Copy of `Forests and Chases - Forestry terms`

The wordlist doesn't exist anymore, or, the website doesn't exist anymore. On this page you can find a copy of the original information. The information may have been taken offline because it is outdated.

Forests and Chases - Forestry terms Category: Animals and Nature > Forests in England and Wales Date & country: 27/09/2013, UK Words: 664

officer
strictly, the necessary judicial personnel of forest courts, i.e. verderers, foresters, regarders, agisters and woodwards (M 23 (v)), but supplemented by ministerial

otter
beast of warren, probably mainly hunted for its skin and to protect fish (BG 244)

outlaw
person declared to be outside the protection of the law; person committing an offence in a forest where he did not live could not be tried in the courts of that forest, but was outlawed at the instigation of its swanimote, making his goods and chattels forfeit and removing the protection of the law from him (M 225 (v) - 226 (r))

outwinterers
cattle which stayed out throughout the winter. The wood pasture with its added protection would enable outwintering (R 168)

outwoods
tract of land on the outskirts of a forest (R 168)

pale
originally associated with a deer-proof fence, but can refer to the whole boundary of a deer park

pannage
pasturage of swine (also right of, payment for): acorns, beech-mast, etc., as food for swine (P 205); right to graze pigs in woodland, usually chargeable (see also

parfet
horn note signifying that hounds were on the right line (BG 244-45)

parfytieres
last relay of hounds uncloupled in a chase (BG 245-46)

parish
originally an ecclesiastical division, a district under one pastor enjoying full possession of all the rights of a parochial church, including the district

park
(1) enclosed area in a forest where deer may be collected (entering via

parker
forest official in charge of park(s)

partridge
bird accounted a beast of the warren

pastoral
having to do with the husbandry of livestock and its associated landscapes and regimes; from Latin pastor,

pastoralism
economy and culture based on herding, see also

pasture
land on which beasts may graze the vegetation, including wood-pasture

pawnage
see

pea stick
branchy stick of about five feet, sold in bundles of about 25 (E 140)

peel
remove bark from a tree (E, 179); to bark, to strip off bark (L 238)

penhebogydd
Welsh officer of the royal court,

perch
also known as

perpresture
unlicensed inclosure or building, especially a new house within the forest (P 205); enclosure of or encroachment upon land (L 238); erection of buildings or other encroachments in or into a forest (M 73 (r) - 80 (r)). See

perquisite
that due to the holder of an office in addition to his normal fee (P 205)

pheasant
bird accounted a beast of the warren

pilling
see bark stripping

pingeudo
season, between June 21 and September 14, for hunting male deer when in their prime (R 169), see 'grease'

pit-sawing
conversion of roundwood by hand-sawing in a saw-pit (L 238)

plain
tract of unenclosed forest land with few trees (P 205); see

plantation
crop of artificially sown or planted trees (E, 179); enclosure containing trees deliberately planted, unlikely to renew themselves once felled without ground preparation and careful replanting (R 169)

plat
see

plot
(1) small area of ground and (2), by extension, measurement and mapping of land (R 169); to contrive, to map:

poach(ing)
take game contrary to legal provisions, including national laws (forest laws and then Game Laws from 1671) and local (e.g. manorial) franchise, q.v.

pole
(1) a unit of areal or linear measurement equal to a perch, q.v., or rod; (2) a slender woody stem of a tree, usually too small to yield sawmill timber (E 179)

poll
see

pollard
(v) cut back a tree to a few feet of ground level (8-12ft, Penn 161, 4); (n) a tree so treated (E, 179); method of producing light timber in woodland pasture. Trees were cut at a height out of reach of the browsing of livestock to produce a pillar-like trunk. New growth emerged from the crown and the cycle of cutting would be anything from ten to twenty years depending on the tree species. Pollards were used in deer parks to produce a leafy fodder (R 169);(n) a tree with crown removed; (v) to remove the crown of a tree (Ja, 302)

potter
maker of pots, frequently a forest occupation because of the need for wood fuel for firing (n.b. place-names such as Potters Hanley in Malvern Chase, Pottersbury in Whittlewood Forest)

pourallee
see

pourluy
see

powderwood
wood used for manufacture of gunpowder charcoal (L 238), probably usually alder and alder buckthorn (E, 1958, 86)

precursum
right to pursue a beast from outside the forest into it (T 1246)

preservator
officer appointed to protect Crown wood and timber (P 205)

prick
footprint of a hare when being coursed (M 45 (v)). See also

pricket
buck of two years old (T 147); buck in its second year (M 43 (v))

puncheon
pit prop (Ja, 302)

purlieu
land disafforested by Edward I but still subject to certain restrictions on hunting (P 205); land afforested (in the legal sense) and subsequently disafforested (L 238); lands put out of forests, and therefore no longer subject to regards, by perambulation under the Charter of the Forest (1217 and numerous confirmations) to restore them to their extent at the coronation of Henry II (1154). However, the king retained possession of deer, which must be allowed to return to forests by the owners of woods, under the control of a ranger who presented offenders at swanimote courts. By the Ordinance of the Forest (34 Edw 1) inhabitants of purlieus retained their forest common rights (M 12 (r), 146 (r) - 150 (v), 184 (r) - 187 (r), 228 (r) and (v), and 248 (r) and (v)). Coke disputed the severity of the restrictions assigned to purlieus by M and most other early authorities (Co 303, 305). See

purlieu man
a qualified person might hunt with his own servants for three days a week in his own woods in a purlieu, but not so as to forestall the passage of deer into a forest, in pursuit

purpresture
see

puture
customary claim by foresters of (often weekly) meat and drink for themselves, their servants, horses and dogs, from occupiers of tenements within a forest (Nb 35); limited by 25 Ed 3, and sometimes compounded to money payment (Co 307, Cox 105)

qualification
13 Ric 2 c 13 restricted the right to hunt to people with freehold land worth 40s per annum, increased by 1 James I c 7 to

quarter
radius of a tree trunk (E, 179)

quarter-girth
one quarter of a tree

quicken tree
mountain ash or rowan tree (Ja, 302)

rache
pack hunting scenting hound (BG 246-47)

rack
narrow pathway cut through growing trees (E, 179)

rail
bar of timber cut for fencing

ram picked
see stag-headed (Ja, 302)

ranger
forest officer responsible for returning straying deer from purlieus back within the forest pale (q.v.) [though not all forests had them] (Le 32); as with

receiver
official responsible for collecting revenues and other dues from tenants, on the larger estates. Receivers for certain areas accounted to a Receiver General (R 169)

recognisance
bond by which a person engages before court to observe some condition, especially appearance at higher court (P 205); written record of a bailed offender and his pledges, taken by the verderers (M 215 (v))

red deer
see

reeve
initially an official elected by villagers, frequently unwillingly, to act as an intermediary between them and the lord of the manor; he looked after the husbandry, maintenance of the ditches, banks and hedges, and the ploughs (R 169) and [?perhaps] the impounding of animals in forest drifts (F)

regard
inspection of a forest by regarders with foresters and woodwards, presented to the swanimote court next before and preparatory to an eyre, included vert, eyries, mines and forges, ports, harbours and the wood they shipped, dogs, nets and weapons; swarms of bees, wax and honey were also included in the charges of the swanimote and eyre where regards were enrolled (M 227 (v) and 242 (v)). The king might exempt private land and woods in a forest from regards (M 58 (r) and (v), 196 (r) and (v))

regarder
officer responsible for making triennial inspections of forests to discover trespasses (P 205); ministerial rather than judicial officer appointed by royal letters patent under oath, twelve per forest, to hold a regard and enrol all offences discovered for presentation through a swanimote to an eyre. Duties specified in the Charter of the Forest (1217); called lespegend in Canute

relay
sequence in which groups of hounds stationed along a hunting line were uncoupled for the chase (BG 248-49)

richelle
gathering of martens (M 45 (v))

ride
a wide forest track (E, 170); open area at core of a unitary hunting district within a forest, usually with a lodge; = walk?

rifletum
coppice, thicket, spinney or place of bushes and thorns; osier bed (Ja, 302)

rinbold
cropped, topped or polled tree(s) (L 238)

rind
tree bark (Ja, 302)

ringed swine
pig with a nasal ring to prevent it from

robora
(Med. Lat.) pollard (Rackham; Thomas, pers. comm.)

rock falcon
bird of prey, traditionally reserved for the use of duke (B); supposedly a hardy, larger peregrine (q.v.) taken from inaccessible areas of coastline (HCT)

rod
see

roding
see

roe deer
see

romany
member of the itinerant peoples called

rood
(areal unit of measurement) area of land equal to 40 perches, 2.5 chains, 1,210 sq yds. Four roods = 1 acre (E 179); area of land equivalent to a quarter of an acre, being one furlong (220yds) long and one perch, rod, or pole (5.5yds) wide (R 169); a strip of land measuring 1 furlong (40 rods) by 1 rod (C, 37)

rotation
period between cutting successive crops of timber trees or coppice on the same piece of ground; the age to which a crop of wood is grown before cutting (E, 179)

roundwood
logs of less than 4ft length (Penn 161, 4)

rouse
disturb a hart from its harbour (M 45 (v)); see also

rout
gathering of wolves (M 45 (v))

rundle
cylinder or roller of wood, a lopped and pollarded stem (L 238)

runt
grub up (Ja, 304)

sail
upright rod of a hurdle (Je, 27)

sale
area of timber grown for the commercial market

salter
see

sapling
young tree (E, 179)

scantilon
measure of the fute (footprint) of a deer (BG 253)

scot-ale
making and compulsory selling of ale by foresters to forest inhabitants, forbidden by the Charter and Ordinance of the Forest (1217, 1306) (M 6 (v) and 203 (r)) (Stagg, Wordsworth, 290-92); see

scow
measurement of bark (word probably derived from a method of drying bark) (P 205)

scrubbed tree
stunted or dwarf tree (Ja, 303)

scut
tail of a hare or rabbit (M 45 (v))

sea coal
also 'pit coal' or 'stone coal'; mineral coal (Latin carbonum marinus or carbonum maritimus) as opposed to charcoal (Latin carbonum) (R 169)

sea eagle
a bird of prey, haliaeetus albicilla, whose habitat is sea coasts, valleys of large rivers, and inland lakes, once common in northern parts of England and in Scotland, and which takes fish and water birds to the size of a swan (HCT)

sear
faggot similar to a bavin, but longer and bound with 3 weefs (Ja, 303)

seat
also

sergeant
tenant who hold his property or land in return for service(s) (generally other than military) (R 169)

sess
see 'cess'

set or sett
(v) to plant; (n) cutting used for planting (Ja, 303)

setts
quickset, thicket or thorn (P 205)