Aroyal forest, occasionally known as akingswood (Latin:silva regis),^[1][2] is an area of land with different definitions inEngland,Wales,Scotland andIreland. The termforest in the ordinary modern understanding refers to an area of wooded land; however, the original medieval sense was closer to the modern idea of a "preserve" – i.e. land legally set aside for specific purposes such as royal hunting – with less emphasis on its composition. There are also differing and contextual interpretations inContinental Europe derived from theCarolingian andMerovingian legal systems.^[3]

InAnglo-Saxon England, though the kings were great huntsmen, they never set aside areas declared to be "outside" (Latinforis) the law of the land.^[4] Historians find no evidence of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs (c. 500 to 1066) creating forests.^[5] However, under the Norman kings (after 1066), by royal prerogative forest law was widely applied.^[6] The law was designed to protect the "venison and the vert". In this sense,venison meant "noble" animals of the chase – notablyred andfallow deer, theroe deer, andwild boar – andvert meant the greenery that sustained them. Forests were designed ashunting areas reserved for the monarch or (by invitation) thearistocracy. The concept was introduced by theNormans to England in the 11th century, and at the height of this practice in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, fully one-third of the land area ofSouthern England was designated as royal forest. At one stage in the 12th century, all ofEssex was afforested. On accessionHenry II declared all ofHuntingdonshire to be a royal forest.^[4]

Afforestation, in particular the creation of theNew Forest, figured large in the folk history of the "Norman yoke", which magnified what was already a grave social ill: "the picture of prosperous settlements disrupted, houses burned,peasants evicted, all to serve the pleasure of the foreign tyrant, is a familiar element in the English national story .... The extent and intensity of hardship and of depopulation have been exaggerated",H. R. Loyn observed.^[4] Forest law prescribed harsh punishment for anyone who committed any of a range of offences within the forests; by the mid-17th century, enforcement of this law had died out, but many of England's woodlands still bore the title "Royal Forest". During theMiddle Ages, the practice of reserving areas of land for the sole use of the aristocracy was common throughout Europe.

Royal forests usually included large areas ofheath,grassland andwetland – anywhere that supporteddeer and othergame. In addition, when an area was initially designated forest, any villages, towns and fields that lay within it were also subject to forest law. This could foster resentment as the local inhabitants were then restricted in the use of land they had previously relied upon for their livelihoods; however, common rights were not extinguished, but merely curtailed.^[7]

The areas that became royal forests were already relatively wild and sparsely populated, and can be related to specific geographic features that made them harder to work as farmland.

In theSouth West of England, forests extended across theUpper Jurassic Clay Vale.^[8] Inthe Midlands, the clay plain surrounding theRiver Severn was heavily wooded. Clay soils inOxfordshire, Buckinghamshire,Huntingdonshire andNorthamptonshire formed another belt of woodlands. InHampshire, Berkshire andSurrey, woodlands were established on sandy, gravelly, acid soils. In the Scots Highlands, a "deer forest" generally has no trees at all.

Marshlands inLincolnshire were afforested.^[9] Upland moors too were chosen, such asDartmoor andExmoor in the South West, and the Peak Forest ofDerbyshire.The North Yorkshire moors, a sandstone plateau, had a number of royal forests.^[8]

William the Conqueror, a great lover of hunting, established the system of forest law. This operated outside thecommon law, and served to protectgame animals and their forest habitat from destruction. In the year of his death, 1087, a poem, "The Rime of King William", inserted in thePeterborough Chronicle, expresses English indignation at the forest laws.

Offences in forest law were divided into two categories: trespass against the vert (the vegetation of the forest) and trespass against thevenison (the game).

The five animals of the forest protected by law were given byManwood as thehart andhind (i.e. male and female red deer),boar,hare andwolf. (In England, the boar became extinct in the wild by the 13th century, and the wolf by the late 15th century.) Protection was also said to be extended to the beasts ofchase, namely thebuck anddoe (fallow deer), fox,marten, androe deer, and the beasts and fowls ofwarren: thehare,coney,pheasant, andpartridge.^[10] In addition, inhabitants of the forest were forbidden to bear hunting weapons, and dogs were banned from the forest;mastiffs were permitted as watchdogs, but they had to have their front claws removed to prevent them from hunting game. The rights of chase and of warren (i.e. to hunt such beasts) were often granted to local nobility for a fee, but were a separate concept.

Trespasses against the vert were extensive: they includedpurpresture,assarting, clearing forest land for agriculture, and felling trees or clearing shrubs, among others. These laws applied to any land within the boundary of the forest, even if it were freely owned; although theCharter of the Forest in 1217 established that all freemen owning land within the forest enjoyed the rights ofagistment andpannage. Under the forest laws, bloody hand was a kind of trespass by which the offender, being apprehended and found with his hands or other body part stained with blood, is judged to have killed the deer, even though he was not found hunting or chasing.^[11]

Disafforested lands on the edge of the forest were known aspurlieus; agriculture was permitted here and deer escaping from the forest into them were permitted to be killed if causing damage.

Payment for access to certain rights could provide a useful source of income. Local nobles could be granted a royal licence to take a certain amount of game. The common inhabitants of the forest might, depending on their location, possess a variety of rights:estover, the right of taking firewood;pannage, the right to pasture swine in the forest;turbary, the right to cut turf (as fuel); and various other rights of pasturage (agistment) and harvesting the products of the forest. Land might be disafforested entirely, or permission given forassart andpurpresture.

The justices of the forest were thejustices in eyre and theverderers.

The chief royal official was the warden. As he was often an eminent and preoccupied magnate, his powers were frequently exercised by a deputy. He supervised theforesters and under-foresters, who personally went about preserving the forest and game and apprehending offenders against the law. Theagisters supervised pannage and agistment and collected any fees thereto appertaining. The nomenclature of the officers can be somewhat confusing: the rank immediately below the constable was referred to as foresters-in-fee, or, later,woodwards, who held land in the forest in exchange for rent, and advised the warden. They exercised various privileges within theirbailiwicks. Their subordinates were the under-foresters, later referred to asrangers. The rangers are sometimes said to be patrollers of the purlieu.

Another group, calledserjeants-in-fee, and later, foresters-in-fee (not to be confused with the above), held small estates in return for their service in patrolling the forest and apprehending offenders.

The forests also hadsurveyors, who determined the boundaries of the forest, andregarders. These last reported to the court of justice-seat and investigated encroachments on the forest and invasion of royal rights, such as assarting. While their visits were infrequent, due to the interval of time between courts, they provided a check against collusion between the foresters and local offenders.

Blackstone gives the following outline of theforest courts, as theoretically constructed:

• Court of attachment, sometimes called theForty-Day Court orWoodmote. This court was held every forty days, and was presided over by verderers and the Warden, or his deputy. The forestersattached persons who had committed crimes against the forest law and brought them before this court to have them enrolled; however, it did not possess the power to try or convict individuals, and such cases had to be passed upwards to the swainmote or the court of justice seat.
• Court of regard, held every third year to enforce the law requiring declawing of dogs within the forest.
• Swainmote orSweinmote was held three times a year: the fortnight before the feast of St. Michael, about the feast of St. Martin, and the fortnight before the feast of St. John the Baptist. It was presided over by the Warden and verderers, the foresters andagisters being in attendance. The first two occasions were to regulate agistment and pannage, respectively; the third was for the purpose of trying offenders before a jury ofswains, or freemen of the forest. The name of the court is sometimes said to be derived fromswine, probably a misapprehension through its regulation of pannage.
• Court of justice-seat oreyre was the highest of the forest courts. It was to be held every three years, to be announced forty days in advance, and was presided over by ajustice in eyre. It was, in theory, the only court that could pass sentence upon offenders of the forest laws.

In practice, these fine distinctions were not always observed. In theForest of Dean, swainmote and the court of attachment seem to have been one and the same throughout most of its history. As the courts of justice-seat were held less frequently, the lower courts assumed the power to fine offenders against the forest laws, according to a fixed schedule. The courts of justice-seat crept into disuse, and in 1817, the office of justice in eyre was abolished and its powers transferred to theFirst Commissioner of Woods and Forests. Courts of swainmote and attachment went out of existence at various dates in the different forests. A Court of Swainmote was re-established in theNew Forest in 1877.

Since theNorman Conquest of England, the forest, chase and warren lands had been exempted from thecommon law and subject only to the authority of the king, but these customs had faded into obscurity by the time ofThe Restoration.^[12]

William I, original enactor of the Forest Law in England, did not harshly penalise offenders. The accusation that he "laid a law upon it, that whoever slew hart or hind should beblinded," according to theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle is little more than propaganda.William Rufus, also a keen hunter, increased the severity of the penalties for various offences to include death and mutilation. The laws were in part codified under the Assize of the Forest (1184)^[13] ofHenry II.

Magna Carta, thecharter forced upon KingJohn of England by the English barons in 1215, contained five clauses relating to royal forests. They aimed to limit, and even reduce, the King's sole rights as enshrined in forest law. The clauses were as follows (taken from translation of the great charter that is theMagna Carta):^[14]

• (44) People who live outside the forest need not in future appear before theRoyal Justices of the Forest in answer to general summonses, unless they are actually involved in proceedings or aresureties for someone who has been seized for a forest offence.
• (47) All forests that have been created in our reign shall at once be disafforested. River-banks that have been enclosed in our reign shall be treated similarly.
• (48) All evil customs relating to forests and warrens, foresters, warreners, sheriffs and their servants, or river-banks and their wardens, are at once to be investigated in every county by twelve sworn knights of the county, and within forty days of their enquiry the evil customs are to be abolished completely and irrevocably. But we, or our chief justice if we are not in England, are first to be informed.
• (52) To any man whom we have deprived or dispossessed of lands, castles, liberties, or rights, without the lawful judgement of his equals, we will at once restore these. In cases of dispute the matter shall be resolved by the judgement of the twenty-five barons referred to below in the clause for securing the peace (§ 61). In cases, however, where a man was deprived or dispossessed of something without the lawful judgement of his equals by our fatherKing Henry or our brotherKing Richard, and it remains in our hands or is held by others under our warranty, we shall have respite for the period commonly allowed toCrusaders, unless a lawsuit had been begun, or an enquiry had been made at our order, before we took the Cross as a Crusader. On our return from the Crusade, or if we abandon it, we will at once render justice in full.
• (53) We shall have similar respite [to that in clause 52] in rendering justice in connexion with forests that are to be disafforested, or to remain forests, when these were first afforested by our father Henry or our brother Richard; with the guardianship of lands in another person's `fee', when we have hitherto had this by virtue of a `fee' held of us for knight's service by a third party; and with abbeys founded in another person's `fee', in which the lord of the `fee' claims to own a right. On our return from the Crusade, or if we abandon it, we will at once do full justice to complaints about these matters.

After the death of John,Henry III was compelled to grant theCharter of the Forest (1217), which further reformed the forest law and established the rights of agistment and pannage on private land within the forests. It also checked certain of the extortions of the foresters. An "Ordinance of the Forest" underEdward I again checked the oppression of the officers and introduced sworn juries in the forest courts.

In 1300 many (if not all) forests wereperambulated and reduced greatly in their extent, in theory to their extent in the time ofHenry II. However, this depended on the determination of local juries, whose decisions often excluded from the Forest lands described inDomesday Book as within the forest. Successive kings tried to recover the "purlieus" excluded from a forest by the Great Perambulation of 1300. Forest officers periodically fined the inhabitants of the purlieus for failing to attend Forest Court or for forest offences. This led to complaints in Parliament. The king promised to remedy the grievances, but usually did nothing.

Several forests were alienated byRichard II and his successors, but generally the system decayed.Henry VII revived "Swainmotes" (forest courts) for several forests and held Forest Eyres in some of them.Henry VIII in 1547 placed the forests under theCourt of Augmentations with two Masters and two Surveyors-General. On the abolition of that court, the two surveyors-general became responsible to the Exchequer. Their respective divisions were north and south of theRiver Trent.

The last serious exercise of forest law by a court of justice-seat (Forest Eyre) seems to have been in about 1635, in an attempt to raise money.

Delimitation of Forests Act 1640[a]
Act of Parliament
Parliament of England
Long title	An Act for the caertainty of Forrests and of the Meers Meets Limits & Bounds of the Forrests.[b]
Citation	16 Cha. 1. c. 16
Territorial extent	England and Wales
Dates
Royal assent	7 August 1641[15][16]
Commencement	3 November 1640[c]
Repealed	1 July 1971[d]
Other legislation
Repealed by	Wild Creatures and Forest Laws Act 1971
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted

By theTudor period and after, forest law had largely become anachronistic, and served primarily to protect timber in the royal forests.James I and his ministersRobert Cecil andLionel Cranfield pursued a policy of increasing revenues from the forests and starting the process of disafforestation.^[17]

Cecil made the first steps towards abolition of the forests, as part of James I's policy of increasing his income independently of Parliament. Cecil investigated forests that were unused for royal hunting and provided little revenue from timber sales.Knaresborough Forest in Yorkshire was abolished. Revenues in the Forest of Dean were increased through sales of wood for iron smelting. Enclosures were made in Chippenham and Blackmore for herbage and pannage.^[17]

Cranfield commissioned surveys intoassart lands of various forests, including Feckenham, Sedgemoor and Selwood, laying the foundations of the wide-scale abolition of forests underCharles I. The commissioners appointed raised over £25,000 by compounding with occupiers, whose ownership was confirmed, subject to a fixed rent. Cranfield's work led directly to the disafforestation of Gillingham Forest in Dorset and Chippenham and Blackmore in Wiltshire. Additionally, he created the model for the abolition of the forests followed throughout the 1630s.^[18]

Each disafforestation would start with a commission from the Exchequer, which would survey the forest, determine the lands belonging to the crown, and negotiate compensation for landowners and tenants whose now-traditional rights to use of the land as commons would be revoked. A legal action by the Attorney General would then proceed in the Court of Exchequer against the forest residents for intrusion, which would confirm the settlement negotiated by the commission. Crown lands would then be granted (leased), usually to prominent courtiers, and often the same figures that had undertaken the commission surveys. Legal complaints about the imposed settlements and compensation were frequent.^[18]

The disafforestations caused riots andSkimmington processions resulting in the destruction of enclosures and reoccupation of grazing lands in a number of West Country forests, including Gillingham, Braydon and Dean, known as the Western Rising. Riots also took place in Feckenham, Leicester and Malvern. The riots followed the physical enclosure of lands previously used as commons, and frequently led to the destruction of fencing and hedges. Some were said to have had a "warlike" character, with armed mobs numbering hundreds, for instance in Feckenham. The rioters in Dean fully destroyed the enclosures surrounding 3,000 acres in groups that numbered thousands of participants.

The disturbances tended to involve artisans and cottagers who were not entitled to compensation. The riots were hard to enforce against, due to the lack of efficient militia, and the low-born nature of the participants.^[19] Ultimately, however, enclosure succeeded, with the exceptions of Dean and Malvern Chase.

In 1641, Parliament passed the Delimitation of Forests Act 1640 (16 Cha. 1. c. 16, also known asSelden's Act) to revert the forest boundaries to the positions they had held at the end of the reign of James I.^[16]

This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(March 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Forest of Dean was legally re-established in 1668 by theDean Forest Act 1667.^[20] A Forest Eyre was held for theNew Forest in 1670, and a few for other forests in the 1660s and 1670s, but these were the last. From 1715, both surveyors' posts (covering England north and south of the Trent respectively) were held by the same person. The remaining royal forests continued to be managed (in theory, at least) on behalf of the Crown. However, the commoners' rights of grazing often seem to have been more important than the rights of the Crown.

In the late 1780s, aRoyal Commission was appointed to inquire into which Crown woods were surviving, and their condition. It found only one north of the Trent,Sherwood Forest. South of the Trent, it found theNew Forest, three others inHampshire, Windsor Forest inBerkshire, theForest of Dean in Gloucestershire, Waltham orEpping Forest in Essex, three forests inNorthamptonshire, andWychwood in Oxfordshire. Some of these no longer had swainmote courts, and thus had no official supervision. The Commission divided the remaining forests into two classes, those with the Crown as major landowner, and those without. In certain Hampshire forests and in the Forest of Dean most of the soil belonged to the Crown, and these became reserved to grow timber to meet the need foroak forshipbuilding. The others would be enclosed, the Crown receiving an "allotment" (compensation) in lieu of its rights.

In 1810, responsibility for woods was moved from Surveyors-General (who accounted to the Auditors of Land Revenue) to a newCommission of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues. In 1832 "Works and Buildings" were added to their responsibilities, but removed in 1851. In 1924, the Royal Forests were transferred to the newForestry Commission (later to becomeForestry England).

The Forest of Dean was used as a source ofcharcoal forironmaking within the Forest from 1612 until about 1670. It was the subject of a Reafforestation Act in 1667. Courts continued to be held at theSpeech House, for example, to regulate the activities of theFreeminers. The sale ofcordwood for charcoal continued until at least the late 18th century. Deer were removed in 1850. The forest is today heavily wooded, as is a substantial formerly privately owned area to the west, now treated as part of the forest. It is managed byForestry England.

Epping and Hainault Forest are surviving remnants of the Royal Forest of Waltham.^[21] The extent of Epping and Hainault Forests was greatly reduced by inclosure by landowners. The Hainault Forest Act 1851 was passed by Parliament, ending the Royal protection for Hainault Forest. Within six weeks 3000 acres of woodland was cleared.^[22] TheCorporation of London wished to see Epping Forest preserved as anopen space and obtained aninjunction in 1874^[23] to throw open some 3,000 acres (12 km²) that had been inclosed in the preceding 20 years. In 1875 and 1876, the corporation bought 3,000 acres (12 km²) of open wasteland. Under theEpping Forest Act 1878, the forest was disafforested and forest law was abolished in respect of it. Instead, the corporation was appointed as Conservators of the Forest. The forest is managed through the Epping Forest Committee.

The New Forest is home to the British cultural minority known asNew Forest Commoners. An Act was passed to remove the deer in 1851, but abandoned when it was realised that the deer were needed to keep open the unwooded "lawns" of the forest. An attempt was made to develop the forest for growing wood by a rolling programme of inclosures. In 1875, aSelect committee of theHouse of Commons recommended against this, leading to the passage of the New Forest Act 1877, which limited the Crown's right to inclose, regulated common rights, and reconstituted the Court of Verderers. A furtherAct was passed in 1964. This forest is also managed byForestry England.

A forest since the end of theIce Age (as attested bypollen sampling cores),Sherwood ForestNational Nature Reserve today encompasses 423.2 hectares,^[24] (1,045 acres) surrounding theNottinghamshire village ofEdwinstowe. The reserve has the highest concentration of ancient trees in Europe.^[25]

It is a remnant of an older, much larger, royal hunting forest, which derived its name from its status as theshire (or sher) wood of Nottinghamshire, which extended into several neighbouring counties, bordered on the west along theRiver Erewash and theForest of East Derbyshire. When theDomesday Book was compiled in 1086, the forest covered perhaps a quarter of Nottinghamshire in woodland and heath subject to the forest laws. Sherwood Forest has historic associations withRobin Hood.^[26]

A 1,250-acre (506 ha) fragment of the forest is designated asBirklands And Bilhaugh, aSite of Special Scientific Interest. This ancient oak-birch woodland is home to theMajor Oak and has an exceptional diversity of invertebrate species associated with old trees and dead wood.^[27]

This list isincomplete; you can help byadding missing items.(August 2008)

Only one royal forest is known to have been formed in theLordship of Ireland.

• Ancient woodland
• Chase (land)
• Crown land
• Deer park (England)
• English land law
• English Lowlands beech forests
• History of the forest in Central Europe
• Hunting license
• Perambulation
• Verderer

Wikisource has the text of the1911Encyclopædia Britannica article "Forest Laws".

• St. John's College project: Forests and Chases in England and Wales, c. 1000 to c. 1850.
• "Forest Laws" .New International Encyclopedia. 1906.
• "Forest Laws" .Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.
• The Gentleman's Magazine. Expeditating or Lawing the feet of dogs.
• Les Termes de la Ley: Expeditate.
• Charta Forestae.

• Landscape history
• Forests and woodlands of England
• Landscape design history
• Land management in the United Kingdom
• English royal forests
• English forest law
• Types of formally designated forests
• History of forestry

• Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from November 2023
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from April 2022
• Use British English from August 2025
• All Wikipedia articles written in British English
• Articles containing Latin-language text
• Articles needing additional references from March 2025
• All articles needing additional references
• Incomplete lists from August 2008
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from July 2023
• Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1728 Cyclopaedia
• Wikipedia articles incorporating text from Cyclopaedia
• Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the New International Encyclopedia
• Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the Encyclopedia Americana with a Wikisource reference