[33]See Dr. Guest’s _Early English Settlements in South Britain; Proceedings of the Archæological Institute_, Salisbury volume, p. 57.
[34]“Nova Foresta, quæ linguâ Anglorum Ytene nuncupatur,” however, says Florence of Worcester (vol. ii. pp. 44, 45, ed. Thorpe); but the Keltic origin of the word is better.
[35]Ashley is connected with Esk and Usk, and refers to water rather than wood.—_errata_
[36]The names of the fields in the various farms adjoining the Forest—Furzy Close, Heathy Close, Cold Croft, Starvesall, Hungry Hill, Rough Pastures, &c. &c.—are not without meaning. The common Forest proverb of “lark’s-lees,” applied to the soil, pretty clearly, too, shows its quality.
[37]Manwood defines a forest “a certaine territorie of woody grounds and fruitful pastures.” _A Treatise of the Lawes of the Forest._ London, 1619. Chap. i. f. 18. Wedgwood (_Dictionary of English Etymology_, vol. ii. p. 34) shows the true meaning of the word, by connecting it with the Welsh _gores_, _gorest_, waste, open ground, and _goresta_, to lie open.
[38]See Mr. Davies’s paper on the Races of Lancashire, _Transactions of the Philological Society_, 1855, p. 258. In _Domesday_, as before, under Clatinges, p. xviii. a, we find, “Silva inutilis,” that is, a wood which has no beech, oak, ash, nor holly, but only yews or thorns, equivalent to the entry, “Silva sine pasnagio,” under Anne, p. xix. a. (See, too, Ellis, _Introduction to Domesday_, vol. i. p. 99.) Whilst under Borgate, p. iv. b, we find, “Pastura quæ reddebat xl porcos est in forestâ Regis.”
[40]In the Charta de Forestâ of Canute (Manwood, f. 3, sect. 27) mention is made in the forests of horses, cows, and wild goats which are all protected; and from sect. 28 it is plain that, under certain limitations, people might cut fuel. These, with other privileges, such as killing game on their own lands (see sect. xxx. f. 4)—for, by theory, all game was the King’s—were compensations given to the forester for being subject to Forest Law.
Further, from the Charta de Forestâ of Henry III. (Manwood, ff. 6-11), we find that persons had houses and farms, and even woods, in the very centre of the King’s forests; and the charter provides that they may there, on their own lands, build mills on the forest streams, sink wells, and dig marl-pits, referring, most probably, in the last case, to the New Forest, where marl has been used, from time immemorial, to manure the land; and, further, that in their own woods, even though in the forest, they might keep hawks, and go hawking. (See f. 7, sects. xii., xiii.)