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Home , Netherton (ward), Royal forest

Pre-Conquest : its Distribution and Usage*

By DELLA HOOKE

Abstract This study demonstrates the extent of the regeneration of woodland after the Roman period, and employs place-name evidence to identify the territorial linkages between midland and more southerly estates, which were based upon their significance as pastures. Woodland's importance as a resource was indicated by its deliberate management for timber, fuel, and coppice from the seventh century, in addition to pasturage for pigs and horses. The evidence of Anglo-Saxon charters is cited to reinforce doubts as to the quality of the 1)omesday record of woodland and its use, and the study cites place-name and other evidence to demonstrate that huuting and the use of woods as reserves were more important before the eleventh century than has previously been recognized. NLY a few decades ago many wheel seems almost to have turned full aspects of settlement history were circle in some regions, with the scenario O apparently inspired by concep- recently proposed for Kent by Professor tions of frontier settlement by the Amer- Alan Everitt-" who sees the presence of ican pioneers - groups of hardy settlers - woodland as fundamental to the early Eng- in this case, Anglo-Saxons - establishing lish settlement pattern of that county. their stockaded villages in river valleys Upon the basis of several types of evi- and subsequently pushing into a relatively dence, archaeological, place-name and untouched, woodland environment, topographical, he envisages a series of gradually planting 'daughter' settlements initial 'Jutish' estates being founded in the as they proceeded. This view has been coastal foothill region of north Kent and regaled with disdain by more recent prehis- in the vale of Hohnesdale further inland. torians, as aerial photography has revealed From these, further settlements were estab- evidence of extensive field systems, and lished, first on the then-wooded Downland hence widespread clearance, throughout and subsequently within the interior Weald eastern and southern , so much so itself. Evidence of the early connections that woodland has been almost ousted between the home estates and their associ- from the scene. Those more closely con- ated woodland is preserved for us in a cerned with the Anglo-Saxon period, how- number of Kentish charters. One hears, ever, especially in the West , have for instance, of the Weowerawealde, 'the stubbornly refused to concede that all wood of the men of Wye', and of the woodland had vanished' and now the Limemvearawealde, 'the wood of the men of the Lymne region', in an early eighth- century charter, 3 while the reference to ~ct,lrt "denbcerum in limen wero wealdo 7 in burh waro uualdo, 'the swine pastures in the * This paper is based upon research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council whose support is gratefully acklmwl- edged. 'A Everitt, C,mlimdtj, aml Coh,niz,uion: the Evolution of Kemish ' For an excdlent description of Old English woodland, see 1) P Seflleme.t. Leicester, 1986. Kirby, 'The Old English ', in T Rowley (ed), Atlkqo-S,Ixon P H Sawyer, A.,~lo-Saxon Charters: ,m Annotated List amt Bibli- Settlement amt Lamtscape. British Archaeologi'ealReports, Br set 6, ograph),,1968, S 118o; W de Gray Birch, Cartulariu.I Saxonieum, Oxford, 1974, pp i2o-3o. 3 vols and index, 1885-99, B 141a.

Ag Hist ReJ, 37, I1, pp It3-129 II3 I I~ THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW

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FIGURE I The pre-Conqucst woodland of Hawling, Glouccstershire wood of the men of the Lymne region Anglo-Saxon period at least, c' In some cases and in the wood of Canterbury', 4 clearly this may have been related to a degree indicates the usage of these woodland of economic collapse and perhaps a sharp tracts.-~ decrease in population numbers, in others Without reinstating the concept of the to a changing agricultural economy, but survival of primeval woodland, there is undoubtedly much marginal land went out little doubt that it is possible to identify of cultivation, reverting either to pasture regions in which woodland was relatively or woodland. plentiful in early medieval England. In There are some regions in which wood- many areas, woodland regeneration seems land regeneration may have been actively to have occurred after the end of the encouraged for political reasons and it may Roman period. Roman villa sites lie within not be entirely coincidental that the fron- the documented bounds of the woodland tiers of some German provinces were also of Hawling in (Fig I), and characterized by belts of dense woodland, v in and Celtic fields In England this seems to have been the and associated lie well within case along almost the entire boundary of later woodland which had apparently re- 1) Hooke in preparation 'The landscape regions of south- established itself by the middle of the England'. v W Metz, 'l)as "gehagio regis" der Langobarden und die deutschen 4 S 125, B 248. Hagenortsnamen', in Beitra~w zm" Namenfn'sdmn.q in Verbindmtq S K P Wimey, The j, tish Forest: a Stml), of tlu' Weahl of Kent f'om mit ]£rust Dickemnanll, herat,sqe,t, ebell you H,ms Krahe, Band 5, 450 to 138o At), 1976. Heidelberg,, 954. PRE-CONQUEST WOODLAND: ITS DISTRIBUTION AND USAGE 115 the . Beyond, to the south- west, lay the later . On the southern boundary of the kingdom, the wood of Kemble lay within the basin of the Upper Thames, and beyond its south- eastern boundary lay Wychwood, now in . To complete the circuit, the boundary with Greater Mercia ran through the middle of the Arden. Similarly, the Magonsaetan kingdom in and was marked by thickly wooded countryside along its northern boundary with the Wreocensaetan in Shropshire. '2 Many such examples can be cited, among them the great Forest of Selwood which ran along the western bounds of Wiltshire and for long marked the western fringe of Anglo-Saxon settle- ment in the south-west.

I One aspect of" woodland usage which is of particular interest to rural historians is the utilization of resources revealed in the terri- torial links between cultivated regions and wooded areas. In Kent, Wimey, Everitt and others have been able to show that the FI(;URE 2 Thc kingdom or" the Hwiccc: pro-Conquest woodlands were linked ill a system of woodlands and medieval . transhumance, in which they provided pas- Som'ce: I) I-looke, The ,4n.~lo.S,Ixon L,mdscalu': the Kingdom o.f the ture which was used seasonally by the Hwicce, Manchester, 1985. riverine and coastal estates. Everitt '° traces a pattern of drove-ways across Kent which the Hwiccan kingdom, which comprised h~fluenced the subsequent pattern of settle- most of the present-day counties of Worce- ment, communications and parish demar- stershire and Gloucestershire, together cation. Such links are equally clear in with the western part of Warwickshire Warwickshire and have been examined by (Fig 2). '~ Along its northern boundary with Ford." The linkage here may have been Greater Mercia (now the boundary of Staf- initially one oftranshumance, and a similar fordshire) lay the later forests of Morfe pattern'of routeways runs across Warwick- and Kinver, while within its western from the wooded Arden to the more boundary lay the woodlands of Wyre, then heavily cultivated Feldon, some of them the more extensive Weo2ore,a leay,e, extend- ing southwards into the region of the later " I) Hooke, 'Early units of governnwnt in and Malvern and Corse Forests before reaching S]lropshire', ,'ln.~,Jo-Saxon Smdirs in Ardhm,lo, w ~md Hislor), 5, D Brown, J C'ampbell and S C Hawkes (eds), Oxford, forthcorning. '" Everitt, op tit. "W J Ford, 'Settlement patterns in the central regicm of the ' I) l-hmkc, The ,-ttll,,Io-Saxon l.,mdsralU': du' Kin.lldom o/'the Hwicce, Warwickshire Avon', in P H Sawyer (ed), Medit'v,~l Seuh'ment: Manchester x985. Comimd O, ,rod Ch,m.l,e, 1976, pp 274-94. II6 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW ~~ NuthurstinWarwickshire and at King's Norton in north with an estate at Shottery in the Avon valley. "X~ '"" Place-names confirm, especially in the dis- i i i"~.)II tribution of the l~ah term, the wooded '~~.i-'~"~ ' nature of Arden in the Anglo-Saxon

• .... "< period. Permanent vaccaries and granges i i~ i must soon have replaced seasonal shielings ..'~\ ..... :"":~ but the territorial links were to survive ..i. ..i. [~--~'""-,'~.. ,..i:[~ . long enough to become fossilized in administrative links - detached parts of .. hundreds, manori.al connections such as "~..;~..i i:~ii[:[ .. that between the southernmost Feldon • " estate of Brailes with Tanworth in Arden, [[["..[..~7.:"'-'":'"".\.Z ../.~. and ecclesiastical dependencies between .,,,: mother and daughter churches. A close ..... ,~ scrutiny of the pre-Conquest charter evi- ~',A 0~ " dence for Worcestershire permits the rec- I ognition of a similar pattern of territorial linkages throughout the northern part of • ~... ".~.. the Hwiccan kingdom '4 and there are hints of a similar arrangement within the ) ~;. Magons~etan kingdom to the west.'s

II The territorial linkages of the kind noted above seem to have been founded upon the utilization of woodland as pasture. This FIGURE 3 is most often described as a provision for Warwickshire trackways linking the Arden and Feldon herds of swine, and many pre-Conquest charters refer to swine-pastures or the right to mast. Some of the best-known refer- referred to in pre-Conquest charters ences are to the dell-bcera of the Weald, (Fig 3).'-" which will not be enumerated here, those The wooded nature of Arden in the attached to Borstal, south of Rochester, Anglo-Saxon period is indisputable. Even said to lie in commutle salm, 'in the wood in the Roman period, tile and pottery kilns for conlnmn use'. ''~ Privileges granted to were established to make use of the abun- the bishop of Worcester for an estate at dant fuel, and pre-Conquest charters some- Bentley in Worcestershire in 855 included times refer specifically to parcels of freedom a pascua porcorum rel~elis quod rlomi- woodland here being granted with more t,lamltsfeamleswe, 'from the pasturing of the southerly estates. Thus a very early eighth- king's swine which we call "fern-past- century charter u granted woodland at '~ Hooke 1985, op tit, pp. 78-88. " D Hooke, Al,~lo-Saxon Landscapes of the West Midlands: the Charter ~ D Hooke, Al~.l~lo-Saxon Territorial O~y.anization: the Western Mar- Evidence, British Archaeological Reports, Br ser 95, Oxford, .l~ins of Mercia, University of Birmingham, Department of Geogra- phy Occasional Publication No -'2, I986. I981. '~ S 64, B 123. 'e'S 165, B 3.t9. PRE-CONQUEST WOODLAND: ITS DISTRIBUTION AND USAGE 117 king's swine which we call "fern-past- practices, including the dens, or swine- ure"'. '7 Disputes sometimes arose over pastures, of Kent. Stede, a term which such rights, as in 823, between an earlier also shows a concentration in south-eastern bishop of Worcester and the swine-reeve England, has been studied by Sandred -'° of the king, over wudu leswe to su tune who believes it was most usually applied ongaegum west on scirhylte, 'wood-pasture at to 'pasture (probably enclosed)'. In Sinton, towards the west in Scirhylte. 's Hampshire, at least, the term occurs most Swin sceade and mcestredenne are other terms frequently on the fringe of wooded areas used in charters to refer to such rights of and Fig ¢ shows a sample area which lay . The use of woodland for swine- within the forest of Bere-Ashley in medi- pasture stands out in the Domesday survey eval times. Today the area is known as the to such an extent that in southern England Forest of Hursley. After disafforestation woodland is entered in the record accord- several -parks were established here, a ing to its swine-rent. '9 Other domestic number of them recorded by the thirteenth stock, however, such as cattle, horses, century,-" but large tracts of woodland goats, and even sheep, could be pastured survive and, in addition, several extensive in woods. areas of common pasture. Three stede Many long-distance links had become names appear on the map: Slackstead, merely administrative by the late Anglo- Silkstead and Hawstead, all referring to Saxon period but still Domesday entries settlements tucked in against woodland refer specifically to silua pastilis, and many near parish boundaries. large woodland tracts seem to have served Woodland, of course, had other uses as regions of intercommoning for sur- and there is little doubt that it was being rounding viUs before boundaries were managed to a certain extent by the seventh rigidly demarcated. The Forest of Need- century. At that date the Laws of Ine wood in was used in this way instituted penalties for the destruction of and the Forest of Neroche in timber trees: 'If anyone destroys a tree in served vills as much as twelve miles away. a wood by fire; and it becomes known In the Domesday survey, such woodland who did it, he shall pay a full fine. He is frequently entered under the name of shall pay 6o shillings, because fire is a the head manor and this has meant that its thief'. = For the felling of trees by other presence at that date has not always been means the fine was 30 shillings for three accurately shown on distribution maps. trees. The number of times that parcels of Parcels of woodland on the Malvern foot- woodland were granted in charters also hills, for instance, were held by estates illustrates the role it played in the regional situated to the east across the Severn and economy. Sometimes woodland rights are do not appear in Domesday. The estate of specified, as in an early tenth-century char- Berrow, for example, was a dependent ter of Ehnstone Hardwick in - manor of Overbury on the Worcestershire/ shire, which included the lease of ~a wudu Gloucestershire border and the Arden rcedenne in ~aem wuda t3e ¢3a ceorlas bruca]J, estate of Tanworth in Warwickshire, a 'the right of cutting timber in the wood dependent manor of Brailes, has already which the peasants enjoy', -'3 and another been noted. There are several place-name terms :°K 1 Sandrcd, English Place-Names in -Stead, Uppsala, 1963. which seem to relate specifically to such :'L Cantor. The Medieval Parks of England, Loughborough 1983, pp 34-5. ,7 S ao6, B 487. :-' F L Attenborough 0922), The Laws of the Earliest English Kings, 'sS 1437, B 386. Cambridge, pp 5o--x; lne, c. 43. "~ H C Darby, Domesday England, Cambridge, t977, pp 172-4. :~S 1283, B 560. I 18 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW

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FIGURE 4 Stede place-names in Hursley Forest, Hampshire tenth-century lease of Thorne in Inkber- British and Continental traditions. ,-(' Some row, Worcestershire, which ordered that of the buildings were particularly impress- seo wudung on gel~,wenan grafe to ~bordmw, 'the ive, among them the thegnly hall found right of cutting wood in the common at Cowdery's Down, Hampshire, which copse [shall belong] to Thorne'; -'4 another forlned the focus of the seventh-century of Seckley in Wolverley, Worcestershire, settlelnent. =7 Shingling for roofs has been dating from 866, notes not only pasturage found in eleventh-century levels at Win- for swine but 'five wainloads of good and carpentry was sufficiently brushwood, one annually and other skilled to produce not only relatively timber necessary for building, firewood sophisticated buildings but such fine sufficient for his needs and other rights in objects as the lyre and maplewood cups woodland and open land pertaining to the of Sutton Hoo, and the flutes in carved two mallentes'. 2"s applewood and hawthorn from the Danish Archaeological evidence is now revea- levels at York. -'~ Carpenters' tools have ling details of a form of building construc- tion in post-Roman times peculiar to :" S James, A Marshall, and M Millett, 'An earl), medieval building tradition', Archaeoh,gicalJournal, x41, 1984, pp 182-2 x5. Britain, apparently drawing upon both 'TM Millett with S James, 'Excavations at Cowdrey's Down Basingstoke, Hampshire, [978-81, Arch Jnl, 14o, 1983, pp 15 [-279. '~S Ha5, B ilia. :~ D M Wilson, 'Craft and industry', in 1) M Wilson (ed), The '~S ,.12, B 5H. Archaeolog), qf Anglo-Saxon England, 1976. pp 253-82. PRE-CONQUEST WOODLAND: ITS DISTRIBUTION AND USAGE I X9 been found, mainly on three sites in Dur- Similarly, a ninth-century charter of ham, Cambridgeshire and , Lenham in Kent 34 notes that the wood of where ninth/tenth-century levels yielded Blean in Kent provided cartloads of wood hammers, adzes, boring-bits, a gouge, a for the manufacture of salt. Here coastal plane, a draw-knife, saws and a wedge. It evaporation had been practised on a large was, however, the axe which was the basic scale in the late Iron Age and Roman tool both for felling the trees and lopping periods in the northern salt marshes and the trunks and for forming the wedges was still recorded in the Domesday sur- used to split the trunk. -'9 vey. 3s In Worcestershire, charcoal may Although woodland was especially plen- have been used in salt manufacture, for tiful in Worcestershire, covering over half several colford crossings of rivers are noted of the land area, 3° in that county it had to near Droitwich. 36 A charter of Apsley supply both domestic and industrial needs, Guise in , dating from 969, for Droitwich was the great inland salt- seems to refer to bone ealdan coll pytt which producing area and enormous quantities of may have been a reference to a charcoal- timber were required to fire the ovens pit, 37 although other translations are poss- where evaporation of the saline liquid took ible. place. A tenth-century charter of Bentley, Holt, includes sihlam izecessarium O1,l Bradan- lea~e ad illam prceparationem salis, 'the wood- III land at Bradley necessary for the Less is known about the practical manage- preparation of salt',-" and the location of ment of woodland in the pre-Conquest places possessing salt rights, many of period. There is a charter reference to a which, in payment, evidently sent timber coppeden ac, 'a copped oak-tree '3x but rather to Droitwich, suggests that wood was more to 'copped thorns'. 39 Copped in the obtained from a wide area, even beyond sense of 'polled, without a top', occurs the frontiers of the Hwiccan kingdom..'-" in later-recorded place-names as at lu Herefordshire, Leominster and Much Cobdenhill and Copthorne, both in Hert- Marcle held salt privileges which were fordshire, both referring to born, 'a thorn- directly related to the manorial woodland, tree', Copdock in Suffolk (an oak-tree) although in Io86 both were paying 5 shil- (II95), and Cowbeach in (bece, 'a lings each to buy wood in Droitwich for beech-tree'). At Copper in Herefordshire their salt. In the case of Leominster this and Copster in the reference money was drawn from its own wood-, may be to woods of pollarded trees. 4° Such lands. There was also an additional render trees are also shown in a well-known there of 8 shillings for salt, which may Anglo-Saxon calendar representation. 41 represent the commutation of a former service of carting wood to Droitwich to 94 S 324. B 854. be used as fuel for the saltworks. 3.' "A Miles, 'Salt-painting in Romano-British Kent, in K W de 13risay and K A Evans (cds), Salt, the Study of an Ancient lndustr),, Colchester, 1975, pp 26-30; H C I)arby, 0p tit, pp 265, 267. •" Hooke 1981, o11 tit. ~'~O Rackham, The History of the CoJtntrl,side, 1986, p 81; S 722, "" Ibid. 13 1229. '"O P,ackham, Ancient IVoodhmd: its Histor),, l"{Xwlatioll ,Iml Uses in ~sS 359, B 594 (Stoke by Hurstbournc, Hanlpshire), EI1k,land, 198o, p 115. ~"S 645, 13 994 (Battcrsca, ); S 351, B 740 (Worthy, •"S 13oi, 13 1o87. Hampshire); S 566, 13 9o9 (Alwalton, ); these •': I) Hookc, 'The l)roitwich salt industry: an examination of the features arc hove listed in A Micrl!liche Concordance to Old English, West Midland charter evidence', A-S St, Arch Hist, 2, I) Brown, l)ictionary of Old English Project, Centre for Medieval Studies, J Campbell and S C Hawkcs (eds), Oxi:ord t98i, pp 123-69. Utfivcrsity of Toromo, 1938-. u H P, ound, 'Introduction to the Hertfordshire Domesday', in W a°A H Smith, En,flish Plaa'-Name Elements, Part I, E Hace-Name Page (cd), VCH Her~:~,rd Vol I, t968, p 295; l)omesday Book, S 25, Cambridge 1956. los 18o, 179b, 4, Anglo-Saxon Calendar, 13 L Cotton Tiberius B V. I20 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW The various terms used in place-names indication of the seasons in which work certainly seem to indicate different types was carried out is given, for the estate of woodland, although it is difficult today reeve had to cut wood in summer and to know precisely how these terms were autumn and chop wood in winter. The used. Because holt usually occurs with a calendar picture again seems to show the specific species of tree, it has been taken trees being cut down in summer and it is to indicate a wood containing only one the November scene which depicts timber species. 4~ Acholt, 'oakwood', is common, posts being heated in a fire. Although but ash, lime, beech and wych elm also archaeological excavation may reveal more appear in this context. It probably indi- about timber techniques there is little cated a managed wood, and there are sev- descriptive detail in the literature about eral names combining holt with OE spere, matters with which ahnost every peasant 'a spear shaft', indicating 'a wood where in Anglo-Saxon England would have been (shafts for) spears are got', such as Spars- familiar. holt which occurs as an estate-name in and in Hampshire. Similarly, Throckenholt, in Cambridgeshire, indi- IV cates 'a wood where throcks were got', a Place-name terms indicating the presence ]Jroc being a 'prop, support', as in plough- of woodland include the term lOah. This is shares and perhaps, also, trestle tables. The said to be derived from an Indo-European same Anglo-Saxon calendar referred to root meaning 'light, shining', but the near- above shows timber being collected from est direct equivalent is the Old High Ger- the woods and in one scene stakes seem to man l&, 'a grove, bush-grown clearing', be being hardened in the fire before being which implies a similar meaning to that used for building. The calendar pictures suggested for OE lgah: 'a woodland with also show, however, woodland and rough glades'. 4'~ The term may often have had a ground being cleared and assarted, and we meaning closely related to economic usage are reminded of the Old English poem as 'land used for woodland pasture', and which describes the ploughman as harholtes was lnost frequent upon the edges of dense feond, 'the gray enemy of the wood'. 43 woodland rather than within it. 47 A A number of pre-conquest (probably Worcestershire charter reference explains eleventh century) docmnents refer briefly that two IOah features in Salwarpe were to the management of estate woodlands. actually woods for the estate boundary ran An estate memorandum notes that an estate betwenan ac wudu 7 wulle lea. 7 swa @'e 'ought to have every tree brought bettwx barn twain wudan in ah'a broc, down by the wind' but gives no other 'between ac tvudu and wulle lea and so indication of his duties, while the swine- continuing between the two woods to herd who had to 'drive his herd to the Alder Brook'. 4s It may be noted, too, how mast-pasture' was presumably familiar The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle claims that in with the woods. 44 The tenants of 477 a Saxon expedition into Sussex slew Hurstbourne Priors had to supply fothers many Britons, 'and drove some into flight of split wood and poles of fencing as into the wood which is called Andredesleqg', rent, stacking it in their own time. 4s Some

4~M Gelling, Place-Names in the Landscape, 1984, p 196. 4~ The Exeter Book, Part II, ed W S Mackie, EETS t94, t934, 4¢'C Johansson, Ohl English Place-Names Containing L~ah, Stock- No 21. holm, t975, p 8. ~F Liebermann, Die Cesetze der Aitgelsadtsen, 3 vols, Halle, 47 M Gelling, 'Some notes on Warwickshire place-names', Trans x9o3-I6, I, pp 444-55. Birm War Ardl Soe, 86, 1974, p 68. 4~ S 359, B 594. 4s S zS96, B 362, PRE-CONQUEST WOODLAND: ITS DISTRIBUTION AND USAGE 121 referring to the Weald. 4~ This woodland used in settlement place-names: graft, han- took its name from the fort of Anderitnm, gra, holt, wudu, hurst, wald, jyrh6 etc. It Pevensey, meaning 'great ford', but the should not be overlooked that rights to name of the wood, Andret, survived into woodland were often granted amongst the the eleventh century when it was applied appurtenances of the estates being granted to the in Hampshire. s° The or leased and that these were rather more wood was said to extend over 12o miles than mere scribal formulae. Normally, from west to east and 3o miles from north these rights in woodland are simply to south, s~ referred to as siluis, but siluiunculis, 'small Woodland was not confined to the mar- woods', are specified at Upper Stratford gins of the Hwiccan kingdom for it was in the central Avon valley of Warwick- also noted across the whole north-western shire. The saltibus of Wootton Wawen, section of the region, particularly in the Warwickshire, and saltuumque densitatibus pastoral areas of the Warwickshire Arden, of Steeple Ashton, Wiltshire, may have north-west Worcestershire, and, in Glou- represented denser woodland s4 and silva- cestershire, in the Severn Valley and up mmque densitatibus occurs in a number of and over the scarp of the Cotswolds. s' , Wiltshire and Hampshire char- There is nothing in this region which con- ters. ss Other variants in the charters of tradicts an interpretation of l?ah as 'wood- southern England include several refer- land pasture' and many l&llt places were ences to nemorum, nemoribus, 'groves'. Even flourishing manors by the time of the when other rights are specified (usually Domesday survey. The term is, however, fields, meadows and pasture), woodland largely absent from the more heavily culti- seems often to be omitted in certain areas vated Feldon regions, the Vale of Evesham where it was scarce and the scribal formu- and south-east Gloucestershire. It is diffi- lae were obviously based upon some recog- cult today to imagine the appearance of the nition of reality. The 'groves' described Anglo-Saxon landscape. Although parts of with their own boundary clauses at Genen- Worcestershire in the vicinity of the Wyre of'e and at Bredons Norton in Worcester- Forest, in particular, are still well-wooded, shire so' were obviously seen as specific areas this is now largely an open, pastoral or of woodland of limited extent. arable county. Anglo-Saxon charters are particularly Pre-Conquest charters, however, help important where they reveal inadequacies to reconstruct this earlier landscape. They in the Domesday data. Very little wood- may suggest that an estate was being land is exatered on the manors of Hormer carved out of an area of woodland, and Hundred in the Berkshire folios. This hun- occasionally state that an estate actually lay dred lay within the great bend of the River 'in a wooded place' or was itself an area Thames to the north of Abingdon, an area of woodland, s-' Wood can readily be now taken into the county of Oxfordshire, detected in the landmarks used in boundary and most of it had been acquired by the clauses for the same terms occur as are abbey of Abingdon. Indeed, the area may have originally borne a woodland name ~" The At~gh,-Saxo, Chro,ich': Two ol'the Saxon Chronicles ParalM, for the abbey claims to have obtained the C Plummer (ed), Oxford, 1892, pp 14-t5. ~°A L F Rivet and C Smith, "Flit' Place-Namvs of Roman Britain, large estate of/Earomundeslee (l?ah with a 1979, pp 25o-2; J Munby (ed), D0mesda), Book, i, Haml~shire, Chichester, 1982, t7, 4; , fo. 44b. ~' Plummer (ed), The Aitglo-Saxon Chronicle, ,'m 893, pp 84-.';. s'~S 94, B t57; S 727, B [127. ~: Hooke, 1985, 0p cir. ~ E.g. S 474, B 768. s" D Hooke, 'The Anglo-Saxon landscape', in T R Slazer and P J ~"S 1374, J M Kemble, Codex Diphmmticus Aevi Saxonicus, 6 vols, Jarvis (eds), FMd mid Forest: ,m Historical Geo,~ral~hj, of H;lru,ickshire t 839-48, K 68 I; S 14o5, J Earle, A Hand-book to the Land-Charters aml IVorcestershire, Norwich, 198-', pp 96-7. and other Saxonic Documents, Oxford, 1888, pp 247-8. I22 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW personal name) from King Ine in 687; s7 been under-estimated, partly because the but this was a troubled frontier region Laws of Cnut which refer to hunting are between Mercia and Wessex in the eighth known to have been added to after the century and these early charters are fabri- 6° and cannot therefore cations, even if they are based on authentic be taken to be reliable. Hunting rights early gifts. Later charters of estates in this could, however, be specifically mentioned area also abound in l~ah names and it is in charters, and a tenth-century lease of clear that woodland extended southwards Grimley, Worcestershire, for instance, from the present Wytham Great Wood and included amongst the appurtenances of the was particularly dense on the ridge formed estate siluis uenationibus, 'woods for hun- by Kimmeridge Clays and Greensand ting'. '~' Such rights are found as far afield deposits which culminates in abbedun, as Myletun, near Kelnsing in Kent, rec- ~bba's hill, now Boar's Hill, which gave orded in 822 '~: and Benham in central its name to the minster estate to the south.s8 Berkshire, recorded in 956. 63 Certain Some woodland still remains: ydyrleage, manors were firmly associated with hunt- wadleahe and plumleage, with wrohthangran, ing, probably maintaining royal lodges, are now represented by Wytham Great and ilia uenatione uilla quce Saxonicce dicitur Wood, catleage, preosta leage and riscleahe Bicanleag, 'that hunting vill which is called by Hen Wood and associated pockets of by the Saxons Bickleigh', referred to in woodland, while bacgan leah is now Bagley 9o4, 64 appears to have been Bickleigh in Wood. s9 Yet none of these appear in the . Domesday folios. There is ample evidence in the contem- Given that woodland is noted for the porary literature of the type of animals majority of counties covered by the hunted. JElfric, writing in the later tenth Domesday survey, it is not difficult to century when in charge of a monastic recognize heavily wooded counties when school at Cerne Abbas in Dorset, states of the woodland is entered by dimension, but the hunting of : Hundas bedrifon it is considerably harder to estimate the hyne to me, and ic beer, togeanes standende, amount of woodland present in those fcerlice ofstikode hl, rte, 'the dogs drive it counties in which woodland is entered towards me, and I stick it quickly, standing according to its swine rent. Some doubt there in its path '6-~ (the boar was noted for also remains about the full coverage of its formidable tusks). Charters are full of woodland which had been taken into the references to the hart (stag), the hind, king's forest by m86. and the roe-deer, and .,Elfric again quotes: Heortas ic gefetlge Oll t,tettmn, 'stags I catch in nets'. 6~' were also hunted. They V were vicious predators of domestic live- 'Forest' is a legal term of Norman introduc- stock but their coats were also of value. tion and it is well-known that enormous There are many references to pits in areas of land were officially declared sub- charters, used presumably to trap these ject to forest law under the Norman kings. animals. The same method seems to have The importance of hunting in Anglo-

Saxon England, however, may well have e'°F Liebcrmann, op tit, II, p 185. t"S 137o, B II39. ~7S 239, B 1oo. t'"S 186, B 370. 5SM Gelling, 'The hill of Abingdon', Oxoniensia, 22, 1957, ¢"~ S 591, B 942. pp 54-62. ~4S 372, B 613. ~gThe main charters for this area are S 673, B to47; S 614, B 971; ~.s/Elfric, Colloquium ad pueros lingua latinae Iocutione exercendis ab ! S 590, B 932; S 663, B IOO2; S 757, B 1222; S 567, B 9o6; S 6o5, ,'E!h'ico compilamm, Analeaa-Saxonica, B Thorpe (ed), 1846, p 22. B 924; S 858 , K 1283. r.¢,Ibid PRE-CONQUEST WOODLAND: ITS DISTRIBUTION AND USAGE I2 3 been used to catch foxes, while beavers, fence in by a hedge'; 68 and as 'haw' 'a otters, hares, wildcats and martens were hedge or encompassing fence: hence, a also hunted. None of these animals is piece of ground enclosed or fenced in'. ~9 restricted to a woodland habitat but most In German, the term developed from a of them were more prolific in the wilder meaning of 'hawthorn, thorn hedge', to a parts of the countryside and deer, at least, more specialized meaning of (a) 'defensive prefer to have ample woodland for cover. '; (b) 'the enclosure of a wood The woods also provided honey from wild containing wild animals'; eventually bees and numerous 'Honey Brooks' are becoming attached to (c) 'an enclosed recorded, especially in Worcestershire. settlement' or 'an enclosed wood'5 ° There is one particular term, however, Although the term haga both here and occurring in pre-Conquest charters which on the continent was, therefore, chiefly seems to have been connected mainly with associated with the enclosure of land, pri- hunting. This is the term haqa and its marily woodland, it was also used in relevance has frequently been overlooked, England to refer to defended settlements: Rackham believing it to be merely a variant to enclosures within the newly fortified of OE hecge, 'a hedge'/'v The term occurs burhs of Wessex and Mercia. 7' Only later in quite different regions and different were the subdivided properties within environmental conditions to the various these divisions also referred to by the same hecge terms, as can be seen from the term. In Germany, haga place-names are Worcestershire and Berkshire evidence. similarly associated with fortified settle- Hedges were frequently recorded in charter ments established along province frontiers. boundary clauses in areas where woodland There is also, however, a strong association was being assarted and had been pushed with royal land rights, whether over forti- back largely to estate margins. Here crops fied settlements or forests. 72 The connec- would need particular protection from tion cannot always be proved, but of the woodland animals. The haga term, on the Worcestershire woodland hagan, half other hand, occurs most frequently in occurred along the boundaries of royal more remote, less-developed regions estates or of estates bordering upon royal where thick woodland was plentiful land, and the English burhs were, of (Fig 5). There can be little doubt that the course, also established under royal direc- term meant something quite distinguish- tion. able from the ordinary hedge of living A similar Middle English term, 'hay', shrubs, although it was associated with appears to be related. This was used for a enclosure, and was sometimes later glossed net spread across a gap in a fence to capture by the Latin sepes, sa,pes, 'a hedge, a fence'. game animals, usually, in later times, rab- It seems, indeed, to have referred usually bits. Anglo-Saxon sources, already quoted, to a particularly strong type of enclosure also refer to the capture of deer in nets fence often found around a wooded area. spread across gaps in a fence and of dogs Sometimes the enclosures themselves seem driving the deer towards the nets. 'Hay' to have been relatively short but on other occasions haga features extended for many "S OED, p H4. kilometres, sometimes appearing to r,,~ lbid, p 129. :°M Heyne (ed), J and W Grimm, Deuuches Wiirterbuch yon jacob enclose almost entire estates. The word Grimm uml Wilhdm Grimm. Vierten Bandes zweite Abteilung, came down into later times as 'h~:y' (now Leipzig, 1877. 7, D Hooke, 'The hinterland and routeways of late Saxon Worces- obsolete), used as a verb 'to enclose or ter: the charter evidence', in M O H Carver (ed), Medieval Wora'sler, an Archaeolo~,ical Framework, "l'rans Worcs Arch Soc, 3rd scr, 7, ~98o, pp 39-43. e,7 Rackham, 1986, Op cit, p 185. 7: Metz, op oil. i,

124 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW

nx x

- i x • ^ X X X . X X X X xSWIn X~ X X X X X x xX X x X x X X X X .Sx.X xSWi n • haga x hedge C19 county boundary

%j e 0 5km

t

x

x xn ll ll king's

• haa nn x hedge nm mum

0 Skin

FIGURE 5 The distribution of thc ha~a and hecee tcrms in (a)Worccstcrshirc and (b) Bcrkshirc PRE-CONQUEST WOODLAND: ITS DISTRIBUTION AND USAGE 125 was, however, also used to describe the 845, grants similar privileges to the monas- fence itself, and became 'an enclosure tery of Ufira Stretford, at Stratford in War- fenced off for hunting', v3 while a 'hayes' wickshire, and a further authentic charter was 'a small hunting park, usually in a issued by Burgred, King of Mercia, in 835, woodland area, enclosed for the retention exempted the minster at Blockley, Glos., of deer'. TM These meanings, most of them from dues which included 'pastu. et ab associated with enclosed woodland, need refectione omnium ancipitrum et falconum in to be borne in mind. terra Mercensium et omnium uenatorum regis Under Roman law game had been uel principis nisi ipsorum tantum qui in prouin- regarded as res nullius, belonging to who- cia Hwicciorum sunt, 'the feeding and main- ever killed it, regardless of where or on tenance of all hawks and falcons in the whose land it was killed, v5 By the seventh land of the Mercians, and of all huntsmen century, however, royal hunting reserves of the king or ealdorman except only those had been established within the Frankish who are in the province of the Hwicce'. v8 empire, restricting the right to take particu- The maintenance of the deer-fence, the lar types of game, notably deer. It is not deorhege, was a recognized part of a land- clear when the concept of royal hunting holder's duties at the king's residence, v9 As preserves was introduced to this country, suggested, this was probably rather more or whether any such limitations upon the than a mere hedge around cropped ground, taking of game came into effect before the rather, a substantial fence or hedge (not Norman Conquest, but certainly hunting necessarily living) marking off the hunting was a notable pastime of the Anglo-Saxon land and possibly playing a part in the nobility and the king maintained hunts- actual steering of the game during the hunt men, falconers and dog-handlers, with cer- (supra). tain estates duty-bound to offer hospitality The reservation of vast areas as forest to such officers. Three Mercian charters land was undoubtedly an important feature freed estates from such services, one of of kingship under Norman rule. The them a grant of 844 by King Berhtwulf Anglo-Saxon Chronicle claims in lO86 [lO87] to ,'Ethelwulf, d,x, freeing an estate at that William 'constituted much protection Pangbourne, Berkshire, a pastu principum 7 for game (deofri])) and he laid down laws a difficultate ilia Wot nos Saxonice dicimus therewith', ~° instituting penalties for killing .fi,stiglnen nec homirles illuc mittant qui osceptros the hart or the hind, but one may suspect uel falcones porta,t aut canes am cabellos that it was not such an innovation as has dt, tcnht, 'from the entertainment of ealdor- always been suspected. Metz shows how men and from that burden which we call two hagan boundaries on lands of Fulda in Saxon fcestinglnen; neither are to be sent monastery, recorded in 8Ol, coincided there men who bear hawks or falcons, or with the boundaries of the royal forests of lead dogs or horses', v(' A more questionable Bramforst and Zunderhart (98o), querying: charter of King Berhtwulf, vv allegedly of sollten sich hinter den ']lagoll' der Urkunde yon 8ol gar die beiden K6nigsforsten selbst im Sinne des 'geha¢i' verbe1~en? 'does the name "hagon" in the document include the two

V~l H Adams, Ayrari,ln Landscape Terms: a Glossary .lbr lqistorical king's forests themselves in the sense of Geograph),. 1976, p m7. "gehagi"?' (implying that the hagan may v4 Ibid, p tog. vsj M Gilbert, Huntim,, and Huntin.k, Reserves in .~.ledicv,II , Edinburgh, 1979. p 5. 7x S 207, B 489, v¢'S 1271, B 443; 13 Whiteloek (ed), Enl.,lish Historical Documents, i, 7,~ Liebermann 1, pp 444-55. c5oo-lo42, t955, p 481. ~"J Earle (ed), Two qf the Saxon Chronich's parallel with supplementar}, vv S 198, B 450. extraclsfi'onl the others, Oxford 1865, p 222. 126 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW already have been hunting reserves) and 97 I 99,' --. county boundory ~ concluding Fest steht dagegen die Beziehung .... parish ,, . .... ;,~'-£. zwischen K6nigsforst und Hagen in iJT;/endeiner Art, 'The connection between king's for- fold ,, ¥ medieval deer-pork ests and "Hagen", however, is in some g~ C19 woodland way proved', s' ANLEYCASTLE or implied 1086 /,,~ The area of Worcestershire in which haga [] royal estate ,, " . enclosures are most notably concentrated, ~,, •.... . west of the River Severn and south of the O/ s -. River Teme (Fig 5), was all to bdcome part Q/- MA L VERN ""',_.-~s~_..- -. of the royal forest of Malvern and entries (~o :ola~n "--( FOREST ', hogan in the Domesday folios show that much )~ ",,.. [] \ of it had been designated as such by m86. ~-..-.5 ...... ,"'..... ,," It was a remote and underdeveloped i 0 '- hogan "" '" i ~ i' ~'' "-..__m,.~...... ,~,a..'~ -';'~,n"',.hagen region, still described by William of Mal- ,/[] \ s mesbury in the twelfth century as vastissimo _ i % illo saltu quod Malvernum vocamr, 'that f :.. o ~~'~W22''~"h°'~/~, wulf hagan , Ca vast/unoccupied wood which is called Mal- vern', s-' Much of this border area near the "\ [] --. western margins of the Hwiccan kingdom +v i f i 0 0 i ~" "~ hogan ,i was to be granted by the king to the ,--' ~ o "\ I~ah~ . _. J "+ major abbeys and churches of Pershore, l " "" "" -'" ""'t Worcester and Deerhurst, but royal rights "'-,, //-!" v [] :.-,/ CORSE, ...... 6~,,, + were re-established over most of the / '" .... ~,'"hagann , ",hago["--'- 0 lkm region, as forests were designated after %' ", tyro ..~, f : 4, the Conquest. Pre-Conquest charters show FIGURE 6 that there were ha~a features along the The Malvcrn region of Worccstcrshirc: features boundaries of Upton-on-Severn, Longdon associated with hunting and woodland and Bushley, and Deerhurst, gates in such features on the boundaries of Leigh and to hunting in the haia" of Churcham and Powick, and other related features in Morton in Gloucestershire. sa Within the Eldersfield, Hasfield and Tirley, the latter area shown in Fig 6, one haia lay within region later to form the separate forest of Hanley Castle, the estate centre of Malvern Corse (Fig 6). Forest. ss In I315 the main deer-park of By m86, Domesday Book records spec- Hanley Castle lay in the south-eastern sec- ific enclosures known as halo', in which tor of the parish, its boundary coinciding game were confined and captured. A haia with the haga which followed the Upton in Kington, Worcestershire, was a place in boundary in 962. There is insufficient qua capiebant ferct,, 'in which wild animals evidence to claim that the Anglo-Saxon used to be captured', and at Lingen, now in llc1<~a was necessarily a fully-fledged deer- Herefordshire, there were iii haice capreolis park, although the park made by the king capiendis, '3 hays for taking roe-deer', s,' at Ongar in in the eleventh century The abbey of Gloucester claimed rights was certainly termed a derha

"' Metz, 0p tit, pp 41-2. S:N E S A Hamilton (ed), William of Mahnesbury, WiIMmi ~4j s Moore (ed), Domesday Book, sS, Ghma'sm'shire, Chidlester Mahm'sbiriensis Monadli. De Gestis Pont(titan Altl?lorl,m, Rolls ]982, Io.l], fo ]65c. Series, 52, 183o, pp -'85-6. ~SThorn (ed), Domesday Book, 16, IVorcestershire, Chichester ]982. ,~ F and C Thorn (eds), Domesday Book, "5, Shropshire, Chichester EG l, fv ]63c. 1986, 6.[4, fo 26ob. S"B Thorpe. Diph,matarium Aizglicum Aevi Saxonici, 1865. p 574. PRE-CONQUEST WOODLAND: ITS DISTRIBUTION AND USAGE I27 seem, however, to have been an enclosure directly linked with the reservation of land ...... L...... °.YJ:o ,,' I for the preservation and hunting of game. :' ", ...... fl -- ,'Zo ° Such features occur frequently in regions °$ go ,'~ ~ol which were to be taken into royal forest ", .~" ::. <~ o<,, i o% I ..- , • o., after the Conquest and often lords were "', I oV i" ' ,, ; ~ / later officially allowed to enclose deer- ...... ,,. : !;'oo "', I o ; parks in the same regions, sometimes actu- ~I ' °°" '" ' ',, <;+ ,,'o v: ,' # near the sites of Anglo-Saxon Ilasalt until I ( .. :'/N: "/I ~'" ..... "' ' the present day. The same connection is evident wher- ever the term appears in charters but one further example must suffice. In northern Hampshire, a block of territory centred '47 ..'a ~i upon the royal rill of Hurstbourne Tarrant o,., o~ l lay to the north-east of the royal estate of .... ~i + Andover. The southernmost estates of this territory, Whitchurch and Hurstbourne Priors, were alienated to the of Winchester in the late eighth and ninth centuries, and for a time in the early ninth and later tenth centuries ownership of the Hurstbourne Tarrant estate also passed to Abingdon Abbey, but was retrieved by the crown by the end of that century. Like FIGURE 7 North Hampshire: fcamrcs associated with hunting Malvern, this seems to have been regarded and woodland as a marginal zone to be granted into ecclesiastical hands, rather than prime royal boundary of Vernhams Dean to the west property, although the estate of Faccombe (Fig 7). sv In most cases, there is a direct or remained a royal estate and was the morn- indirect connection with royal ownership. ing-gift of Wynfl,'cd, the grandmother of The majority ofhaga enclosures can also the kings Edwy and Edgar. There were be shown to have been related to actual numerous llama features in this area, many woodland: often this lay ola both sides of of them running for several kilometres. the boundary in medieval times and was One ran around parts of the western earlier indicated by l~ah place-names. boundary of St Mary Bourne (recorded Moreover, two of the haga fences ran along when the latter was granted to the church boundaries which were later those of the of Winchester) separating the then royal medieval forests of Finkley and Dygherlye estates of Andover and Hurstbourne; in Andover parish. Another ran along the another followed the northern boundary boun'dary of Crux Easton parish which of St Mary Bourne between tha~ estate and was held by a huntsman in Io86. Surpris- the adjacent estates of Crux Easton and ingly, perhaps, woodland is not strongly Woodcott and Litchfield, while others ran represented in the assessments of the along the boundaries of the royal estate of 1)omesday manors, but Hampshire is one Faccombe and around East Woodhay to the north. Another hae,a followed the ~VThc main chartersarc S 689, B Io8o; S 359, B 594; S 378, B 624. I!'

128 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW of the south-eastern counties in which While these differ little from later deer- woodland was entered only according to park boundaries and cannot be dated, they its pig-rent and, as Welldon-Finn pointed are frequently very abraded and restricted out: 'This may imply that the.., villagers to the stretches of haga boundary referred had no right to feed their swine in their to in the charters. On the boundary of lord's wood', 88 the manors of Crux Easton, Finkley and Dygherlye Forests between Combe, Linkenholt and Upton in Andover and St Mary Bourne, the ditch Hurstbourne Tarrant only recording lay on the Andover side, as if to restrict 'wood for fencing'. Welldon-Finn thought the passage of animals out of the forest that the lord may perhaps have been retain- into St Mary Bourne. The bank is still ing the woodland as cattle pasture but it some 4-5 metres across and the ditch about may be that the woodland was reserved 2 metres across. On the Faccombe estate, even then as 'forest' (not fully recorded in animals similarly seem to have been the Domesday folios for Hampshire), Crux retained by the boundary feature within Easton certainly being in the hands of a Faccombe itself, but between St Mary huntsman. In the medieval period the Bourne and Crux Easton the short remain- woods of this region were officially ing stretch of haga boundary displays a reckoned as part of the Forest of Chute, ditch on the southern side, although the the bulk of which lay in Wiltshire, and adjacent part of Crux Easton had undoubt- little wood was entered for the manors edly been part of a deer-park recorded there, although the wood received one there by 1292. It is possible that ditch incidental mention, merely as siluce quce survival along the last boundary may have uocat cetum, 'the wood which is called Chu- been influenced by the slope of the land, te'. 89 Finkley formed the eastern walk of which here drops steeply southwards. The Chute Forest in the mid-thirteenth cen- 'white haga of Faccombe', recorded in tury 9° and a boundary perambulation of 96I, 93 is represented by a particularly fine I2989' runs 'along the hayam' exactly where earthwork, the nomenclature explained by the charter boundary of St Mary Bourne9: the presence of flints in the surface soil. followed the hagan, perhaps suggesting Equally fine woodland banks, in associ- some sort of functional or even administra- ation with ditches, have been identified at tive continuity, in this area, much of the several haga locations in southern Berkshire woodland seems to have regenerated in and it seems likely that the Anglo-Saxon post-Roman times, for the woods are full woodland haga boundary consisted of a of field evidence of field lynchets and wide bank and ditch, probably carrying enclosures dated by pottery scatter. a timber palisade on the bank, like the In this area, too, there is a little more boundary bank of a medieval deer-park. evidence for the nature of the haga bound- The connection of the haga word with aries, for at several of the locations there the haw of the hawthorn may suggest, survive clearly defined banks and ditches, alternatively, that the bank was sur- the former often several metres in width. mounted by a thorn hedge, either dead or living, but in any case, it was something more than the ordinary field hedge. XSR Welldon-Firm, 'Hampshire', in H C Darby arid E M J One last point in this context may be Campbell (eds), The Domesda), Geography qf South-East England, Cambridge, 1971, pp 32o-t. worth consideration. The archaeological S'~Thorn (ed), Domesday Book, 6, Wiltshire, Chichestcr '979, 1, '9; excavations at Hamwic (Anglo-Saxon Domesday Book, fo 65b. ~°T W Shore, 'Ancient Hampshire forests', Hampshire FMd Club and Arch Soc,,, ,888, pp 4o-6o. '~' Proc Hantpshire Field Club and Arch Soc, 9, 192,-5, pp 262-3. 9~S 359, B 594. '~J S 689, B 1o8o. PRE-CONQUEST WOODLAND: ITS DISTRIBUTION AND USAGE 129 Southampton) have produced vast quantit- increased dramatically under the Norman ies of red deer antler. The excavators have kings, as excavations at Faccombe have been surprised that so many antlers could shown, 9s but the conception of woodland be collected at just the right stage of reserved for the hunting of game may not growth. 9. However, if the hunting of red necessarily have been an introduction of deer was officially organized in the . It was a type of land use Hampshire, or the animals deliberately familiar in the Frankish kingdoms from encouraged within actual game reserves, the seventh century 96 and there is little this could be partially explained: the hunt- reason to think that this country was slow ing of such game may have been rather to follow continental practices. more than just 'the sport of kings'. Cer-

tainly the numbers of fallow deer hunted ,~5j R Fairbrotber, 'Faccombe Netherton', Archaeological and Histori- cal Research, x, City of London Archaeological Society, I984. ,J4j Bourdillon, personal communication. '~¢'Gilbert, op tit, I.

Ii

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