The Charter of the Forest of 1217 re-established rights of access for free men to the

royal forest A royal forest, occasionally known as a kingswood (), is an area of land with different definitions in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The term ''forest'' in the ordinary modern understanding refers to an area of wooded land; however, the ...

that had been eroded by King

William the Conqueror William the Conqueror (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), sometimes called William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England (as William I), reigning from 1066 until his death. A descendant of Rollo, he was D ...

and his heirs. Many of its provisions were in force for centuries afterwards. It was originally sealed in England by the young King Henry III, acting under the regency of

William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1146 or 1147 – 14 May 1219), also called William the Marshal (Anglo-Norman language, Norman French: ', French language, French: '), was an Anglo-Normans, Anglo-Norman soldier and statesman during High Med ...

. It was in many ways a companion document to

Magna Carta (Medieval Latin for "Great Charter"), sometimes spelled Magna Charta, is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardin ...

. The charter redressed some applications of the Anglo-Norman Forest Law that had been extended and abused by King

William Rufus William II (; – 2 August 1100) was King of England from 26 September 1087 until his death in 1100, with powers over Normandy and influence in Scotland. He was less successful in extending control into Wales. The third son of William the Co ...

History

"Forest" to the

Normans The Normans (Norman language, Norman: ''Normaunds''; ; ) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norsemen, Norse Viking settlers and locals of West Francia. The Norse settlements in West Franc ...

meant an enclosed area where the monarch, or sometimes another aristocrat, had exclusive rights to animals of the chase and the greenery ("vert") on which they fed.Geraldine van Buren, "Take Back Control: A new Commons Charter for the twenty-first century is overdue, 800 years after the first": in ''Times Literary Supplement'', 10 March 2017, pp. 23–25. It consisted not only of trees but also large areas of

commons The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons ...

such as heathland, grassland, and wetlands, productive of food, grazing, and other resources. Lands became more restricted as King Richard and King John designated increasing areas as royal forest, off-limits to commoners. At its widest extent, royal forest covered about one-third of the land of southern England. Thus, it became an increasing hardship for the common people to try to farm, forage, and otherwise use the land they lived on. The Charter of the Forest was first issued on 6 November 1217 at

Old St Paul's Cathedral Old St Paul's Cathedral was the cathedral of the City of London that, until the Great Fire of London, Great Fire of 1666, stood on the site of the present St Paul's Cathedral. Built from 1087 to 1314 and dedicated to Paul of Tarsus, Saint Paul ...

, London as a complementary charter to

from which it had evolved. It was reissued in 1225 with several minor changes to wording, but cancelled in 1227 when Henry III declared his adulthood. It was joined with Magna Carta in the

Confirmation of Charters (Medieval Latin for "Great Charter"), sometimes spelled Magna Charta, is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal S ...

in 1297. At a time when royal forests were the most important potential source of

fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work (physics), work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chem ...

for cooking, heating, and industries such as

charcoal burning Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...

, and of such hotly defended rights as

pannage Pannage is the practice of releasing livestock- pigs in a forest, so that they can feed on fallen acorns, beechmast, chestnuts or other nuts. Historically, it was a right or privilege granted to local people on common land or in royal forests ...

(pasture for pigs), estover (collecting firewood),

agistment Agistment originally referred specifically to the proceeds of pasturage in the king's forests. To agist is, in English law, to take cattle to graze, in exchange for payment (derived, via Anglo-Norman ''agister'', from the Old French ''gîte">g ...

(grazing), or

turbary Turbary is the ancient right to cut turf, or peat, for fuel on a particular area of bog. The word may also be used to describe the associated piece of bog or peatland and, by extension, the material extracted from the turbary. Turbary rights, whi ...

(cutting of turf for fuel), this charter was almost unique in providing a degree of economic protection for free men who used the forest to forage for food and to graze their animals. In contrast to Magna Carta, which dealt with the rights of barons, it restored to the commoner some fundamental rights, privileges, and protections against the abuses of an encroaching aristocracy. For many years it was regarded as a development of great significance in England's constitutional history, with the seventeenth-century jurist Sir

Edward Coke Sir Edward Coke ( , formerly ; 1 February 1552 – 3 September 1634) was an English barrister, judge, and politician. He is often considered the greatest jurist of the Elizabethan era, Elizabethan and Jacobean era, Jacobean eras. Born into a ...

referring to it along with Magna Carta as the Charters of England's Liberties, and Sir

William Blackstone Sir William Blackstone (10 July 1723 – 14 February 1780) was an English jurist, Justice (title), justice, and Tory (British political party), Tory politician most noted for his ''Commentaries on the Laws of England'', which became the best-k ...

remarking in the eighteenth century that:

The first chapter of the charter protected common pasture in the forest for all those "accustomed to it", and chapter nine provided for "every man to agist his wood in the forest as he wishes". It added "Henceforth every freeman, in his wood or on his land that he has in the forest, may with impunity make a mill, fish-preserve, pond, marl-pit, ditch, or arable in cultivated land outside coverts, provided that no injury is thereby given to any neighbour." The charter restored the area classified as "forest" to that of

Henry II Henry II may refer to: Kings * Saint Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor (972–1024), crowned King of Germany in 1002, of Italy in 1004 and Emperor in 1014 *Henry II of England (1133–89), reigned from 1154 *Henry II of Jerusalem and Cyprus (1271–1 ...

's time. Clause 10 repealed the death penalty (and mutilation as a lesser punishment) for capturing deer (

venison Venison refers primarily to the meat of deer (or antelope in South Africa). Venison can be used to refer to any part of the animal, so long as it is edible, including the internal organs. Venison, much like beef or pork, is categorized into spe ...

), though transgressors were still subject to fines or imprisonment. Special verderers' courts were set up within the forests to enforce the laws of the charter.

Development

By Tudor times, most of the laws served mainly to protect the timber in royal forests. Some clauses in the Laws of Forests remained in force until the 1970s. The special courts still exist in the

New Forest The New Forest is one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in Southern England, covering southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire. It was proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror, featu ...

and the

Forest of Dean The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the Counties of England, county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangle, triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and no ...

. In this respect, the charter was the statute that remained longest in force in England from 1217 until superseded by the Wild Creatures and Forest Laws Act 1971. The charter was a vehicle for asserting the values of the commons and the right of commoners against the state and the forces of commodification. The Act that replaced it was about the protection of nature and administering the commodification of natural resources. To mark 800 years of the Charter of the Forest, in 2017, the Woodland Trust and more than 50 other cross-sector organisations joined forces to create and launch a Charter for Trees, Woods and People, reflecting the modern relationship with trees and woods in the landscape for people in the UK.

Significance

According to Guy Standing, the charter "was not about the rights of the poor, but about the rights of the free. For its time and place, it was a radical assertion of the universality of freedom, its commonality."

Surviving copies

It is claimed that only two copies of the 1217 Charter of the Forest survive, belonging to

Durham Cathedral Durham Cathedral, formally the , is a Church of England cathedral in the city of Durham, England. The cathedral is the seat of the bishop of Durham and is the Mother Church#Cathedral, mother church of the diocese of Durham. It also contains the ...

and

Lincoln Cathedral Lincoln Cathedral, also called Lincoln Minster, and formally the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln, is a Church of England cathedral in Lincoln, England, Lincoln, England. It is the seat of the bishop of Lincoln and is the Mo ...

. The Lincoln copy is usually on display in the David P J Ross Magna Carta Vault in

Lincoln Castle Lincoln Castle is a major medieval castle constructed in Lincoln, England, during the late 11th century by William the Conqueror on the site of a pre-existing Roman fortress. The castle is unusual in that it has two mottes. It is one of only ...

, together with the Lincoln copy of Magna Carta. A manuscript of the 1225 reissue narrowly escaped destruction in 1865 and is now available in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

(Add. Ch. 24712). A recently discovered copy of the 1300 edition of the Charter of the Forest is in Sandwich Guildhall Museum Magna Charter exemplification in Kent. Another copy of the 1300 edition of the Charter of the Forest is with the Oriel College Magna Charter exemplification

In popular culture

The charter has inspired the name of the Read-Opera ''The Charter of the Forest,'' which deals with themes such as free people's relation to power, which were codified in one form by the original Charter of the Forest.

References

Bibliography

* GC Homans, ''English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century'' (1941) *H Rothwell, ''English Historical Documents 1189–1327'' (1995) * P. Linebaugh, ''The Magna Charta Manifesto'' (2008)

External links

BBC Radio 4 "The Things We Forgot to Remember," Series 2 Episode 4, from 6:15 onwards
* * * * *
Lincoln Castle Magna Carta (and Charter of the Forest) display page
{{Authority control 1210s in law 1217 in England 1225 in England 1297 in England Acts of the Parliament of England 1297 Repealed English legislation Medieval charters and cartularies of England Medieval manuscripts Magna Carta Government documents Political charters English forest law Henry III of England Public commons