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of winter until the calends of December. According to the same laws, there was a certain close time for deer. Hinds were hunted from the first week in February to the feast of St John at Midsummer, and stags from St John to the calends of winter. The times of hunting in England for the male deer, from St John Baptist (6th July) to 25th September; for female deer, from 25th September to Candlemas, 14th February; the boar, from Christmas to Candlemas.

NOTES.-1 Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. viii. p. 486. 2 Such records are few and scattered, e.g. "There are no sources of information from which a precise knowledge of the state of agriculture in the northern counties previous to the rebellion of 1745 can be derived. . . . We still see the arable land divided into small crofts and many of the hills occupied as commons (from a Survey of Cromarty and Ross, 1810, by Sir G. S. Mackenzie). We are slightly better off now, but we still depend greatly on inference and comparison. 3 Foris stant. The monk who delights in any absurdity of etymology if it will advance his theories about deer says that it is called forest by changing the letter O into E, forest: that is, a station for wild beasts (Dial. de Scacc., book 1. chap. xii.). 4 A.L. Irel., i. 203; A.L. W., Anom. IX. xxv. 3; A.L. Irel., i. 162, lines 20, 28-29; and M. D'Arbois, Résumé d'un Cours de Droit Irlandaise, 1888-89, p. 22 et seq. But in the first instance woods are for the use of the whole community. A.L.W., Anom. XIII. ii. 49: "Three things in common to a country and kindred: mast woods, hunting, and an iron mine; and exclusive ownership is not to be claimed to the one or the other of them." The grove (holt) is mentioned in the ancient formula in the Gulatingslaw of Norway, G. 292, as part of the old odal estate, distinguished from the forest pastures (teigar) in the commons outside, which latter, at first personal rights, became in course of time easements attaching to and parcel of the odal estate. In the division of such estate in the Orkneys the law did not allow the woods, a very valuable part in such a country, to pass to the daughters, possibly because in the first instance it fell to the sons to perform the sacred rights. 5 A.L.W., Ven. III. xxv. ?A.L.W., Anom. XIII

27, 30. 6 A.L. W., Anom. vIII. xi. 7. ii. 236. Three indispensables of a summer resident: a bothy, a herdsman's dog, and a knife. Ibid., 237. The three indispensables of a bothy are a roof-tree, roof-supporting forks, and wattling, which he may cut in any wild wood. These are from laws probably late but in or before the sixteenth century. 8 812, Pertz, Mon. Germ. Hist. Legum, i. 181. 9 W. R. Fisher, The Forests of Essex, 1887, p. 208. 10 Book I. chaps. x.-xiii. 11 S.P. Forest, 1215, Hunts. They say that William of Leicester and Walter and the others came to the foresters with books and candles, meaning to excommunicate them if they did not deliver the said Gervais, a clerk, from prison. 12 Charles Petit-Dutaillis, Studies and Notes Supplementary to Stubbs' Constitutional History, 1908. 13 W. S. M'Kechnie, Magna Charta, 1905. 14 Accord. ing to the Report of the Tariff Commission, 1905, vol. iii., the estimated

17 E.g. Ann. of Ann. of Clonmacnois, 955: Chron. Scotorum, 960: a murrain of cows. Saxon

average production of wheat in the island, 1901-5, per acre was 30.77 bushels. In the Australian Commonwealth the average for the years 1901-11 was 10-63 bushels, and for the U.S. about the same. 15 A.L.W., Ven. II. xxi. 1; and xxvii. 16 A.L.W., Ven. 1. xx. 9. Annals of Loch Ce, 1107: Cenn Coradh was burned between the two Easters with sixty puncheons of mead and beer. Ulster, 953: a great destruction of cows. great dearth of cattle and many diseases. great plague of cattle. Ann. Clonm., 981: Chron. Ann. of Ulster and Brut y Twysogion, 986: the great murrain of cattle in England and Wales. Simeon of Durham, 1111: a famine, a murrain among animals, and a very great destruction of birds. Annals of Loch Cé, 1115: great havoc of birds, cattle, and people (owing to very severe winter ?), 1131. A.S. Chron. 1133: so great disease among the cattle (swine and fowls) as never was before in the memory of man. Annals of Loch Cé, 1133: a great cow mortality throughout all Erin. Four Masters, 1154: great destruction of cattle, etc., etc. 18 A.L.W., Gwent. II. xxiii. 6. 19 C. 20, Skene's Regiam Majestatem. 20 Cox's Royal Forests of England, p. 121. 21 A.L.W., Gwent. II. xxiii. 1. 22 If dogs be slipped at a stag and it be killed, the owner of the land had the hind quarter (A.L. W., Ven. III. xviii.). 23 A.L.W., Dim. II. xiii. 15, 16. 24 There are three hunts free to every person on the land of another (1) hunting a roebuck, (2) hunting a fox, and (3) hunting an otter (A.L.W., Dim. I. viii. 72). 25 A.L.W., Anom. IV.

i. 20. 26 A.L.W., Anom., c. 83, 142. 27 A.L. Irel., iv. 77, 121; and v. 483. 28 See Leges Marchiarum, by Wm. Bishop of Carlisle, 1747, pp. 147-156. 29 Quoted Rotuli Lit. Clans., edit. Hardy, i. 85. "Sed ita quod sciatis qui illi fuerint et quid capiant et quantum quia non habemus forestas et bestias nostras ad opus nostrum tantum sed etiam ad opus fidelium nostrorum, sed bene illas custodivi faciatis propter latrones quia bestie magis separent per latrones quam per predictos Barones." 30 S.P. Forest, pp. 3, 4, 6. 31 Skene, Regiam Majestatem. 32 Kelso Chartularies, No. 325, p. 261. 33 Chaucer's Reeve's Tale, line 160. 34 A.L. W., Ven. III. iii. 11: a wild horse is worth threescore pence. 35 See the records of wild-boar hunting given in C. J. Cox's Royal Forests of England, p. 31. 36 A.L. W., Ven. 1. xxii. 10; xvi. 8; Dim. II. xiii.

CHAPTER XVI

THE WASTE. TAME ANIMALS. DOGS AND HAWKS

The Range for Cattle.-Whatever might be the value of the forest for deer and other wild beasts, all other uses were subordinate to the feeding of the "cattle upon a thousand hills," which formed at once the coinage and the food and the means of cultivation of the land.

The king is paid both the money penalties of his courts and the ferms due to him from the counties largely in cattle and other animals, and in fact in produce of all kinds.

E.g., Wm. de Braose (9 John) paid 300 cows, 30 bulls, and 2 mares pro habenda loquela.1 Philip FitzRobert (6 Rich. I.) gave £200 and 100 bacons and 100 cheeses for the wardship of the land and heir of Ivo de Mundy.2

The counties had their specialities in food. The sheriff of Gloucester, 1316, buys 20 salmons to be put into Pyes against Christmas; the sheriff of Sussex, brawn and meat of all sorts; the sheriffs of Buckingham, Bedford, and Essex, hens. Geoffrey Fitz Peter pays 10 palfreys and 10 hawks that the king of Scotland's daughters might not be committed to his custody.3 The Exchequer Rolls of Scotland show in the purveyance for Alexander III. and his queen for 29 weeks and 2 days at Forfar Castle, 48 beeves, 25 swine, 20 sheep, 60 stone of cheese, 31 fowls, 17 chalders 1 bolls of malt, 3 chalders 2 bolls of barley, 38 chalders 8 bolls of fodder, besides a special provision of barley and fodder for the Queen, 700 eels for the King from the lake and 180 for the Queen. But the frugal Scot was a small eater.

Bribes might be paid in them. In 1334 accusation is made against a deputy collector of revenue, inter alia, that he has appropriated to himself 74 fat cattle belonging to men on whom he has passed sentence as justiciary. He answers that they were convicted by a former justiciary ; that the cattle had been stolen from him and returned by a friend of one of the thieves. The defence sounds rather weak.

All lords of lands take a great part of the rents of their lands in the same way: e.g. Papers relating to the Macleans of Duart, in the account of rents of Duart, p. 293, out of over £3100 received, all but £500 was paid in "kyne." Sinclair, writing in 1793, says of the parish of Bower in Caithness that the proprietor received the greater part of his rent in victual and services of cultivation and payments in animals, hawks, hens, and eggs, etc., and various small services up to 1760 or so, since then more money,

Query, in respect of these rents of eggs, what happened if the hens did not lay, and what rule was laid down as to the freshness of an egg? The absolute authority of the lord was greatly limited by such things. If the rent was paid in hens, it would be a good opportunity to get rid of the non-layers.

Cattle formed the greater part of the food of the king's levies as they moved through the country, and of the whole people; and land for cultivation was measured by the amount which a team of eight oxen, varying in strength and endurance, were able to cultivate in a day.

No one would dream of sending milch cows or work oxen, which might at any moment be wanted for labour, to run on a distant range. Hence the setting apart of home pastures, stinted pastures, regulated so that they should not be overstocked, comes very early into rural economy. They were common to all the community for the cattle in daily use for work or milk. The milch cattle in particular were very important, as evidenced by the numerous minute regulations in the Brehon laws as to injury by dogs and other cattle, the provisions about dry cows and cows going dry. The cows going dry are among the "proofs which attest the falsehood of every king," so that he loses part of his honour price.

But all the rest of the cattle, those kept for food and the growing stock, went out in summer all over the Islands on to the waste land, whether the forests of the king or the wastes of the manor or tribe, to be brought in only when the failure of the pasture made it necessary.

E.g. the monks of Newminster had a lease of the hill pastures of Kidland in the Cheviots, in North-West Northumberland, where they sent out their cattle to range in summer, their men living on the range from April until August in their coats of quilted canvas, with spear in hand, keeping watch on the Scots. But "their damage and losses were so excessive greatt as well to the stealinge and spoyle of their cattailles as in the murderynge and takinge awaie as prisoners of their herdes and servuntes," that they agisted or took for hire other people's cattle on this range instead of their

own. In 1604 no one had paid rent for twenty years because of the Scottish borderers.6

When frost came those which it was intended should be carried through the winter were brought on to the home pastures to starve on what they could find until the spring. The Scots, we are told of the common pasture of Kidland, did not generally raid in the dead of winter, for then "the ways are so foul and the cattle so weak, they cannot drive or carry anything off." 7 The rest were killed off as marts or Martinmas beef in November, and salted down for use, until with the longer days of the spring came the change to the fresh meat of tame animals.

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The Rule as to Ranging Stock.-It seems to have been a well-recognised rule that men could only take out to the waste cattle or sheep in proportion to the number which they could carry through the winter or which they possessed. No man must keep more stock in summer than he keeps in winter. If any man pastured more beasts on the common pasture than he had land to justify, he was liable to be fined or to have his beasts seized by the officer appointed to protect the common pasture from being overstocked. In a case of replevin against a man for taking beasts in a common pasture, the defence was that the defendant held land to which was dependent a search of common pasture for more beasts than ought to have been put there and for beasts of those who ought not to common there.10 In 1630, in the Forest of Essex, there is a Presentment by Regarders of Waltham : "We saye and present that it hath been the Ancient Custome of the Forrest to be driven twice every yeare by the officers of the said Forrest to avoyde Forrainners Cattle. For yt it may not be surcharged."

But if not fined or distrained on, if any man reared a greater number of cattle on the summer pasture than he could carry through the winter, he was liable to certain loss, apart from the damage to the common pasture. The chief or lord was no more entitled to put on too many beasts than the other members, 11 and it was his business to see that the rules were observed.

I question, judging by what authorities we have, whether

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