the forest.[7]

Mary SuiratPage 1 Exmoor Reference

[1] MacDermot, E T, A History of the Forest of Exmoor (1911; new edn, Newton Abbot, 1973), 66—73; VCH Somerset, VI, 285—8; Hobbs, S, ed., The Cartulary of Forde Abbey (Somerset Record Society 85, 1998), p. 123.

[2] Turner, S. ed. Medieval Devon and Cornwall: Shaping an Ancient Countryside (Macclesfield, 2006), 124—5.

[3] Chadwyck-Healey, C.E. (ed.), Somersetshire Pleas c. 1200—1256 (Somerset Record Society 11, 1897), p. 302.

[4] MacDermot, A History of the Forest of Exmoor, 79—91.

[5] MacDermot, A History of the Forest of Exmoor, 55.

[6] MacDermot, A History of the Forest of Exmoor, 46—7, 91, 101, 137—59.

[7] MacDermot, E T, A History of the Forest of Exmoor, 181—218, 451—2; SRO, tithe award, Hawkridge and Withypool.