The royal forests of England

"The royal forests of England" by J. Charles Cox is a historical account written in the early 20th century. It examines how England’s royal forests were defined, governed, used, and imagined—covering forest law, courts, officers, hunting, timber, grazing, and the character of individual forests across many counties—drawing heavily on archival records and illustrated material.

The opening of the work sets the scope and method: after series pages, dedication, contents, and illustration lists, a preface explains that forest history has been neglected, outlines rich source materials in national archives, notes key modern studies (notably on Essex, Pickering, and forest pleas), and states the author’s aims, limits, and personal interest. The first chapter redefines “forest” as a legal-territorial jurisdiction rather than mere woodland, distinguishes forest, chase, park, and warren, sketches the three broad periods of forest history, and narrates the shift from Saxon customs to Norman afforestation, Magna Carta and the Forest Charter, later perambulations, and the 1222 “cablish” storm inventory; it also notes permitted industries (iron, mining, quarrying) and purlieu customs. The next chapters describe the forest courts (eyre, regard, swainmote, attachment), their procedures and penalties, and the officials—keepers, verderers, foresters (including riding and fee-holding foresters), woodwards, agisters, rangers, and regarders—their symbols, wages, and perquisites. A substantial section clarifies the “beasts of the forest” (red, fallow, roe, and wild boar), corrects common errors about hare and wolf, and briskly surveys hunting, warrens, birds, swans, bees, and disease (murrain), with vivid cases from multiple forests. At the start of the fifth chapter, the text turns to agistment and pannage—how domestic animals were managed within forest bounds and overseen by agisters—before the excerpt ends. (This is an automatically generated summary.)