Archaeology and History of Medieval Sherwood Forest

Bestwood Park

2012-02-27T21:45:00.003Z

Bestwood Park was the largest of the royal deer parks ofmedieval Sherwood Forest.

It was enclosed as a deer park some 200 years after theother parks of Sherwood in 1349 (see Nottingham Castle Park, King John’s Palace, Royal Parks, and Poaching in Clipstone Parkentries for more details).

‘On 30^th May that year Robert de Mauley, thechief forester of Sherwood, was ordered to cut down all the wood in Linby Hayand sell it for the King’s use, and to use the money raised from the sale toenclose Beskwood (Bestwood). The workhad been completed by 1357’ (Crook 2002).

Before this time it was known as theHay (hedged wood) of Bestwood.

Enclosing this park- to surround it with a 3 metre highdeer-proof fence would have been no mean feat.

The park stretched from current day Arnold Road in the south(approximately 2½ miles north of the medieval town walls of Nottingham) almostto the village of Papplewick some 4½ miles to the north of that.

It was 2 miles wide at the middle stretching fromthe town of Bulwell in the west to the Manor of Arnold on the eastern side.

The perimeter fence stretched 9 miles around- the number of trees (and people) required to make such a fence must have been incredible.

It would certainly have been impressive and would certainly have made no understatement that access was not welcome.

The park enclosed an area of largely wooded higher groundcut by a number of dales and valleys.

The outline can still be traced in the modern landscape.

In Medieval times it was bounded to east and west by the twogreat roads running north from Nottingham. The road to the crown manor of Mansfieldmarked the western side of the park, passing Newstead Priory just to the north,and the King’s Highway to York on the east.

A journey up either of these roads would have led the traveller along side the fence of the park for a number of miles.

To the north, the park was defined not only by a 3 metrehigh fence, but also by a stream which emerged from a spring to the north ofthe Red Hill road cutting (called ‘Rederode’ (Red road) in a 1334 boundary perambulation-a recounting of the boundary).

This stream ran around the northern edge of thepark to join the River Leen on the western side of the park, which then flowed south to the River Trent.

The River Leen was the western boundary of Sherwood Forestfrom the 13^th Century.

On the northern edge of the park this stream was dammed toform a lake perhaps for fish and for deer to drink from. It is depicted on the1609 Crown Survey Map of Sherwood Forest by Richard Bankes (Mastoris and Groves1998).

This map calls the park ‘Bescott Park’ and lists it as apart of Lenton parish, Bestwood was first mentioned in the records in a grantto Lenton Priory by Henry I in the Lenton Register (Crook 2002).

A second pond is shown in the western part of the park on the1609 map, along with a ‘Waterfall Yate' (gate) a crossing point of the Leen.

The Perambulation mentioned above dating from the 1334 ForestEyre calls Bestwood ‘Hayea de Beskewode’(Boulton 1964) and also mentions a 'Waltongate' – presumably an entrance into the park, and a 'Beskwodeforthe' (ford) presumablycrossing one of the streams or rivers.

The 1609 survey shows the park to be mainly open pasturedotted with presumably large pollarded oak trees, along witha number of enclosed woods on the eastern edge.

This could reflect the medieval landscape of the park, butit is likely that many of the trees had been removed by this time.

A picture of the landscape of the park can be gained fromthe oldest surviving map of Sherwood Forest (the Belvoir map) which is dated tothe late 13^th or early 14^th century (Barley 1986).

This map lists a number of landscape features including ‘HolyStone seke’ (stream) the name for the stream running around the northern edgeof the park, ‘Ye Waterfall’ (by the waterfall gate), and a Walton Gate’ thelocations of which are confirmed by the later 1609 map depictions.

The hilly topography is shown by the presence of a ‘Kyngg’ushoc hill’ (King’s Oak Hill), ‘Syre hill’, 'ye kosckshote hil’ (cock shoot hill)and ‘Beskwode hede’.

This higher ground is cut by a number of valleys including ‘Markeholyndale’, a ‘paddock dale’, a 'Woldale' and ‘Rydale’.

As well as these valleys an ‘Apultre (Apple tree) Dale ',and a ‘Ye Elder Tree Dale’ suggest that like the Nottingham Castle Park,Bestwood Park provided more than just deer.

This multiple land use is backed up by the presence of 'ye Medow' (meadow) on the eastern side of the park).

Deer lawns were also present in the park as at Clipstone with 'ye lawnde noke' being shown in the north of the park.

The care of this landscape was the responsibility of the ‘keeperof the forest of Bestwood’ who oversaw control of this park from a lodge named ‘loge’on this medieval map.

In 1284 Gervaise de Clifton Sheriff of Nottinghamshire andDerbyshire was permitted 10 marks for the building of this lodge for the King,and in 1286 he was ordered to pay Robert de Tybotot ‘keeper of the forest ofBestwood’ 10 marks (Crook 2002) to complete the job.

The park of Bestwood may have been enclosed as it was in1349 to improve deer management in the southern part of the forest, following thereduction in the size of Sherwood Forest in the 13^th century (seeBoundaries page for more details).

Whatever the reason for the emparkment, Bestwood became thelargest park in Sherwood Forest and largely replaced Clipstone Park in thenorth of the forest in the 14^th century in terms of royal patronage.

The strategic location of Bestwood between the two greatroads through the forest, in close proximity to Nottingham, with its lodgeoccupying a vantage point commanding views all the way to Leicestershire to thesouth; made it a great location for a royal stay.

It was from this very park that Richard III would set out on his fatefuljourney to the battlefield of Bosworth in 1485, which would bring an end to the medieval Plantaganet dynasty and bring around the Tudor-Stuart dynasty of the 16^thand 17^th centuries...

... But that is another story...

(see the Landscape page for more details; including work on reconstructing the landscape of medieval Sherwood Forest through mapping and documentary research).

(more stories concerning Bestwood Park from entries in the court rolls of Nottingham and of Sherwood Forest coming soon).

the Caves of Medieval Sherwood Forest

2012-02-18T15:49:00.003Z

Medieval Sherwood Forest was a landscape of woodland, heathland,towns and villages.

It was an ideal location for a Royal Forest because it wasunderlain for the most part by sandstone bedrock (see why Sherwood Page formore details on the location of Sherwood).

There were other rocks underlying the forest including the MagnesianLimestones group and the Mercia Mustones. But the forest sat predominantly onthe group of sandstones laid down in the Triassic Period 250-200 million yearsago.

Picture: Sherwood Sandstones under Nottingham Castle

They were formed as flash-flood deposits in desert basins,with pebble-beds of quartzite stones and flakes concerntrated into thin layersof conglomerates reflecting these storm events. Depostional layers are clearlyseen, as is the direction of deposition. They were originally known as the ‘BunterPebble Beds’ because of these horizons in the rock.

They were however renamed the ‘Sherwood Sandstones’ becauseof their link to the medieval forest.

The sandstones were highly permeable, resulting in leachingof nutrients from the over lying soils. The result was that this landscape wasless suitable for arable in the medieval period, than the surrounding geologiesand so maintined a relatively higher amount of woodland and lowland heath (seewhy Sherwood page)

Picture: Geology of Nottinghamshire by Andy Gaunt

Ideal for deer and hunting.

Another property of the Sherwood Sandstones was that theycould be dug into using handtools. The sandstone were relatively week andfriable (easily scraped away) but thanks to a clay cement they could be shapedinto self-supporting caves, with stabe roof spans.

As a result Nottingham, but also to a lesser extentMansfield (rock houses) had an incredible array of rock-cut caves used for domestic andcommercial purposes in the medieval period.

Some of the caves of Nottingham and their use in themedieval period will be discussed here. There are many many caves inNottingham- infact more than in any other town in the country, but many date tolater times (see the City of Caves Exhibition) and these have been excavatedby, and are currently under excavation by the Nottingham Historical and Archaeological Society.

In Medieval times there were many caves in Nottingham-almost all of them were located within the limits of the medieval town- betweenthe castle in the west and the later Lace Market area in the east, and the 'Backside' (currenty day Upper Parliament Street) in the north and the cliff face near BroadMarsh in the south.

Picture: John Sppeds Map of Nottingham 1610

Further south of this the rock was beneath the water-tableand saturated.

Many of the caves that may have existed in medieval timeshave either been re-worked in later times or removed as the cliff face becameunstable and was cut back. There are some however thatsurvive to this day to gives us an insight into subterranean life in medievalNottingham.

Contratary to popular legend and myth the caves did not formtunnels down which Robin Hood avoided capture by the Sheriff of Nottingham- buttheir history is no less interesting for that.

They generally formed cellars under buildings- with avariety of forms.

Brewing was a large industry during medieval times and someof the surviving caves are Maltkilns, where spherical rooms were carved into thesandstone with either a continuous ledge around the edge or notches cut tosupport beams to hold the grain which was roasted from charcoal fires beneath(Waltham 2008).

Booze and boozing has always been popular in England and itwas no different in medieval Sherwood Forest where as well as a legitimatebrewing industry, demand must have out-stirpped supply, as a large number ofpeople are recorded as ‘brewing against the assize’ (either selling over priceor without licence) in the Micketorn Jury Presentments for the 14th century.

Another major industry in Sherwood Forest was tanning (turning raw animal hide into leather). The oak bark from the forest provided aperfect ingredient for the process- as did the urine from the town folk ofnottingham and other odure used in the process.

A number of tanners are listed in the Nottingham Borough records andother sources, including a Willelmo leTanur (William the Tanner) from 1222-23 in the Rufford Charters (see Rufford Charters: landscape, people, trades and lives in Sherwood Forest entry for more details).

Evidence of the use of oak bark in the industry is still preserved in thename ‘Barker Gate’ a street in the later Lace Market area of the old town- the old English Quarter (see Medieval Nottingham entry).

In the presentments of the Mickeltorn Jury for 1395 it is claimedthat:

‘the tanners (tannarii) of Nottingham sell leather not well tanned, and that each ofthem sells leather in his house without the view of the market or being placed inthe market for sale.’

The tannery caves of Nottingham were located to the southernside of town and were cut into the base of the cliff.

Picture: Nottingham Tannery Cave - City of Caves Exhibition.

The process used vats cut into the bedrock to allow fluidsfor different parts of the process to be held.

They are the only underground tanneries in Britain and musthave stunk to high heaven!

In the 1395 MickeltornJury presentments it is later stated that the ‘tanners dwelling in Lttlemerche(Littlemarsh) of Nottingham on the southern side block up the common waterwhich is called Lene with stakes, poles and turves in time, and lay theirleather in the aforesaid water'.

Tanners along with dyers and fullers were commonly introuble with this court as the people of Nottingham complained about thesmells and ‘odure’ associated with their trades.

This realtionship, however uneasy, had a long history andwas also in existence in the 13^th century and earlier:

One of the tannery caves contained a cess pit in the tanneryfloor which contained pottery from 1270-1300 (Waltham 2008).

Caves were also used as dwelling places, possibly around thebase of Castle Rock, and on the main holloway road ways into the town (DerbyRoad and Hollowstone)- unfortunately any medieval caves along these roads arenow destroyed- later ones however still line the sides of Hollowstone which wasthe main thoroughfare into the town from the south in medieval times.

Maybe one of these caves provided shelter for William Leech and Thomas Kay who ‘unjustlyoccupied the King’s Highway under the cemetery of the Church of the BlessedMary’ in 1395.

Cellars were used for the storage of wool and othercommodities (Waltham 2008) a number of occurrences of these being left open tothe road are recorded including a William Dalahowe who ‘holds a cellar open atthe corner towards mothalgate (moot hall gate) to the serious detriment of thetown' also in 1395.

Alongside these caves that were part of the everyday lifeof the townscape of Nottingham there were a number of larger caves in the rockunder Nottingham Castle that were involved in events of national importance.

Nottingham Castle sits atop a steep sided sandstone bluffoverlooking the town and dominating the river valleys to the south and west (see Medieval Nottingham Castle entry).

One of the most famous caves cut within the rock is known as'King Davids Dungeon' and may have held King David II of Scotland in the 14^thcentury.

The most famous cave in Nottingham is Mortimers Hole- atunnel which provides access to the castle from the brewerys and mills on thesouth side of the base of the cliffs, up to the castle bailey above. It enters the rock to the west of 'Ye Olde Trip to jeruslam Pub' which has rock-cut cave rooms inside, and claims to be the oldest pub in England.

It was through this tunnel that Edward III’s men broke into Nottingham Castle in 1334 and captured the usurper Roger Mortimer- who with hislover Queen Isabella (wife of Edward II) had seized the throne in 1327. EdwardII had supposedly died with a red hot poker up his 'rear-end' in Berkeley Castle,and now Edward III retook the throne for himself via this tunnel.

All in Nottingham Castle in medieval Sherwood Forest.

This tunnel and many of the caves still in existence havebeen recorded as part of a fantastic project: the 'Nottingham Caves Survey' ran by Dr David Strange-Walker andJulia Clarke for Trent and Peak Archaeology.

This survey is mapping the caves of Nottingham using thelatest 3D laser scanning technology, and the result can be seen at The Nottingham Caves Survey website.

Picture: Mortimers Hole - from Nottingham Caves Survey website.

The caves of Nottingham then, were an intrinsic part of day to day life in the heart of medieval Sherwood Forest, and as well as givingus a glipmse into how people lived their lives they also sometimes played theirpart in the lives of the great and good, and on the lives of the people ofmedieval England as a whole.

The caves of Nottingham, are one of the lesser known secretsof Nottingham and Sherwood Forest, andhopefully with these new archaeological projects and potential redevelopment as a biggertourist attraction their history will become known to a wider audience.

1287 Sherwood Forest Eyre Court

2012-02-11T12:35:00.002Z

The 1287 Sherwood Forest Eyre Court took place on the morningof the feast of St Hilary (January 13^th)in Nottingham.

Pleas of the Forest were heard before Sirs William De Vescy,Thomas de Normanvillle, and Richard de Creeping- Justices in Eyre of the LordKing for pleas in Sherwood Forest.

They were also heard before the Verders (viridarios) (seeForest Law page) of the Forest:

Richard de Jort, William of Colwick, John of Annesley, Henryof Tinsley, William of Bevercotes and Ralph the Clerk of Mansfield (clericum deMammesfeld).

And Foresters (forestarios):

Robert D’Everingham forester in fee (forestarium feodi)- Keeperof the Forest, and under him Richard of Coningeston, his attourney, Robert theTailor, Hugh Flambard, William the fisher (Willelmum Piscarium), Willialm of Durham,Adam of York (Ebor- from Latin Eboracum – York), Robert de Strelley, William beBlakeburn, the sworn foresters of Robert D’Everingham.

Walter of Winkburn the attourney of the justice of theforest , and under him William of Hastings, William de Sheffield (Schaffeud),William the Welshman (Waleys), Robert of Linby, Bate of Linby, Hugh ofMansfield and Henry son of Richard of Clipstone.

The court opened and heard a number of cases of trespassagainst the venison- poaching deer: thesecan be seen in Forest Law Outlaws and Poaching in Clipstone Park in 1279entries.

The court then proceeded to set out the following points:

1. The Verderers of Sherwood are to hold theircourt every 40 days into the smallinfringments against the vert (cutting down trees) and small pleas – as statedint the Charter of the Forest

(the great charter of Magna Carta was firstsigned in 1215, it was followed by a seperate Charter of the Forest in 1217 - moresoon). They were to present their findings on two court rolls to the Eyre- onefor Vert and one for venison (see Forest Law page).

Picture: the 1217 Charter of the Forest

It seem the Justices in Eyre and the King believed that thelocal justices (verderers) were failing in their duties in upholding ForestLaw.

2. All the demense woods of the lord king (boscidomini regis - woods owned by the crown) and his enclosures and parks (haye et parci)were to be guarded as to the vert, that if anyone who lives in the forest is found felling a green oak he is to be forcedto attend the said verderers court and there provide enough pledges till thenext forest eyre (a person had to find somebody who could guarantee that theywould attend by pledging money if they didn’t – that person would then force theattedance of the accused if necesssary to guarantee their presence).

His Mainour (that which he stole) is to beappraised by the foresters and verders and he is to pay the amount it was worthto the verderers.

If a person is caught a second timetrespassing against the vert- the same will happen.

If a person is caught a third time they willbe locked up safely in the prison of the lord King at Nottingham until they canbe brought before the justices in Eyre.

Being locked up was no relaxing time- medieval prisons wereharsh places with no food provided (a person relied on food brought fromoutside) and very poor sanitation- well often no sanitation.

The forest Eyres were not exactly regular so a wait at hismajesty’s pleasure was not exactly pleasurable- and you could be in for a longwait!!

This may seem bad enough- but at least if you lived in theforest you had three strikes before you were sent to gaol.

It was different for those living outside:

3. Anyone dwelling outside the forest caughtfelling trees in the demense woods of the lord King also had to pay the amountit was deemed to be worth
His body was then to be submitted to prison (corpus suum committatur prisone) until he can be brought beforethe justices of the forest.

Strike one- Prison.

If he is found a second time then the samewill happen.

If he is found trespassing against the vertfor a third time he is to lose his horses with his cart, or his oxen with hiswaggon, or their price; and that price must be paid in full at the next verdererscourt or to the neighbouring townshipfor the use of the lord king , so that the verderer or his heirs or thetownship may answer therefore to the lord king before the justices in Eyre.

Presumbaly losing a horse and cart or an oxen and wagon wasalmost terminal for your average medieval peasant!

4. If a person who lived in the forest was foundtaking small sapplings below the value of four pence they were to be triedbefore the verderes- over four pence they were to be sent to the forest Eyre.

This entry lists ‘cutting saplings, branches or dry woodfrom oaks or hazels or thorns or a lime or an alder or a holly or such liketrees...’

There are not many references to the types of treesavailable to peasants on the ground in the forest- different woods burn atdifferent intensities either slow or fast and would be needed for differentkinds of cooking and heating, they also had different properties for buildinghouses and hedges- this gives us a glimpse of some of the trees and sapplingsbeing used, and we can begin to think about their uses for the medievalpeasant.

Entries 5 and 7 discuss the fines for escaping beasts of theplough (escapia aueriorium) which ended up in the woods of the king causingdamage there.

Entry 6 states that ‘it is provided that no man in thefuture carry bows and arrows (arcus vel sagittas) in the forest outside theking’s highway, unless he is a sworn forester (forestarius iuratus).

The remaining entries list responsibilities of the regarders(those who check the boundaries) and foresters with regard to trespass in woodnot belonging to the crown.

The forest Eyre of 1287 then, gives us a great insight intothe adminsitration of Sherwood Forest and the application of Forest Law and itsimpact on the lives of the people in and around Medieval Sherwood Forest.

(For more informtion on the Forest Law see Forest Laws Pageand 1334 Sherwood Forest Eyre Court entry).

Pleas taken from: Turner G.J., 1901. Select Pleas of the Forest. Seldon Society.

the Archbisop of York and Sherwood Forest

2012-02-01T11:02:00.000Z

During the medieval period the religious life ofNottinghamshire and Sherwood Forest was influenced bythe many religious houses and churches, spread throughout the landscape.

Picture: Southwell Minster

The church was intrinsic to everyday life, its festivals andfeast days followed the seasons of the year, its saint days wereused to document the meetings of the courts and administration of the land, andthe church protected and legitimised the role of the monarchy itself.

The church in Englandwas until the reformation of the 16^th century part of the greatCatholic Church under the control of the papacy in Rome.

The leader of the church in medieval Englandwas the Archbishop of Canterbury, who held the office of St Augustine, since the 6^th century.

In the north of Englandhowever it was the Archbishop of York who held sway over the lives and souls ofthe people.

In Nottinghamshire the Archbishop held a great amount ofpower both spiritually and temporally.

In Domesday he is listed as having full jurisdiction andmarket rights and the King’s customary dues of two pence over his manors.

The Archbishop is the fifth landowner listed in Domesday forNottinghamshire behind the King and a small number of Counts and Earls.

The Domesday Posessions of the Archbishop include the Manorsof Cropwell (Bishop), Laneham, South Muskham, Blidworth,Oxton, Norwell and Sutton with its outliers of Lound and Srooby, and in the great Manor of Southwell in central Nottinghamshire. The Archbishopalso held land in other places including Woodborough (Morris 1977).

Blidworth and Woodborough were both within the boundaries of Sherwood Forest.

The rest of the Archbishops properties were outside the 13^thcentury boundary of Sherwood Forest, but the Archbishop was subject to forest law in many of his lands. His influence may even have affected the forest boundariesover time.

Sutton, Scrooby and Lound in north Nottinghamshire weregranted by charter to the Archbishop, then called Oskytell, by King Edgar ofEngland in the year 958 (Davies T.GT. 1983).

Interestingly this charter mentions a ‘scirwuda’ (shirewood) as part of the boundary perambulation of the estate. This is often citedas the earliest reference to Sherwood Forest, but sadlyit cannot be directly linked to the Forest of Sherwood, due to its location,and a separation of nearly 300 years in the use of the name.

Scrooby was also incidentally later the home of WilliamBrewster a leader of the Pilgrim Fathers who sailed to Americaon the Mayflower.

In a charter in 956 two years before Sutton, Lound andScrooby were granted to the Archbishop Oskytell, King Edgar's brother the preceedingKing Eadwig had granted the Manor of Southwell to the Archbishop.

Southwell became the heart of the Archbishop’s power in thecounty.

With all its outliers the Manor of Southwell became anincredibly well defined area of power belonging to the Archbishop .

At the centre of this estate was the Minster church of Southwell.

Southwell Minster operated as a collegiate of secularcanons.

This was effectively a collection of religious brotherssimilar to a monastery- the term secular means they were not tied to one of thereligious orders of the day.

Each of these canons provided religious service tosurrounding communities known as ‘Prebeneds’ in exchange for land and money.

By the 1290’s Southwell had acquired16 Prebends in the surrounding area some of them in lands they had possessedsince Domesday and some aquired overtime.

These were at The Sacrists' prebend, Normanton, Woodborough, NorthMuskham,South Muskham, Dunham, Beckingham, Halloughton, Rampton, Eaton, and NorthLeverton, three Prebends at Norwell, and two at Oxton (Page 1910 VictoriaCounty History).

The dominion and jurisdiction theArchbishop had over the lands around Southwell resulted in it being known asthe ‘Southwell Peculiar’.

The above is a short introductionto the relationship of the Archbishopric to the land and people of Nottinghamshire.

So what does this all have to dowith Sherwood Forest?

The Archbishop of York held themanor of Blidworth, and the Prebend of Woodborough, both in Sherwood Forest as defined by the 13^th century perambulations.

At Blidworth he was confirmed in aninquisition of 1155/6 as having the right to ‘hunt in his wood of Blidworth fornine days a year, three each at Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. There he, hiscanons and his men had all their easements without waste, their own foresters,honey, eyries of sparrowhawks and hawks and pannage’ (Crook 1994).

Also as a leader of the church his lands were protected with regard to trespass against the forest law by threat of excommunication (see Mutilation and Damnation entry)

In 1300 the forest boundary wasperambulated at the order of Edward I. The boundary was altered to allow the Archbishopswood at Blidworth to be exempt from the forest law (Boulton 1964). This woodwas known as ‘ye Bischopes Wode’ in the 1400’s, and sat at the northernboundary of Blidworth against the lordship of the Abbots of Rufford (see A journey through Sherwood Forest: Newstead Priory to King John's Palace).

The remainder of the Archbishop’slands were outside the boundary of Sherwood Forest atthis time.

There were however many issues regarding the Archbishop and the forest.

An inquest in 1155/6 at the startof the reign of Henry II (1154-1189) into the rights of the Archbishop of Yorkin relation to the forest law in Nottinghamshire in the reign of hisgrandfather Henry I (1100-1135) gives us our earliest known boundary of theforest in Nottinghamshire (see Oldest known boundary entry).

Picture: Boundary of Henry I

This ‘Old Forest’ as the inquest calls it, inthe time of Henry I, stretched all the way up the western half ofthe county. The documents refer to this forest as the 'Forest of Nottingham'.

The Archbishop’s lands wereexempt from the forest law to the east of this line in the time of Henry Ibecause they were outside of the forest.

In the reign of Henry I’sgrandson, Henry II (1154-1189), and his sons, Richard I (1189-1199) and King John (1199-1216)all of Nottinghamshire north and west of the Trentwas subject to forest law.

This meant that all of the Archbishop’slands in the area to the east of the 'old forest' were subject to forest law.

As forest law gradually engulfedall of Nottinghamshire north and west of the Trentduring the reign Henry II, Richard I and John, the area to the east of the Forest of Nottingham came under forestlaw. This area seems to have gone by the name ‘Forest of Clay’

Picture: Forest of Nottingham and of Clay

The boundary between the twoforests was defined by the boundary of the ‘Old Forest’ of Henry I, and reflectsmainly the geology and soils of the region (see Forest of Clay entry). But effectively thecrown administered this huge area as one forest.

The crown enforced forest law inthe Forest of Clayas it did in the Forest of Nottinghamthroughout the later 12^th and early 13^th century:

In 1167 the Canons of Southwelland the collegiate church were fined by Henry II ‘the men of Norwell “of thepart of Master Viacrius’ paid half a mark as a result of the forest Eyre ofAlain de Neville”’ (Crook 1994)

This seems to relate to one ofthe Prebends of Southwell in Norwell in the Forest of Clay.

In 1185 Vicarius was ‘charged with40s for waste of his wood and trespass against the assize, in the forest eyreof Geoffrey Fitzpeter’ (ibid.) along with Andrew the canon charged 100s,Geoffrey the canon 2 marks, and Master Gilbert 2 marks- most likely all canonsof Southwell.

‘Two years later, in another Eyreby Geoffrey Fitzpeter, Andrew canon of Southwell was amerced the enormous sumof 40 marks for receiving venison and removing it contrary to the assize. Atthe same time Master Vicarius was again charged with 2 marks for trespassagainst the assize, canons Gilbert and Laurence 40s each for the same offenceand for default…

...it was probably the 1187 forest eyre which led Hugh of Avalon,the saintly bishop of Lincoln to excommunicate Geoffrey Fitzpeter for enforcingthe forest law’ against the Archbishops men (Crook 1994).

In the time of Richard I (1189-99)it seemed that things had got better for the Archbishop, when in 1189 Richardgranted the Archbishop ‘disaforestment of all the lands of the church of York in Nottinghamshire, boththose held in demesne and those in the prebends. They were quit of all wastesand assarts and pleas of the forest, and of the regard, and no forester orother bailiff was to interfere with them’ (Crook 1994).

However the archbishop's men still got fined or boughttheir way out of fines in 1198 and 1209 at the forest eyres, suggesting thatthe charter of Richard meant little.

The fact that they were beingdirectly fined for forest infringements suggests that royal forest law appliedover all of Nottinghamshire north and West of the Trent,and the Archbishops landat Southwell in the Forest of Clay.

When King John was in control ofNottinghamshire as Count of Mortain between 1189 and 1194 he confirmed thatMaud de Caux was keeper of the Forests of Nottingham and Derbyshire (see Women Keepers of Sherwood Forest).

In 1222 Maud de Caux was referredto as the keeper of the Forests of Nottingham and of Clay’ (Crook 1979).

Also Brian De Lisle as ChiefJustice of the Forest was ordered to allow Walter deEvermue to take timber from Clay as well as Sherwood to repair his houses(ibid).

This suggest that the crowncontinued to have jurisdiction over the Forest of Clay into the 13^thcentury, possibly up until the boundaries of the forest were finally agreed in1227.

The crown seems then to havemaintained control over the forest of Clay in the reigns of Henry II,Richard I and John up until 1227 in the reign of Henry III, with theArchbishop’s men being some of the victims of this policy.

The boundaries of the Sherwood Forest were reduced following Magna Carta and the subsequentForest Charter.

This new area removed the Forest of Clay from the equation, as theforest retreated into an area that may or may not have been the original forest(see Castles and Sherwood Forest entry), which may havefallen within the jurisdiction of Nottingham Castle.

Picture: Sherwood Forest Edward I

This meant that the problems the Archbishopof York had had regarding theforest had been finally resolved.

As previously stated thecondition improved further when the boundary was altered by Edward I in 1300 toallow his forest at Blidworth to be exempt too.

It could be that the area ofjurisdiction that the Archbishop of York had around Southwell was one of thereasons for the strange shape of Sherwood Forest fromthe 13^th century when it retreated into a boundary from an earliertime.

Perhaps the Doverbeck River provided a natural boundarybetween the jurisdiction of the castle of Nottingham (and therefore theoriginal boundary of the forest) and the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Yorkto the east of it.

Picture: Jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York and the 13th century boudnary of Sherwood Forest

It is not possible to know for sure if this was the case, with the evidence known at the moment.

Butit is clear that the Archbishop of Yorkwas an important figure in the lives of the people of the time, and that heheld significant authority in the county. It is clear that the Archbishops'faced the authority of the forest law as did everyone else- often despite theirexemptions from it. It seems that over time they eventually managed to removethe majority of their lands from under forest law, and it is also possible thattheir influence even helped shape the original boundary of Medieval SherwoodForest.

(More on Bishops, Archbishops thechurch and everyday life and the church and the forest law soon).

Priests behaving badly in Medieval Sherwood Forest

2012-01-23T21:28:00.002Z

Medieval society was a highly religious place.

In people’s minds the spiritual and the natural world wereintertwined. Evil was all around, and battle had to be done to protect peoplefrom malignant forces that surrounded on all sides.

This battle was undertaken by an army of spiritual warriorswho prayed and worshiped between them around the clock for the souls of boththe living and the dead.

Priests, monks, friars, priors, chaplains, warrior monks, Hospitallers,nuns, vicars, chantrists, Bishops and Abbots took this fight for salvation tothe enemy, and protected their flocks.

Their abbeys, priories, churches, chantries, perceptories,chapels and roadside shrines dotted the landscape of Medieval Sherwood Forest inthe towns and villages, and in the remote areas of the great heaths and woods(see the Monks and Friars of Sherwood Forest entry).

In modern times a life in the cloth is seen as a calling- aspiritual choice based on faith. In medieval times where all the world wasreligious and had faith, it was a career choice taken by many younger sons ofthe local gentry; by clerics wishing to rise through the ranks; and by greatmen of the realm becoming Abbots and Bishops and wielding incredible power andattaining immense wealth.

Many of those who joined the church probably lived quietlives dutifully tending to their flock and the needs of their parishioners...

But such quiet lives rarely raise enough of an eyebrow towarrant recording... but for every quiet and dutiful man of the cloth there wasa ‘priest behaving badly’ to provide us with a rich story of life in medieval times...the religious men of Medieval Sherwood Forest were no different...

The religious houses of Sherwood Forest provide us with manytales of misdemeanour:

Monks were oftenfound wandering away from their houses, such as at Newstead (see Gadding aboutin the Forest entry) and Lenton where in 1350 Prior Peter requested Civilassistance to ‘prevent three apostate monks of Lenton walking abroad in seculardress’ (Marcombe and Hamilton 1998)...

Worse still Prior Gilbert de Ponteburgh of Thurgarton Prioryjust outside the forest was accused of adultery with two local women in 1284, afew months later Alexander de Gedling was in trouble for swearing during ameeting of the chapter and in 1290 Walter de Bingham assaulted a John de Suttonin church and was excommunicated!

At Newstead Priory in Sherwood a Roger of the Cellar and aGeoffrey of the kitchen were dismissed as being a nuisance to the monastery,and evidence suggests drinking and wandering outside the cloister was common...

... In 1307 the prior was accused of ‘incontinence with onewoman and of relapsing into incontinence with another’ (Marcombe and Hamilton1998)...

Vicars, priests and monks were often known felons and members of notorious gangs who committed kidnap and extortion as well as vandalism and robbery (see Medieval Outlaws: the Folville Gang entry for more details).

In Nottingham the Friars of the town provide us with a fewincidents of note:

In 1402 the warden of the Franciscans was arrested in Leicesteron a charge of sedition and in 1500 warden William Bell was charged withincontinence as a pimp!! (Marcombe andHamilton 1998).

It should be noted that the some of the clergy had a badrecord of frequenting houses of Ill-repute. In London the Brothels called ‘stews’in medieval times were controlled by the Bishop of Winchester, where the womenwere known as the ‘Winchester Geese’.

In Nottingham there was probably a brothel, with a vacantplot of land called ‘Parodyse’ situated in ‘Whore Lane’ in 1391 (Foulds2006)... subtle...

Maybe the Warden of the Grey Friars was involved somewherenearby...

In 1398 an action was brought before the borough court of Nottinghamagainst a Chaplain for misbehaviour with a parishioner’s wife:

John de Bilby made a complaint against Roger de Mampton,chaplain on a plea of trespass:

While John was at Ratcliff (Radcliffe-on-Trent) attendinghis affairs, Roger ‘broke his close and entered his chamber on ‘Brydilsmythgate’’(Modern Bridlesmith Gate), Nottingham, and ‘was found under a curtain of thebed’.

John warned Roger not to be found by him ‘with his wife, norin his house in any manner’ again...

Roger promised not to... however:

Sometime later Roger ‘came by night to the house of theaforesaid John in ‘Stonestrete’ ‘(they must have moved to Stoney Street- maybeto get away from the vicar?!)...’and here broke the wall... and leaped over itto the houses of the aforesaid John de Bilby where his secret places were,which he entered with the wife of the aforesaid John and was there with thewife of the aforesaid John for a long time, without the permission and consentof the aforesaid John, and so was there continually for a whole year after theaforesaid warning’...

Apparently Roger the Chaplain and Johns wife damaged twopairs of sheets, a table cloth, towels and one brass pot during their times inthe ‘secret places’...

Well I never...

When brought before the court Roger the Chaplain pleaded thathe was carrying out his duty ‘as is the custom with the parochial clergy to gothrough their parish with the holy water’...

He was administering Holy water!

That’s one way of putting it.

Such stories remind us that the medieval world was acolourful place.

They come down to us through the records and enrich our understandingsof the lives of the people who reside in those documents. It is often the bad stories that outshine thegood... but we all love gossip, and the medieval records provide plenty ofit...

Many lay people’s lives are also recorded and will bediscussed soon.

They include forestalling and black-market dealings, robberies,fist-fights, scolds, cuckolds, hangings and banishings...

It is worthremembering that such things will always be found in court records, and shouldnot be taken to reflect the activities of everyone in medieval life. They dohowever offer us a chance to view a world full of humanity and strife- not to dissimilarto our own...

(more from the Borough Court Rolls of Nottingham,Inquisitions Post Mortem and the Manorial Court Rolls from the villages ofmedieval Sherwood Forest coming soon)...

the Vikings of Sherwood Forest

2012-01-19T19:15:00.002Z

During the 8^th and 9^thcenturyEngland wassubject to violent incursions by Vikings from Scandinavia- oftenportrayed as mindless berserkers. They rampaged around the coast of England layingwaste in their tracks. They even found time to pop across the water and create Dublin in Ireland, andto visit North America ontheir travels.

The earliest reference to Nottingham in thewritten records comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and refers to an army ofVikings over-wintering there:

'In thisyear the (Danish) army went into Mercia to Nottingham and took up winter quartersthere. And Burgred, the king of the Mercians, and his councillors askedEthelred, the king of the West Saxons, and his brother Alfred to help him to fightagainst the army. They then went with the army of the West Saxons into Mercia to Nottingham, and came upon the enemy in thatfortress, and besieged them there. There occurred no serious battle there, andthe Mercians made peace with the enemy. In the following year the raiding armyreturned to York'.

TheVikings in the area were clearly considered hostile by the author of thisaccount.

It seems that the initial phase of Viking contactwas violent, but overtime their attention seems to have turned to settlementand farming.

Or at least there was a large assimilation ofViking culture in the area. Either way, the area that was and would becomeNottinghamshire, and subsequently Sherwood Forest tookon a distinctly ‘Viking’ or ‘Old Scandinavian’ flavour.

It seems probable with more modern research such asgenetic sampling; that the Viking people were settling in areas which had sometraditional ties to the Scandinavian world, having cultural links with theregion dating back to prehistoric times.

They may not have had such a hostile reception fromthe locals.

By the 9^th and 10^th centuriesthis Viking cultural control of the area had become official with Nottingham beingpart of the Danelaw, an area of northern and eastern England underDanish rule. During this period Nottingham wasone of five Boroughs which controlled the area of Northern Mercia, the former Saxon Kingdom nowunder Danish influence.

This entry is not about life in Viking times, it ismore interested in the legacy of these people on the landscape, language andlife of Medieval Sherwood Forest.

The Scandinavian cultural impact on the medievallandscape and people was immense.

The dialect used in medieval Sherwood Forest is preserved in the landscape as a legacy of thiscultural link . Their presence can beseen at every level; from the names of the large districts to the smallestlandscape feature.

The largest administrative level ofsociety below that of the county was the ‘hundred’ a unit of authority whichhad its own jurisdiction and system of law courts. In Nottinghamshire in thearea of the Danelaw, and subsequently in Sherwood Forest the‘hundreds’ were known as Wapentakes.

The name Wapentake comes from the OldNorse ‘vapnatak’which may to refer to the method of voting at a meeting by raising weapons.

Sherwood Forest stretchedacross three Wapentakes. These were Bassetlaw, Thurgarton and Broxtowe (moresoon).

Picture: The Wapentakes of Nottinghamshire.

The use of Wapentakes instead of Hundred is a clear legacy ofViking influence down into the Medieval Forest.

Viking influence can also be seen in the DomesdayBook of 1086 through the use of the terms such as ‘Carucate’. A Carucate wasthe unit of land that could be a ploughed by a team of 8 oxen in a season.Outside the Danelaw this area was known as a ‘Hide’.

Vikings can also be seen in the place names theyleft behind. Danish name endings such as ‘Thorpe’ as in Gunthorpe, and ‘by’ asin Linby are derived from Scandinavian words. The word ‘By’ still means ‘town’in Danish today, the word ‘thorpe’ meant a settlement.

The Wapentake districts named above requiredmeeting places.

One such site in Bassetlaw Wapentake has a name ofViking origin; Thynghowe.

The derivation of Thynghowe is þing haugr, meaning ‘hill of assembly or meetingplace’, “þ” isthe old letter ‘thorn’ pronounced “th”.

Thynghowe is mentioned in Medieval perambulationsof the Kings Woods of Birklands and Bilhaugh most probably dating to 1334(Boulton 1964)

It sits on the boundary of 3 parishes and mayoccupy an even older site than its Viking name suggests (see Thynghowe –ancient meeting place entry for more details).

A recent award of funding from the Heritage LotteryFund to the Friends of Thynghowe group will enable further archaeological researchinto the site including a LIDAR survey of the surrounding landscape (see the Friends of Thynghowe website for more information).

Viking language and culture also littered thelandscape of medieval Sherwood Forest in thenames of landscape features and field names.

Here are a few examples:

Bridges such as Trent Bridge, knownin medieval times as ‘Hethbethbrigg’ used the Old Scandinavian word ‘Brigge’which still survives in the word ‘Brygga’ for jetty or bridge in Swedish.

The vast areas of open heathland that characterisedthe forest were known as Lyngges meaning heather from the Danish word 'Lyng' (see there's Vikings in the Heather link).

Streams were often called ‘Becks’ such as Doverbeckfrom the word ‘bekkr’for stream, or ‘Sik’ such as ‘Stanker Sike’ in the High Forest areaof Sherwood, from the word for a small stream in Old Scandinavian.

Valleys were known as ‘Dales’ such as ‘Rydale’ and‘Paddock Dale’ in Bestwood Park, fromthe Old Scandinavian word ‘dael’.

One of the areas of crown woodland in the High Forest areaknown as Birklands had a Scandinavian derivation. Birklands comes from the Old Scandinavian forBirch tree ‘Birk’ and ‘Lund’ theword for wood.

The Old Scandinavian word ‘kjarr’ for marshy scrubland wasused in the form ‘Carr’ such as ‘Nettleworth Carr’. It survives in the name BycarrsDike- (the canal in the marsh of the village) combining the Scandinavian words‘by’ and ‘carr’ (see the waterways of Sherwood Forest entryfor more details).

All of these uses for features in the landscape show the cultural impact ofViking people on the landscape of medieval Sherwood Forest. There are many more besides those listed. Butthere is enough here to give a flavour of the impact that Viking settlement inthe 8^th and 9^th centuries had on the later landscape ofMedieval Sherwood Forest from the 12^thonwards.

The impact on the medieval landscape is clear butcan we ever know much about the actual Viking people from the 8^thand 9^th centuries?

Unfortunately documentary evidence does not existto give us much personal detail.

Archaeology can give us a window on these people’slives, and can show us what they ate and the tools and weapons they carried, butunfortunately can never really put name to faces.

One way however is open to us where we can see thenames of some of these people.

They gave their names to some of the villages thatcover the landscape.

In Sherwood Forest thereare place names with Old Scandinavian name endings, but there are also ahandful of place names that contain the names of ‘Viking’ people:

These are Clipstone meaning ‘Klyppr’s Farm’, Gunthorpe meaning ‘Gunnhild’ssettlement’, Thoresbymeaning Thur’s town, ‘Botti’ or ‘Butti’ in Budby, and on the edge of theForest: ‘Vlar’ at Walesby.

Scandinaviannames from sometime before Domesday Book in 1089, showing again the presence of‘Viking’ people or Scandinavian cultural influence in Sherwood Forest.

TheVikings of Sherwood Forest are there if you know where to look…

(More onthe cultural landscape of Medieval Sherwood Forest, and the early Saxons ofSherwood Forest soon)

Place namesall come from:

Morris, J. (ed) 1977. Domesday BookNottinghamshire. Phillimore.

Chichester.

J. E. B.Gover J.E.B & Mawer, A & Stenton, F.M. 1940. Placenames of Nottinghamshire. English Place names Society XVII

A journey through Sherwood Forest: Newstead Priory to King John's Palace

2012-01-13T19:46:00.002Z

Newstead Priory (modern dayNewstead Abbey) is situated 10 miles to the north of Nottingham (see the Monks andFriars of Sherwood Forest ,and Gadding about in the forest entry).

Newstead Priory (now Newstead Abbey) Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire

In the Medieval Period it wason the western side of the 'High Forest' area of Sherwood, halfway along thewestern highway from Nottingham in the south to the Royal Manor of Mansfield tothe north and was a favoured stop over for travellers.

Most travellers staying atNewstead priory and taking advantage of the hospitality of the AugustinianCanons of Sherwood, who lived there, would have been travelling north or southalong the western highway.

However many people in the areawould have been undertaking a journey as part of their everyday business in theforest.

The following describes ajourney through the medieval landscape of Sherwood Forest, from Newstead Prioryto the Kings royal hunting palace at Clipstone 7 1/2 miles to thenorth east as the crow flies (see King John's Palace , Geophysical Survey of King John's Palace and Time Team at king John's Palace entries for more details).

Leaving the confines of thepriory the traveller would head up the western highway of the forest, still inthe grounds of Newstead heading north. To the left the 'Swynisti (pigsty) dale'(not a comment on its cleanliness) rose to the east running up that way fromthe valley of the Leen where the priory nestled.

Keeping 'Swynisti dale' to theleft hand side the traveller would head further north into the 'Dedde QueneDale' and head up through the wood that clung to is sides- 'Dedde Quendalewode'. After a short while the path swung east and emerged out of woodlandafter about a mile, onto the open heath land in the parish of Blidworth.

The well informed travellerwould be aware that this lordship was under the ownership of the Archbishop ofYork, and had been since Domesday. It would be well not to get caught breakingthe Forest law here as the penalty could include Excommunication on top of allthe other forms of punishment that could be on the menu (see Mutilation andDamnation entry)

The road to Blidworth climbedup onto a higher ridge of land and followed the route of the current Ricket lane. It might have been possible to see the herds of the village grazing onthe heath as it stretched for 3 miles to the southeast across a numberof hills and valleys.

After a further mile across theheath of Blidworth the arable fields of the village were crossed by the track way.In the valley to the south lay the 'Blyworth fyspole' (the fish pond of thevillage) at the source of the Doverbeck River which was a boundary of SherwoodForest further to the south east.

In the valley to the north wasRainworth Water with a moated enclosure- home to the Keeper of Lyndhurstwood, which covered the hills to the north (see LyndhurstWood the Chief Wood of Sherwood entry).

Men would have dotted the greatarable fields tilling the land, and the church of St Mary of the Purificationwould be visible in the distance.

Having passed through Blidworththe road to Clipstone ran north west towards Oxweydale the (Ox way), beforestriking north into Blidworth Wode. This large wood stretched for miles to theeast and merged with 'Hay Wode' (modern day Haywood Oaks), 'Balkhaw', 'SyreBirkes', 'Lerche haw', 'ye Byschopes Wode' and the 'Burne Abotote wood' (the BrownAbbots Wood- belonging to the Abbot of Rufford) to form a great wood thatcovered much of the area.

The road crossed the 'ReinwarthForthe' (modern day Rainworth (forthe- ford)) and left the woodland canopy toonce again cross a great swathe of heath land- this time the south-western endof the heath of Mansfield.

It then travelled further northskirting the sides of the hill of 'Kynggus (King's) Ymmislow' and againentering woodland. Here the wood belonged to the crown and was known as'Nomannes Wode' (the wood belonging to no man). This wood merged into another large area of woodland which included 'Wodhous Wode' (Mansfield Woodhouse Wood).

The track way passed the headof a valley known as 'Falous dale', before crossing Vicar Water river at 'yeBlake Forthe (ford)'.

The road then ran alongside thesouthern edge of the great Park of Clipstone- a Royal hunting park which wasenclosed within a three metre high park fence or Pale to prevent the highly prized deer within from escaping.

The traveller would not fail tobe impressed by this status symbol of the Crown and would have been well awarethat entry was not a wise option. The road then headed down the valley intoFliskerhaw wood, and out onto the 'launds' (deer lawns) of Clipstone Lordship.

It would be at this moment thatthe magnificent Royal Hunting Palace of Clipstone loomed into view. Beautiful, dazzlingwhite in the sun, and set gracefully on a spur of land between the valleys ofthe River Maun and Vicar Water. This Palace was impressive and dominated thelandscape.

Picture: King John's Palace set in its landscape from the south west (reconstruction by the author).

The King's Houses at Clipstone-now known as King John's Palace were white-washed and set against alandscape of woodland and deer lawns, encircled on the far side by a greatpond, and separated from the approach of a traveller from the east by a largeditch and possibly a palisade.

Picture: A reconstruction of king John's Palace from the south (by the author).

It should have been possiblefor a traveller to find accommodation in the village (provided the King wasn'tin town with his retinue- or even worse holding parliament (more soon)- which would causeall accommodation in the surrounding villages to be filled, let alone inClipstone).

An important visitor might findaccommodation in one of the many halls and dormitories within the royalcomplex, and enjoy hunting at the king's pleasure in his park.

But for all travellers, of highand low status, the arrival in this sylvan retreat would have been greatlywelcomed, as the forest had been safely navigated for another day.

(More on King John's Palace,parliaments on the forest, and the forest landscape in general soon)

Daily life in Medieval Sherwood Forest- Peasant Rights

2012-01-09T22:26:00.001Z

Medievalsociety and the medieval landscape were for the common person predominantlyrural and agricultural in nature.

Very littleof the landscape was not utilised, and in some areas such as the ‘Champion’(from the French champ- for field) landscapes of the Midlands,almost every inch was turned over to arable- especially in the boom years ofpopulation expanse during the 13^th century.

In Sherwood Forest it was similar, in that almost everyresource was used.

Everyvillage had its great open fields, where crops were rotated through the season,and the people farmed strips of land spread throughout them. Each year onefield stood fallow to recover for the following years crops.

This fallowfield was fertilized by the animals of the village. Pigs and sheep would beconcentrated at night into temporary pens to ‘focus’ their fertilization efforts.

Betweenthese times it was necessary to graze animals away from the open fields.

No matterhow much an animal fertilizes a field it will always take more nutrients thanit returns, if it grazes exclusively from the same field that it fertilizes, asit requires nutrients to grow.

An externalsource of nutrients and energy was therefore required, and in Sherwood Forest this came from the great heaths and Lyngges ( OldScandinavian for heather- see There’s Vikings in the Heather entry).

Shepherdsand swineherds would tend their flocks and herds on these vast swathes oflowland heath around Sherwood Forest thatstretched for mile after mile across the open countryside. Vast areas such as‘Basforde Lyngges’, the heaths of Rufford Abbey Lordship, ‘Budby Oute Fieldes’ andthe ‘Moor of Kirby’, would be dotted with these herds, and the sight of flocksand shepherds would have been common to the traveller passing through theforest.

Each parishhad their own areas of woodland, usually at their edges.

In the morepopulated southern ‘Thorneywood’ area they occupied the high ground betweenparishes, such as on the ridges between the villages of Lambley, Woodboroughand Calverton.

These woodsoften joined together to form giant woods that could cover miles, but they eachhad names reflecting to whom they belonged. Carleton Wode, Gedling Wode,Basforde Wode (named after villages) Kettulbarne Haw, Fox Swaht, Prior Stobyn,Samson Wode (after landscape features or owners past and present).

In the‘High Forest’, (the northern part of Sherwood Forest) these woods weresometimes vast such as the great Maunsfelde (Mansfield) Wode, Sutton Wode,Blidworth Wood and Hay Wode, as well as the great crown woods of the Hay ofBirklands, Bilhaugh and Lyndhurst Wood (see Lyndhurst Wood- the chief wood of Sherwood entry).

It is worthreminding that nobody could actually cut down the tress in these woods fortimber because it was forbidden by Forest Law (see Forest Law page). However therights to the woods were heavily guarded by the people, because they had otherkinds of rights within them.

As well asthe rights to pasture on the great heaths and commons peasants had the right tograze their animals in woodland at certain times of the year. One such time wasthe ‘Pannage’ season (just after the acorns fell) when peasant could grazetheir pigs on acorns in the woods of the forest.

Picutre: A peasant beating acorns from the tree for his pigs

Theserights to access woods were strictly controlled under Forest Law with ‘Agisters’acting as tax collectors to control quotas and extract fines (see Forest LawPage)

Peasantsalso had the right to take some smaller timber from the woods for ‘Haybote’(hedge repair) and ‘Husbote’ (house repair).

Theserights were often jealously guarded!

AnInquisition Post Mortem into the rights of the people of Clipstone Manor, dated20^th April 1327 early in the reign of Edward III shows some of the rights of the peasant to theresources of their land.

TheInquisition was presented in front of John De Crombwell Keeper of the KingsForest beyond Trent, by the oath of John de Annesley; Philip de Caltoft,knight; Thomas Whaton; Richard Russell; Richard Ingam; John de Holm; Richard deBestewod (Bestwood); Thomas de Lyndeby; Simon de Lameley; John le Warde ofCrathethopre; William Basage; and john Moigne of Carleton…

‘The King’s tenants of his manor of Clypston in Shirwod (Sherwood), which is of ancientdemesne of the crown of England, and their ancestors, tenants of the samemanor, from time immemorial have been accustomed to have all ferns growing in aplace which is now called the park of Clypston, for thirteen shillings and sixpence, to be rendered yearly to the King’s ancestors by the hands of thejustice of the Forest; and to collect the leaves fallen from the trees in thesame place for manuring their lands, without rendering anything therefor; andto have pasture for all kinds of beasts in the same, doing in return thecustody of the vert and venison in the same place by two of the tenants’.

This showshow the peasants had customary rights to access the ‘park’ for livestockgrazing, and to gather ferns and leaves for fertilizer, (in exchange forlooking after the deer and timber for the King)

It alsoshows that they were empowered enough to appeal through the court system toprotect those rights.

The reasonfor the inquest is that Edward II had closed off access to the park, preventingthem from their customary rights. The newly crowned Edward III was beingpetitioned by the men of Clipstone to have their rights returned. They alsoinformed the King that he was losing the money they would normally pay fortheir rights!!!

Presumablyhe would be more likely to listen if his wallet was affected.

The menalso pointed out that they could not get sufficient pasture outside of the parkfor their needs- as stated earlier nutrients for flocks and open fields neededto come from somewhere other than the fields themselves.

So as canbe seen the landscape of Sherwood Forest provided opportunities for people tomake their living from agriculture and from accessing the resources that theForest provided around them. It was also the case that people would guard theserights vigorously, petitioning through the courts and to the legal system.

The laws ofthe land prevented many people from having many things, but they also enshrinedrights over generations and the law could be called upon to protect thoserights if they were threatened.

(More onfarming practices in Medieval Sherwood Forest including the ‘Breck System’, andmore on the courts and laws of everyday medieval life coming soon).

Medieval Outlaws: The Folville Gang

2012-01-05T18:09:00.000Z

The first literary reference to Robin Hood comes from Piers Plowman by William Langland from circa 1377:

‘I kan nought parfitly my Paternoster
as the preest it singeth
but I kan rhymes of Robyn hood and
Randolf Earl of Chestre’
Translates to:
I do not know my Paternoster
perfectly as the priest sings it,
but I know rhymes of Robin Hood
and Randolf Earl of Chester.

The world famous outlaw Robin Hood was a hero of Medieval Ballads...

Alongside Robin Hood in this same poem another collection of medieval outlaws gets a mention... the Folvilles.

‘..and fechen it for false men
with Folvyles law…’

'and fix it for false men
with Folvilles law...'

This excerpt suggest that there were some people called the Folvilles who obeyed their own rules and sorted out deceitful or 'false' men with their own brand of the law.

Were these men honourable as the poem suggests? Fine upstanding sorts who brought justice to the land in the fashion of their literary more famous contemporary?

Perhaps you should read the following before committing to a decision...

The Folvilles:

John de Folville, lord of Ashby-Folville, Leicestershire
and Teigh in Rutland died in 1310...

He left 7 sons...

John the eldest inherited the manor...

The other 6:

Laurence, Richard (priest of Teigh in Rutland),
Robert, Thomas and Walter

under the leadership of their elder brother Eustace...

...became a notorious gang of extortionists, robbers, vandals, hired thugs and murders.

In 1326 in one of the most famous crimes of the day also involving Roger de la Zouche they murdered Roger Bellers a Baron of the Exchequer on the road from Melton to Leicester.

They were outlawed, and fled the country…

Picture: Folvilles Cross (remains) said to mark the spot of the murder of Roger Bellers

In 1327. They had returned and are recorded as committing a series of robberies in Lincolnshire.

The Sheriff of Nottingham was informed by the government:

‘Robert and Simon de Folville, with a band of malefactors, were roaming abroad in search of victims to beat, wound, and hold to ransom’.

A Simon de Folville is listed in an inquisition Post Mortem in Nottingham in 1356 into a robbery in 1335 (see a robbery in the forest 1335 entry for more details)... is this the same Simon de Folville?

Between 1327 and 1330 Eustace alone was involved in 3 to 4 murders and 3 robberies.

In 1329 they were pardoned in exchange for fighting for the king .

However while garrisoned with the kings army in Leicester they robbed the burgesses of the town of their belongings!!!

In 1330. Their pardon was overturned.

Then in 1331 they were hired for £20 by the a Canon of Sepringham and the Cellarer of the Cistercian house of Haverholm to destroy a rivals watermill!!

But all that became merely a backstory to the main event on their CV when ...

...On the 14th January 1332 the Folville gang and a number of associates kidnapped the future Chief Justice of the Kings bench Sir Richard de Willoughby.

On the road from Melton to Grantham

They smuggled him into Lincolnshire and moved from wood to wood to avoid capture.

A ransom of 1200 marks was paid for his release

The kidnappers were as follows:

Robert Lovett the parson of Ashwell since 1316

James Coterel of the similarly notorious Coterel family gang from Derbyshire who ran riot in the High Peak Forest with his brothers John and Nicholas (more about the Coterels soon).

The aptly named Roger Savage!

and not forgetting… Alan Baston the Canon of Sepringham who had hired the Folvilles to smash the watermill.

A collection of thugs, thieves, scoundrels and ... Vicars!!!

The governments response:

A Trailbaston Commission (a sort of posse of judges) was sent to bring the felons to justice.

Not much seems to have availed except that James Coterel and Roger Savage were pursued to the wild forest of the High Peak in Derbyshire, but escaped after a tip-off

The commission in fact failed to bring anyone to justice!

Before too long Eustace was serving the King again, this time in the hundred years war which had recently started.

Once again serving the king seems to have earned him a pardon.

In fact Eustace died a natural death in 1347 having never faced justice.

The other brothers were not so lucky:

In 1340 Richard Folville took refuge in the church of Teigh in Rutland where he had been priest for 20 years.

After he killed one of his pursuers and wounded two others with arrows shot from within the church...

He and his accomplices- most likely his brothers- were dragged out and beheaded…

A medieval final shoot-out!!!

We know all about this because it was recorded in a Papal Bull (from the Pope himself) into the incident.

Because Richard Folville was a priest taking refuge in a church (despite his rather dubiuos record) the execution was deemed unlawful.

The poor people who had carried out the 'crime' of bringing the Folvilles to justice, were forced to pray for forgiveness outside all the neighbouring parish churches...

They were beaten with a rod for their sins while a chantrist sang psalms of forgivness...

Unbelievable!!!!

Picture: A medieval Papal Bull

All these different incidents throughout the medieval period led to the belief around the country that:

‘disturbers of the peace are said to gather together daily to do evil; they ride in force by day and night taking and robbing people at their will, imprisoning some of them until they have made grievous (or sometimes ‘intolerable’) ransoms. They form congregations and conventicles and wander in woods and other public and private places, ambushing wayfarers whom they rob and sometimes slay.

In all these things they are aided and abetted by local people, who incite them to their evil deeds and shield them after they are done’.

(Stones, E. 1956. The Folvilles of Ashby Folville, Leicestershire, and their associates in crime, 1326-1347. Transactions of the Royal historical Society 77).

It is interesting to note that the common people of the time would shelter outlaws in safe houses. Outlaws were seen as heroes even in their own time- the Langland poem was written only a few years after the Folvilles crimes were committed.

It is easy to see how such characters became legendary. Many of the exploits of the outlaws above have been absorbed into the myths of Robin Hood. The eariest ballads of the man in green show he was not against bouts of extreme violence himself (chopping off Guy of Gisbornes head and dancing around with it on a pole for starters).

These accounts also go someway to explaining why in the early ballads Robin had a dislike for Bishops and the clergy. There aren't many religious men mentioned above who would make good role models to their flock.

The thirst for such tales (often full of violence and trickery) was as strong in medieval times as is it to this day.

History of the Folvilles from: Stones, E. 1956. The Folvilles of Ashby Folville, Leicestershire, and their associates in crime, 1326-1347. Transactions of the Royal historical Society 77

(more on medieval outlaws coming soon)

Women Keepers of Sherwood Forest

2012-01-03T19:46:00.000Z

Every Medieval forest in England had a keeper.

This was a person directly appointed by the King, and they oversaw the Foresters (the police force of the forest) and the Agisters (the tax collectors of the forest) amongst other duties.

These Keepers of the Royal Forests could be responsible for more than one forest (see forest law page for more details).

In Nottinghamshire the Keepers of Sherwood Forest were for many generations hereditary.

These hereditary keepers of Sherwood Forest (or the Forests of Nottinghamshire), were the De Caux family, and later through marriage the Birkin and then the D'Everingham families.

They were based at Laxton Castle, Nottinghamshire.

Research by David Crook in his paper 'Early Keepers of Sherwood Forest' (Transactions of the Thoroton Society 1980) suggests the following decent for the De Caux and D'Everingham hereditary Keepers of Sherwood Forest:

Gerard De Normanville (in the time of William I)

Ralph De Normanville

Basilia De Normanville = Robert De Caux I

Robert De Caux II

Robert De Caux III

Maud De Caux = Ralph fitz Stephen (in the time of Henry II)

Maud De Daux = Adam Fitz Peter - Lord of Birkin

John of Birkin

Thomas Birkin

Isabella Birkin= Robert D'Everingham

Adam D'Everingham

Robert D'Everingham (lost keepership)

After: Crook, D. 1980. The early keepers of Sherwood Forest. Transactions of the Thoroton Society LXXXIV, 14-20.

Robert D'Everingham lost the keepership in 1287 through poaching- (more soon)

Of the 11 hereditary keepers of the Forest up to 4 were women!

Of the first- a Basilia De Normanville little is known- she was perhaps married to Robert De Caux under the command of Henry I (Crook 1980).

There were 2 Maud De Caux's in the late 12th and early 13th century. One was the others aunt.

The first Maud De Caux had her position and that of her heirs confirmed in a charter by King John between 1189-94 at Derby.

She was succeeded by her aunt after dying without heir - the keepership did not trasnfer to an arm of the Fitz Stephen family, but stayed with the second Maud De Caux.

In 1204 King John took over Laxton Manor for himself- but the keepership remained in the hands of Maud De Caux.

In 1217 one of the Maud De Caux -had a run in with the Sheriff of Nottingham Philip Mark who was trying to take over the keepership for himself! (see A Bad Sheriff entry for more details)

Isabella Birkin was married to Robert D'Everingham starting their line of keepers (possibly to ensure a strong man supported the office)- but the keepership was passed from her to her son Adam D'Everingham in an Inquisition Post Mortem on her death in the 13th century

- suggesting the office was hers not her husbands!

So it seems that up it was possible for women to hold positions of power in Medieval Sherwood Forest, even that of the keepership.

This did change once the king granted the keepership to favoured individuals following the stripping of the keepership from Robert D'Everingham in 1287, but it shows that the role of women in Sherwood Forest in the Medieval period should not be underestimated.

(More on the Keepers of Sherwood Forest, women in the forest coming soon)

Poaching in Clipstone Park in 1279

2011-12-24T18:07:00.001Z

The Sherwood Forest Eyre Court of 1287 tells of an offence committed in Sherwood Forest in 1279 'on the Friday next before Ascension Day in the seventh year of the reign of King Edward...'

'It is presented by Adam D'Everingham (hereditary keeper of Sherwood Forest) that Alan of Leverton, clericus foreste de Schirewod (the clerk of Sherwood Forest) with Robillard his page took a doe in the park of Clipston(e)... with a laparario ruffo (red greyhound)...'

The doe was eaten by the pigs in the park because it was taken so late at night it was too dark to find it!!!

A common problem presumably for illicit poachers!

Following his crime which along with killing the king's deer, must have included failing to 'hamble' his hound (see Forest Law page) Alan was brought before the justices and sent to prison...

Maybe he spent time under the custody of 'William the Gaoler' who was one of the gaolers at Nottingham Castle around that time (see Rufford Charters entry)?

Maybe not though as he wasn't in gaol for too long receiving a ransom of half a mark sometime after...

His page Robillard did not show up and appears to have gone on the run

He was then exacted (his belongings seized- usually before outlawing)...

The interesting fact here is that these men were not peasants struggling for food in the forest to avoid starvation. Many of the people caught poaching (see Forest Law outlaws entry) or caught chopping down trees (see 1334 Sherwood Forest Eyre Court entry) were ordinary folk.

In this instance they were members of the Forest Administration itself! They were in the employment of the keeper of the Forest Adam D'Everingham.

Understanding their motives is a little harder.

Even harder still is to understand the motives of Robert D'Everingham - son of Adam D'Everingham who within a few years of receiving the keepership of Sherwood Forest from his father, was stripped of his position and himself imprisoned within ten years of this incident...

... for poaching the King's deer!

The entry does at least show us that Forest Law affected people at all levels of society. The fact that people were willing to infringe upon these laws despite the risks, shows us the allure of hunting and poaching to people in medieval Sherwood Forest.

No wonder Robin Hood and his flouting of the Forest Law by living and feasting on the kings deer, was such a popular figure for ballad singers and story tellers around the fireside's of Medieval England.

(more on the keepers of Sherwood Forest, the Women Keepers of Sherwood Forest, deer hunting, poaching, and the courts of the Forest soon).

1334 Sherwood Forest Eyre Court

2011-12-20T15:09:00.001Z

The main court of the Forest Law in the medieval period was the Forest Eyre.

This was held at irregular intervals by itinerant justices appointed by the King to administer the laws of the Forest.

The records for two of Sherwood Forests Eyre Courts survive in full. These are for 1287 and 1334.

There were two jurisdictions for the justices in Eyre for the country- one for south of the River Trent known as 'this side Trent' and one for the north known as 'Yon side Trent'.

The Forest Eyre for Sherwood Forest was therefore administered by 'the Kings Justices in Eyre Yon side Trent'.

In 1334 The Pleas of the Forest of Sherwood were heard by Ralph De Neville, Richard of Aldborough, and Peter of Middleton, at Nottingham on 'the Monday next after the Feast of St George in the Eighth Year of the reign of King Edward, the Third after the Conquest'.

The court opened with the usual ceremony:

Edwardus dei gracia rex angl' dominus Hibern' et dux Aquit' (Edward by the grace of God King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitane)... archiepiscopis, episcopis, abbatibus, prioribus, comitibus, baronibus, militibus, forestariis, viridariis, agistatoribus, regardatoribus et omnibus aliis de comitatu Nottingham salutem (archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, knights, foresters, verderers, agisters, regarders and all others of the county of Nottingham, greetings)...

(for information on verderers agisters etc see Forest Law page)

Following this royal and court protocol the Justices of Eyre are presented, and confirmation is made that the following is an exact record of the occurrences of the court.

The first trial before the court is of Hugh of Wotehale, William Hyend , Wilcock and Stephen Fleming of Nottingham who took a Hart in the Forest.

This is recorded in the Forest Law Outlaws entry on this blog.

The next entry recalls an inquiry made in 1288 by Edward I under his then Chief Forester William de Vescy.

This inquiry was into the previous rights of the then deceased Robert D'Everingham when he was formerly Keeper of Sherwood Forest.

Robert D'Everingham was stripped of his rights and position of keeper of the forest and imprisoned in Nottingham Castle at the 1287 Forest Eyre following indiscretions in the Forest.

He was dead within a year - so probably died in custody.

His family had been keepers of the forest back through marriage for hundreds of years.

The Eyre lists all his rights as keeper of the forest including the right to hunt cat and squirrel in the forest (these will be discussed soon in an entry on the Keepers of Sherwood Forest- see Forest Law page for the structure of the Forest Administration)

This inquiry was to see what rights he had had that could now be bestowed by the king on the next keeper of the Forest- no long a hereditary right.

Besides these two entries regarding outlaws and crimes of hunting, the Forest Eyre is from then on a list of all the misdemeanours in Sherwood Forest since the last Eyre. The people listed below had all committed 'trespass against the vert' at a value greater than 6d.

Values lower than this were the responsibility of the smaller 'attachment courts' (see Forest Law page)

The following pleas were heard before the court:

Ralph son of Reynold of Edwinstowe for 1 oak 10d. His ‘plegii’ (pledges) were Richard of Normanton and Richard Godard of Thoresby. ‘Pro transgressione in misericordia nunc in itinere’ (for the trespass, he is now at the mercy of the Eyre).

Ricarco filio Ricardi de Hibern’ (Richard son of Richard of Ireland) of Mansfield for ‘una querca’ (1 oak) at 12d.

Reynold the son of Geoffrey of Thoresby ‘una stobe’ (1 stub) at 8d.

Nicholas Bateman of Boteby (Budby) ‘pro una blestrone’ (1 sapling) at 6d.

Radulfo Molendinario (Ralph the miller) of Sutton (in Ashfield) ‘pro trescentum lattarum’ (for 300 laths (thin strips of wood - presumably for walling)) a 12d
.
Iohanne super moram de Warsepe (John of the moor of Warsop) ‘pro una carectata maeremie’ (a Cartload of Timber) at 6d.

Waltero le Norreys of Blidworth ‘pro truncacione unius quercus’ (for cutting the trunk of 1 oak) 6d.

Hugone ad Pontem (Hugh of the Bridge) of the same town ‘pro stoches’ (for stocks) of the price of 8d.

Ricardo filio Galfridi filii Iuonis (Richard son of Geoffrey the son of Ives) of the same town ‘pro cheueronibus’ for chevrons of the price of 10d.

Nicholas Payne of Warsop for ‘uno ramo’(one branch) at the price of 6d.

Iohanne filio Willelmi de Thoure (John the son of William of Thoure) for a ‘quercu viride’ ( green oak) of the price of 18d.

Gilbert Fadir and Gilbert Gilling ‘pro melle asportato de bosco’ for honey carried away from the wood, of the price of sixpence

Thomas Sheth of Mansfield for a ‘domo vendita’ (house sold).

After listing these men and their crimes ( some of them fairly petty eg. Nicholas Payne; one branch) the Erye Court then goes on to extract fines from the Verderers of the Attachment Court (see Forest Law Page) for failing to produce the rolls for their courts at Lindby, Bulwell, Calverton, Mansfield and Edwinstowe, for the years 1287 to 1289.

Does this suggest a level of corruption amongst these court officials- taking the money and evidence from the smaller courts of the forest and failing to declare them?

The Forest Eyre then, dealt with the crimes against the Venison, and by important men of the region such as Robert D’Everingham former Keeper of Sherwood Forest. It also kept the smaller courts and their officials in check.

It also seems to have dealt with the larger transgressions (more than 6d) against the Vert.

The court rolls show us the names of those involved and the places they have come from, and it certainly seems that many of the crimes described are committed by people trying to make a living in the forest- not by hardened criminals as might be expected.

These people are ordinary folk taking small amounts of timber, branches and sometimes even honey from the woods of Sherwood.

It is little wonder given this evidence that Forest Law was unpopular with the people of Medieval Sherwood Forest

Nottingham Castle Park

2011-12-13T16:54:00.000Z

Nottingham Castle Park was the oldest of the Royal Deer Parks of Sherwood Forest.

It was built to provide the King and his retinue with a supply of deer and the sport of hunting on the doorstep of Nottingham Castle.

The Medieval park outline is still preserved on the landscape today in the large circular steep-sided bowl of ground it occupied to the west of Nottingham Castle. The town archey butts overlooked the park to the north (see Archery in the Forest entry) and the castle itself perched on its sandstone rock to the east.

The area it covered survives roughly as the 'Park Estate' built in the late 19th century by local architect T.C.Hine for the Duke of Newcastle to house the wealthy and well-to-do rich of the rapidly industrialising Nottingham.

The medieval park was surrounded by a 3 metre high fence or 'park pale' to prevent the deer within it from escaping.

Picture: Medieval Nottingham showing Nottingham Park, the Castle and Ye Roche by Andy Gaunt.

As well as for housing deer the Medieval Park was designed both to be a place of beautiful solitude - surrounded by sandstone cliffs and containing wood pasture and coppices; and as a supplier of produce.

William Peverel custodian and builder of Nottingham Castle was given 10 acres of land by the King, to make an orchard. This is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 (Morris 1977).

The 1400's Belvoir Map (see the oldest map of Medieval Sherwood Forest entry) lists a 'Castel Apulton' (an apple orchard for the Castle) (Barley 1986).

This most probably refers to the orchard set up by William Peverel, and was presumably a feature within the park .

As well as an orchard there was a rabbit warren, probably in the form of a 'Pillow Mound' (a mound of earth built over an artificial warren) constructed before 1244 when a stock of rabbits were brought into the park (Drage 1999).

Fish for the castle were provided from the fish ponds in the park. The water from the pond probably came from the River Leen.

Picture: A Pillow Mound Rabbit Warren from the Luttrell Psalter.

Deer and hunting was of course the main raison d'etre for the park. The presence of a large deer herd attached to the castle allowed the king to provide gifts and payments to loyal subjects. Many deer were sent to important dignitaries throughout the medieval period (more on gift of venison from the park soon, see Hunting v Finance entry for more on the use of gifts for payment of service).

The park was entered from a gateway in the western wall of the castle bailey (Foulds 2004) which may have reduced the defensive capabilities of the castle, but improved access to the park.

It was previously thought the front gate of the castle was used on the eastern side with hunting parties having to ride around the castle walls and negotiate the ponds, leats and five water mills located along the southern side of the castle if they tried to approach that way (not very satisfactory).

The Castle Park was a crown possession throughout the medieval period although the 1609 Crown Survey Map of Sherwood Forest by Richard Bankes shows that a small part of it was in the possession of Lenton (Mastoris and Groves 1997) (see 1609 Crown Survey and Map entry).

Lenton Prioiry owned a small cell or hermitage of caves in the sandstone supported by a number of monks known as 'St Mary de la Roche' (St. Mary of the Rock) which was just on the southern edge of the park (the caves behind MFI store on Castle Boulevard) seperated by the diverted River Leen (see the Waterways of Sherwood Forest entry) from the town Meadows to the south.

'In 1225 Henry III issued a mandate to the Sheriffs of Nottingham and Derby to let two monks of Lenton celebrating divine services daily for the souls of the King's ancestors ''at a rock without the castle of Nottingham'' have 4d a day from the issues of the two counties for their maintenance, as they had been used to receive from previous sheriffs (Calendar of Patent Rolls, Henry III, Vol 1247-58)' (Green 1936).

This Hermitage is listed on the Belvoir Map as 'Ye Roche' (Barley 1986), and is mistakenly shown as 'Druidic Remains' by George Sanderson in his 1835 Map of 20 Miles Around Mansfield (more to come on the chapel of St Mary of the Rock soon).

So as well as being a home to deer for the King to hunt, a royal retreat, an orchard, rabbit warren and supplier of fish, the Royal Nottingham Park was also home to a small Hermitage of Monks living in a system of caves and praying for the souls of the medieval Kings of England.

It is clear then that Medieval Deer Parks were certainly for more than just hunting, and were significant places in the medeival forest landscape.

(More to come on the other Royal Deer Parks of Sherwood Forest, more on Nottingham Park, the Hunt, Rabbit Warrens, fisheries and stew ponds, and the Monks of Lenton Priory soon).

the Rufford Charters: landscape, people, trades and lives in medieval Sherwood Forest

2011-12-07T17:03:00.008Z

The Cistercian Abbey of Rufford, Nottinghamshire was founded by the Norman Landholder Gilbert de Gant in 1146.

At Christmas in that year King Stephen confirmed Gilbert's grant of the lands from his estate at Rufford to the monks of Rievaulx (Holdsworth 1972).

Rufford Abbey is located on the east side of Sherwood Forest, in the 'High Forest'. It was founded near to the King's Highway to York, and would have been a familiar and welcome stop for travellers through the Forest.

The abbey was secluded; being surrounded by the open heaths and woodland of the High Forest (more coming soon on the history of Rufford Abbey lands, Abbots and Monks)..

Picture: The undercroft at Rufford Abbey, Nottinghamshire.

The Cistercian movement of the late 12th century saw a massive re-injection of interest in monasticism, and the Cistercian order spread rapidly; recieving grants of land and money from noblemen and noblewomen wishing to buy into the new order and its promises of redemption and salvation.

The Cistercians desired a life of seclusion- which often meant the removal of the indigenous population to create a remote site.

In Sherwood Forest remoteness was available, but even here the foundation resulted in the removal of the villages of Rufford, Inkersall, Crately and Grimston- with some of the people being relocted; supposedly to the village of Wellow.

The history of the lands received by Rufford Abbey from it's foundation through the middle ages is recorded in the 'Rufford Charters'. (Published by the Thoroton Society as: Holdsworth, C.J. 1972. Rufford Charters. Thoroton Society Record Series Vol. XXIX).

The charter lists the large endowments granted by De Gant in Rufford and in nearby villages.

It also discusses at length the rights of the Abbot of Rufford in relation to the forest law (more soon).

As well as these affairs of state and actions of the great and wealthy, the Charters also show how local people donated small pieces of property to the Abbey through the 12th- 15th centuries.

Some of the records of these actions are in 'quitclaims' legal documents literally stating the quitting of any claims of ownership in order to pass the lands to the Abbey.

These 'quitclaims' not only show us how even the relatively less well off also wished to buy their way into heaven (imitating those above them), but it also gives us another glimpse into the landscape of the forest, its people, their trades and lives.

As well as quitclaims of land to the abbey, there are grants of land to rent from the abbey to people of the town.

This post will look at some of these documents relating to Nottingham and will show what we can learn about Medieval Nottingham and Sherwood Forest from examining them.

All names and entries are taken from Holdsworth 1972 and then interpreted below. Over time individual and related quitcalims will be examined through seperate blog entries, but for now the following will give a flavour of the sources available:

Nottingham was divided in Medieval times into French and English Boroughs (see Medieval Nottingham entry for more details). These are listed as 'Burgo Franco' and 'Burgo Anglico' in a grant of a messsuage in either borough by the Abbot of Rufford of 1236-48.

A lovely element of this grant is that part of the payment for one the messuages in question is with a pound of Cumin.

Spices were often used for payment in medieval times with 'peppercorn rent' being a literal form of payment (more coming soon).

The landscape of the town is also shown- with the street layout being mentioned on occasion:

Stoney Street (the original Saxon highstreet of Nottingham) and still in existence today is mentioned frequently in the Charters as 'Stanstrete' in 1220, 'Stanestrete' in 1230 and again as 'Stonstret' in 1245-58.

Chapel Bar (the gate by the chapel) is listed in 1230 through the name Bartholomew de Barregate (Bartholomew of the street by the gate), and as Chapelbarre in 1285-1317.

The Market Square is also mentioned in this last entry as 'forum Sabati' (the Saturday market).

These streets and features of the Nottingham landscape all still exist today and were all in place by at least the 13th century, they are shown below on John Speeds 1610 map of Nottingham for reference.

Picture: John Speeds Map of 1610 showing Chapel Bar, Market Square and Stoney Street.

A quitcalim from 1180 lists the highway from St. Mary's to the castle 'viam regiam que ducit ab ecclesia sancte Marie ad castellum'. Modern day High Pavement- also shown on Speed's map above.

A 'Snapedale' is mentioned as Snapedal' and is said in 1230-39 to be in the field of Nottingham 'Nuapdale in campo Nottingh'. Snapedale may mean 'boggy dale' from the etymology given for 'Snape wood' in Bulwell (EPSN 1940).

As well as the landscape we are introduced to the people and their trades. The entries list amongst others:

From...

1180 Hormus the baker (more to come soon)

a late 12th century Fulk the Smith (blacksmith)

1222-23 Willelmo le Tanur (more on Tanners and tanning in medieval Sherwood Forest soon)

1230-39, Ranulfo le Tailur (the Tailor)

1234-58 Henrici le Taylur (Henry the Tailor) and a strangely named Benedictus Puffe (not a trader)

1236 Gilbert le Spicer (perhaps the purveyor of the pound of Cumin!!)

from the mid 13th century a Thurkel le Marchuant (the merchant), Augustino le Clerico (Augustine the Clerk) and a Henrico le Talur (Henry the Tailor).

1285-1317, a William the Gaoler - Nottingham town gaoler!

1412 William Sotyll, a Chaplain and a John Maysham, Butcher.

... to name but a few.

The names also occasionally show a mixture of old English and French.

With a Swain son of Thorald from 1299-1300- showing the conquest did not entirely crush English identity at the lower levels of society!

An earlier 'Henry son of Eyuolf' from a quitcalim of 1220-30 may reflect how interchangeable English and French names were through the generations at this level of society.

The town was farily cosmopolitan with a Willelmi de Ypres (perhaps a wool trader from Belgium) listed in 1239, and a Heliam le Aleman (sadly not a purveyor of ales, but perhaps more interestingly a German- from the French Allemande) from 1230-40.

Interestingly also mentioned is an 'Andrew Luterel' in 1222-30. The Luterel family and their links to Nottinghamshire through their famous work the Luterel Psalter will be discussed soon.

As can be seen the Rufford Charters offer a fantastic insight into the people and landscape of Nottingham in Medieval Serwood Forest and if interpreted correctly the lives and works of the these people, and the landscape of the day can be pieced together from between the lines of the documents.

(more from the Rufford charters, plus more from the inquititiones post mortem for Nottinghamshire coming soon see a Robbery in the Forest 1335)

Names and trades all taken from Holdsworth, C.J. 1972. Rufford Charters. Thoroton Record Series Vol. XXIX.

the Saxons of Sherwood Forest

2011-12-05T18:10:00.009Z

The oldest documented mention of 'Sherwood Forest' comes from a charter dating from 958AD granting Scrooby and Sutton cum Lound in north Nottinghamshire from the Crown to the Archbishop of York.

This charter lists a 'Scirwuda' (Shire Wood) as a boundary mark of the land granted to the Archbishop.

This reference is often used to suggest that there was a common wood of the shire in the 10th century in Nottinghamshire that belonged to the people and was shared by them.

The story then goes that the evil Normans came along and took the shared forest away, for the exclusive use of the king.

As nice as this idea is, there is no clear reference to a forest, or any such shared wood of the shire in Nottinghamshire before the conquest of 1066.

Plus it is not possible to tie the 10th century Scirwuda in the north of the county, with the Royal Hunting Forest that bore the name Sherwood from the late 12th century onwards.

The northern boundaries of Sherwood Forest lay 10 miles south of the location of the wood called Scirwuda.

So although we cannot directly date Sherwood Forest back to pre-conquest times it is possible to learn something of the people of the Sherwood Forest area at the time of the Norman Conquest and before.

One possibility is that the Forest boundary recorded in the 13th century was a reflection of the original forest boundary (see Castles and Sherwood Forest entry for more details).

Picture: Sherwood Forest Boundary 1300 by Andy Gaunt

It is likely that the forest was created in the years following the Norman conquest, around 1066.

So who were the people who lived in the area that was- or was to become Sherwood Forest, in the years around the Norman conquest?

Sadly we cannot know the names of the simple farmers and workers of the land- but the names of some of the landowners from the time of the conquest are recorded in the Domesday book for Nottinghamshire.

They are the names of the local ruling elite who would suffer by losing their lands in the change of power that came with the Norman Conquest.

Most of the landowners listed lost their posessions to the incoming Normans by the time that Domesday Book was written in 1086.

The following is a list of the towns and villages of the Forest, and the names of the original 'Saxon' landowners where they get a mention:

Nottingham: Earl Tosti (brother of Harold Godwinson who was King of England until the Battle of Hastings) owned land and buildings in the town.

Hugh son of Baldric was its sheriff.

In 1066 King Edward the Confessor held Manors and jurisdiction over land including: Mansfield, Arnold, Sneinton, Warsop, Budby and Edwinstowe,

The other listed landlords are as follows:

Annesley: Leofnoth,

Basford: Alwin, Aswulf, Alfeah, Aelfric and Algot,

Blidworth: the Archbishop of York (Ealdred),

Bulcote: Young Swein,

Bulwell: Aelmer and Godric,

Burton Joyce: Swein,

Calverton: Aelfric,

Caythorpe (Alwoldestorp): Athelstan,

Clipstone: Osbern and Wulfsi,

Clumber: Aethwold and Ulfkell,

Colwick: Godric, Aelfric and Bugg,

Gedling: Toki and Dunstan,

Gunthorpe: Morcar,

Lambley: Ulfketel,

Lenton: Wulfnoth,

Ollerton: Alfwold and Wada,

Pappplewick: Aelfric, Alfsi and Alric,

Perlethorpe: Thurstan and Wulfmer,

Radford: Aelfric,

Rufford: Ulf,

Stoke Bardolph: Toki,

Warsop: Godric, Leofgeat and Ulfkell,

Woodborough: Ulfkell, Aelfric, Wulfgeat, Wulfric and Alfsi,

(Ref: all names compiled from Morris 1977)

These names sound ancient and archaic (but also poetic and beautiful) to us now.

That is compounded by the fact that the names that replaced them at the Norman Conquest are so much more familliar to us.

Henry, John, Richard, William, Stephen, were all names of the Norman and Angevin kings who ruled between them from 1066 to 1272.

All these names were French.

Edward I, crowned in 1272 was the first English King since 1066 to carry an English name.

In Nottinghamshire these name would be replaced powerful Norman landowners including a Roger or two, an Alan, a William, a Walter, three Ralphs, and a handful of Gilberts, to name a but a few...

Although we can't know the characters or the actions of these English rulers- dispossed by the conquest, their names and the names that replaced them do indicate the dramatic cultural shift that took place with the Norman Conquest- at the level of the local ruling class as well as at the top of society.

This change of authority and culture had a great impact on English Society as a whole.

Locally it would bring with it the Laws of the Forest that would have a huge impact on the landscape and the people of this area.

The area that would become Medieval Sherwood Forest.

(More on the Normans of Sherwood Forest, and more on the earlier Saxons of Sherwood Forest (the names behind the place names), coming soon).

Waterways of the Forest

2011-12-02T16:22:00.000Z

Sherwood Forest is crossed by many rivers, some larger than others.

In the Northern 'High Forest' the rather diminutive collection of rivers draining the Sherwood Sandstones: Rainworth Water, The River Maun, the River Meden and the Poulter; cross the Sherwood Sandstones flowing into one another to form the Idle River in the Hatfield Disctrict to the north of the 13th century Forest boundary on their way to join the River Trent.

The River Leen provides the southwestern boundary of the forest.

Rising in the 'Robin Hood Hills' near kirkby-in-Ashfield the stream winds its way through the monastic lands of Newstead Priory, south through Papplewick, along the western boundary of Bestwood Park to Bulwell.

From there it descends through Radford to Lenton and then into the River Trent near Wilford.

On the southeast side of the forest the Doverbeck river creates the boundary. Rising at Blidworth Fishpool (see the Fishpool Hoard entry for more details), it flows southeast crossing the Kings Road to York. It then flows on past Epperston to enter the Trent near Gunthopre and Caythorpe.

Some of these rivers had a number of natural sinuous courses (see the oulde course of the Trente at Shelforde entry).

As well as these natural water courses were a number of man-made or at least altered rivers within the forest.

The River Leen formed the southwestern boundary of Medieval Sherwood Forest. Here the boundary followed the natural course of the river into the Trent.

The river was also diverted to flow eastwards at Lenton. It then passed the base of castle rock to provide water and transport access to the castle via a series of quays and wharfs.

The diverted river then flowed east under the 'Leen Bridge' which carried the road to London from Nottingham across the town meadows to Hethbeth Bridge (later Trent Bridge) to the south (see map).

Picture: Medieval Nottingham by Andy Gaunt, River Leen is the east-west running thin blue line in the centre of the map that passes the castle and town before heading south to join the River Trent near Hethbeth Bridge.

It is believed that the river was diverted during the construction of the castle following the Norman Conquest of 1066.

The most likely candidate for this is William Peverel who was the constructor of Nottingham Castle starting in 1067 (see the Honour of Peverel entry for more details).

The diversion of the River Leen provided a looped meander in which Lenton Priory was founded also by William Peverel.

In Domesday Book of 1086, this diversion of the River Leen is referred to as the 'Dyke', and along with the river Trent and the road to York, it is heavily protected:

'In Nottingham the river Trent and the Dyke and the Road to York are so protected that if anyone hinders the passage of ships, or if anyone makes a dyke within 2 perches of the King's road, he has to pay a fine of £8' (Morris 1977).

Domesday Book also mentions another Dyke in Nottinghamshire, known as Bycarr's Dyke.

It is presumed that the 'By' element of the name is a personal one, with the 'carr' element refering to the grassy, sedgy, boggy landscape which it occupied.

These boggy lands of the 'Idle marshes' stretched across the northern part of the Idle valley that covered a large part of north Nottinghamshire.

Bycarr's Dyke predates the Norman Conquest, and could be similar in age to the nearby Roman 'Fosse Dyke' in Lincolnshire, which links the Cathederal City of Lincoln to the Trent at Torksey.

Bycarr's Dyke connected the River Idle at Bawtry, to the River Trent at West Stockwith. This allowed Bawtry just over the Yorkshire border to develop into a prosperous Medieval port town.

A rather strange thought today as the town sits well in land.

Bycarr's Dyke formed the northern part of the county boundary, and although it is many miles north of the 13th century boundary of Sherwood Forest, it did form the boundary of the Forest in the 12th century, where it is mentioned as a boundary marker of the forest in an inquest of 1155/6 (see Oldest Known Boundary entry for more details).


Picture: Oldest documented boundary of Sherwood Forest showing the location of Bycarr's Dyke.

Bycarr's Dyke is mentioned in Domesday Book as 'Bigredic':

'In Saundby a villager holds 1 garden; he pays salt, in Bigredic (Bycarr's Dike), for the King's fish'.

This is one of the rare times that Domesday book gives us a glimpse into the everyday people of Nottinghamshire. It is not very often a lowly individual is mentioned- another is the blind map of Warsop (see Outlaws and Nottinghamshire Domesday Customs entry for more details).

It seems then that water management and canalisation of rivers formed an important part of the Medieval Landscape, for transport and trade, connecting towns, castles and rivers.

Water power was important for use in industry and agriculture across Medieval Sherwood Forest in the form of mills and in meadow systems, and it was an important part of the everyday life of the people of Sherwood Forest.

(More about industry and farming in Medieval Sherwood Forest, and the importantce of trade along the River Trent coming soon).

the King's Royal Manor of Mansfield

2011-12-01T15:05:00.012Z

Mansfield is situated in the western central area of Nottinghamshire (see map).

Picture: Nottinghamshire showing geology andthe location of the town of Mansfield

In the medieval period it dominated the area as the largest and most important royal manor in the county.

At Domesday 1086, Mansifeld was a crown Manor with two adjoining outliers (berewicks) of Skebgy and Sutton in Ashfield.

'In Mansfield and the outliers Skegby and Sutton King Edward had 3 carucates and 6 bovates of land taxable. Land for 9 ploughs. The King has 2 ploughs in lordship. 5 Freemen with 3 bovates of this land; 35 villagers and 20 smallholders with 191/2 ploughs. 1 mill and 1 fishery, 21s; meadow, 24 acres; woodland pasture 2 leagues long and 2 wide; 2 churches and 2 priests'.

(Morris 1977)

This was a very large manor indeed.

It held possessions in other manors across the county (sokeland), these were at:

Warsop, Clowne, Carburton, Clumber, Budby, Thoresby, Scofton, Perelthorpe, Rayton, Besthorpe, Carlton on Trent, Kirton, Willoughby, Ompton, Carlton in Lindrick, Tiln, Littleborough, Sturton Le Steeple, Wheatley, Ranby, Walkeringham, Leverton, Fenton, Misterton, Wiseton, Clayworth, Clarborough, Welham, Simetone, Gringley and Saundby...

...and aslo held Berewicks at Edwinstowe and Grimston.

It is the belief of Mike Bishop (former county archaeologist for Nottinghamshire) that the manor once held jurisdiction over the other royal manors of Dunham and Bothamsall, and even once included the lands granted to Archbishop Oskytell in 956 at Southwell and Scrooby in 958 (Bishop 1981).

(more on the lands of the Archbishop of York at Southwell and Scrooby soon).

There are no confirmed royal visits to Mansfield that come directly from the medieval records, but it seems that Henry I may have stayed twice in his reign (1100-1135) (Crook 1984).

From the time of his grandson Henry II (1154-1189) onwards the focus of royal attention was at nearby Clipstone where the King's houses and the deer park offered more convivial surroundings (see King John's Palace entry for more details).

Despite this lack of royal patronage through visiting the manor- Mansfield remained important to the crown due to the income it generated.

During the 13th century it normally contributed £36. 7s. 6d annually towards the farm of the county paid to the exchequer by the Sheriff (Crook 1984). When the king levied tallage on his demense lands (taxing the directly owned land farmed directly for the king) and boroughs it paid a substantial amount, sometimes nearly as much as the borough of Nottingham itself (ibid).

The men of Mansfield were considered an important grouping, who often petitioned the king directly to maintian the rights and privileges they had as a crown manor.

This reflects the importance of the Manor.

This importance may have a wider impact: one possibility (and it is only a theory) is that the 'Shire' or area of jurisdiction of Mansfield may have been the provider of the name 'Sherwood' when relating to the Forest.

This is certainly one possibility as the term 'Sherwood' only came into use after Henry II began investing heavily in the facililties at nearby Clipstone, and Sherwood Forest became an important focus of royal attention for the next few centuries.

Mansfield, its fields, woods and heathland made up a major part of the 'High Forest' region of Sherwood Forest.

The maintenance of royal control over Sherwood Forest especially in the 'high forest' was certainly reliant on the control of Mansfield, and the area it covererd and influenced.

Picture: Exceprt from a map of Medieval Sherwood Forest by Andy Gaunt and Alan McCormick

The town of Mansfield itself sat 15 miles due north of Nottingham, and would be approached up the western highway of the forest.

The traveller would pass to the west side of Bestwood park before heading for the Priory at Newstead.

To the north of the priory the landscape that the road passed through was heavily wooded, including woods such as the rather sinister sounding 'Dede Quendale Wode' (Dead Queen's Dale).

The road then crossed (the river) Rainworth Water at 'Gunwey Forth' (ford).

The traveller would then pass by the large mound of Galow Tre Hyl (the town gallows for Mansfield) looming above them to the east side of the road (see Gallows in the Forest? entry for more details).

This rather pleasant landmark welcomed the visitor onto crown lands.

The enormous area of woodland combining Mansfield Wood, Sutton Wood, and the crown woodland of Lyndhurst (see Lyndhurst wood - the chief wood of Sherwood Forest entry for more details), then stretched ahead for a few miles.

These vast tracts of woodland must have provided a haunt for many of the malefactors, robbers, and ne'er-do-wells who inhabitted the medieval world.

A part of this woodland that survives, still bares the name 'Thieves Wood'.

The possibility of falling foul of such vagbonds and outlaws must have played heavily on the mind of any traveller in these parts, especially as night approached.

It must have been with some relief that the traveller broke free of the closed canopy of woodland to enter the open fields of 'Berry Field' and 'Southfield' and descended into the hopefully safe haven of the town of Mansfield with its churches, inns and guesthouses.

Mansfield was a bustling market community with the usual people going about their business. Evidence for this comes from the surnames of people in the community with smiths, carpenters, bakers, maltsters, spicer and barkers (leather makers- from the use of the oak bark from the forest in the tanning process (more on leather tanning soon)), along with the millers who ground the corn, malt and grain to be used in baking and brewing (Crook 1985).

The town would be a hive of chaos and activity and energy especially on a market day, and would be a stark contrast to a journey across the wastes and woods of the high forest.

A visitor could take refuge in some of the accomodation available in the town before endulging in some of the local beer, for which Nottinghamshire was rightfully well know.

(More to come soon on the people of Mansfield and their day to day lives and actions, the cave systems and dwellings of the town, its adminsitration and landscape soon)

the 1609 Crown Survey and Map

2011-11-27T17:47:00.039Z

One of the most important sources to the Landscape Archaeologist investigating the landscape of Medieval Sherwood Forest is the 1609 crown survey and map by Richard Bankes.

Picture: Excerpt from the 1609 crown survey map

This survey was commissioned for the newly crowned James I, and undertaken by the surveyor Richard Bankes in, or just before 1609.

It consists of a written survey of all the freehold land within the forest, and an accompanying map.

The map for the southern section of Sherwood Forest- known as 'Thorneywood' survives- unfortunately the maps for the 'High Forest' to the north and that for the area known as 'Rumwood' are now lost.

It is the earliest cartographically accurate depiction of the landscape of the forest, and unlike the earlier 'Belvoir map' depicts fields, roads, villages and rivers in a manner familiar to the modern reader.

It also lists all the occupiers of land within the forest boundary (these people will be listed in various entries to come soon).

The map and survey are of huge importance for understanding the landscape and administration of the forest at the end of the medieval period- they catch a snap-shot of the landscape at a time when royal influence was beginning to dwindle, as powerful landlords came to dominate the area in the 17th century.

The Civil War of 1642-51 would dramatically alter the power structure of the forest.

It would also see vast areas of woodland cut down to fuel the war effort, and due to the collapse of Forest Administration at that time.

The dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century had altered land ownership with many powerful magnates occupying land previously in Monastic hands.

This process would mature in the 17th century, where men like the Earl of Newcastle took over the great royal manor of Mansfield and many of the royal centres in the forest.

He would become both Keeper of Sherwood Forest and Justice in Eyre for the Forests North of the Trent at the same time. As well as the major landholder in the 'High Forest'.

So this map and survey is significant as it gives us a window into the forest as it was before these major changes.

It is also useful as a stepping-stone back to far older times- and combined with historic documents and other sources has formed the background of the Map of medieval Sherwood Forest created by Alan McCormick and myself.

Picture: Map of Medieval Sherwood Forest by Andy Gaunt and Alan McCorkmick

In many other parts of the country 15th and 16th century enclosure of the great open fields altered the landscape- masking to an extent the earlier shape of things.

This was recorded in a survey from the 16th century known as the Domesday of Enclosures for Nottinghamshire (this will be discussed in an entry soon).

The Forest Law seems to have lessened the impact of these enclosures on Sherwood Forest than in other areas.

This means that the 1609 survey offers a better view than would be the case for a non-forest area.

The 1609 crown survey then, offers a fantastic view of the late Medieval landscape.

It also offers a chance for Landscape Archaeologists and Historians to rebuild the Earlier landscape of Medieval Sherwood Forest.

The creation of the medieval landscape is vital, as it forms the backdrop for any serious study of the medieval Forest- giving us a landscape to populate with the characters and events of the time.

More to come soon on the uses of the map- and some of the features it depicts)

The maps were redrawn by Peter Burgess, and the survey was edited by Steph Mastoris and Sue Groves in 1998 for the Thoroton Society (see bibliography).

For more info see the link below:

Thoroton Society Record Series 1609 map

the Case of William Robehod

2011-11-23T16:32:00.001Z

The oldest literary reference to Robin Hood comes from the medieval poem Piers Plowman by William Langland and dates from the year 1377.

However the use of the surname ‘Robinhood’ predates this considerably.

From the early 1980's onwards a number of ‘Robinhood’ surnames have been found in 13th century documents.

All of those found so far date from 1261-1290. This is a hundred years earlier than the Piers Plowman reference.

This suggests that the legend- or the term ‘Robin Hood’ was in use by the second half of the 13^th century at least.

Any original Robin Hood must therefore have been operating before or around this time.

The notorious Folville gang operated in the early 14^th century and were mentioned in Piers Plowman within a few years of their exploits (see outlaws page for more information).

Most of the surnames recorded are to do with law-breaking, and were suspected or outlawed criminals, as shown by the list below from the 1989 edition of J C Holt’s Robin Hood:

Alexander Robehod was sought for theft in Essex in 1272;

Gilbert Robehod was released to pledges by the justices after an unspecified charge in Suffolk in 1286;

Robert Robehod was indicted in Hampshire in 1294 on a charge of stealing sheep;

John Rabunhod was charged with others in 1272 with murder- after a quarrelsome brawl in a tavern near Fareham, Hampshire; he had fled and was outlawed.

And a William Robehod who appeared in 1261-2 in Berkshire as a member of an outlaw gang suspected of robberies and of harbouring robbers.

Coincidentally, along with these ‘Robin Hoods’ in a 1292 a Little John and a Petit Johan were both appealed of robbery.

(Holt 1989)

Of all these surnames the most significant is William Robehod of 1261.

His entry into history was discovered by David Crook formerly of the National Archives and former editor of the Transactions of the Thoroton Society.

William Robehod is listed for the crime stated above in the King's Rememberancer's Memoranda Roll of Easter 1262.

By a chance survival the crime is also recorded in the roll of the Justices in Eyre for Berkshire in 1261.

Here William Robehod is actually revealled to be a William son of Robert le Fevere.

The Clerk in the 1262 roll had changed his name to Robehod!!!

Therefore the name in this instance is a nickname and not a surname. (Crook 1987).

Was Robin Hood a nickname for any 'Robbing Hoody'?

Or was this clerk familiar with a legend already widely in circulation in 1261?

Whatever the reason the entry is incredibly significant as it means it would be very difficult if not impossible to be sure of the authenticity of any earlier ‘Robinhood’.

There are earlier names that could be the original Robin hood.

A 1225 entry for a Robert Hod on the Pipe Roll, with the form Hobbehod used in 1226 exists, and will be the subject of a future entry.

But it could well be that the fame of Robin Hood may also be the insurance of his permanent obscurity (Holt 1989).

If anyone convicted of a crime, or outlawed in medieval England could potentially receive the nickname of a 'Robinhood' then maybe we can never be sure of the authenticity of anyone no matter how strong the case…

(More on Robert Hod or Hobbehod of 1225/6 coming soon, along with many other outlaws and their stories)…

the Fishpool Hoard

2011-11-21T18:00:00.000Z

In 1966 the largest ever hoard of medieval gold coins was unearthed in the middle of Sherwood Forest.

This collection of 1,237 coins, four rings, four peices of jewllery, and two lengths of chain (Cherry 1973) dates from the reign of Edward IV (1460-83).

Picture: The Fishpool Hoard at the British Museum

It was deposited between winter 1463 and summer 1464 during a rebellion against Edward by supporters of Henry VI.

Edward IV and Henry VI fought in the Wars of the Roses and swapped places twice as king.

Henry VI reigned from 1422-1461, and from 1470-71.

Edward VI reigned from 1461-1470, and then from 1471-1483.

It was a chaotic time, where nobles changed sides and the different houses of York and Lancaster (the descendants of the sons of Edward III) had periods of differing fortunes.

This chaotic background seems to have lead to panic enough to warrant somebody depositing a collection of coins with a value at the time of £400. £300,000 in todays money (British Library).

In a hole in the ground!

It has been suggested that the coins were deposited in an extreme emergency. The money may have belonged to the royal treasury and may have been entrusted to a loyal follower fleeing the battle of Hexham where oposition to Edward IV was effectively crushed in 1461.

The location chosen for this hasty burial was to the east of the western highway through Sherwood Forest.

It must have been difficult to trust anyone. The nearby Newstead Priory was the usual choice as a safehouse for items of value (although nothing on the scale of this hoard ). It was not chosen in this instance.

Maybe the loyalty of the monks could not be assured.

Instead an area of woodland close to the fishpool of the village of Blidworth was decided upon.

The name of the hoard comes from this location.

The fishpool of Blidworth Blyworth fyspole was mentioned as a landscape feature on the Belvoir map of Sherwood Forest in the early 1400's.

It was situated at the source of the Doverbeck River, which formed the bounday of the forest further south along its course.

It is only possible to imagine the dramatic events of the time, and the level of panic that must have led to the deposition of such a vast amount of treasure in the woods and wastes of medieval Sherwood Forest.

It is a wonderful thought that Sherwood Forest- famous for its outlaws and villains should have also been home to the largest hoard of medieval coins ever found in England...

(More on the Wars of the Roses, and the Kings of England, and the landscape of the high forest soon)...

Charters of Free Warren

2011-11-17T12:31:00.000Z

Hunting was a very imporant social activity for the Crown and aristocrats, and for the gentry and landowners who sought to emulate them in the medieval period.

In Medieval Sherwood Forest who had the right to hunt, and what for was very very important.

Many of the higher clergy had exemptions from forest law- and the right to hunt in the Forest.

The Forest laws enshrined who had the right to hunt the 'Beasts of the Chase' -namely the king with a few rare exceptions.

This right was jealously guarded by the crown.

Alongside the 'beast of the chase', there was another classification of animals subject to hunting- the 'beasts of the warren'.

The right to 'Free Warren' was principally the right to hunt hare and fox in particular places and at particular times, often granted by the king as reward or favour.

The list of animals that qualified as 'Beasts of the Warren' included wild cats and squirrel…

The right to hunt these animals was considered a signal of status amongst landowners and aristocrats.

Many Lords sought to establish these rights over their land.

In medieval Nottinghamshire in the 12^th century the only listed person having a right to Free Warren was the Bishop of Lincoln (Crook 2001).

He was extremely powerful in the valley of the River Trent being the builder and custodian of Newark castle, the impressive fortress built to guard the crossing of the Great North Road over the River Trent.

During the 12^th century the Forest extended all the way to Newark in the East, (see boundaries page)and the Great North Road ran through the Forest of Clay and up across the district of Hatfield to the north.

The Bishop of Lincoln was granted the Kings warren over all the land he owned north and east of Newark, stretching into Lincolnshire, by Henry I.

This entitled him not only to rights of chase, but also to all the fines and fees that would otherwise have gone to the crown- as it had in the time of Henry's father William I and brother William II

This amounted to a £10 fine for hunting in the warren illegally.

-(no wonder the Bishops of Lincoln could afford such lovely church!)

Picture: Lands of the Bishop of LIncoln in Nottinghamshire from Domesday Book

The forest stretched over the whole of the county north and west of the Trent in the 12th century.

In the 13th century- especially following Magna Charta in 1215, and the subsequent Forest Charter of 1217- the forest was removed from much of this area (see boundaries page for more details).

Following this retreat- the number of Charters of Free Warrren granted by the King to landowners in the newly disaforested area increased dramatically.

This was first documented in 2001 by David Crook- formerly of the National Archives and former editor of the Transactions of the Thoroton Society.

In his paper he recorded these charters and demonstrated their relationship to the removal of forest law from the area.

There were no Charters of Free warren granted within the area of Sherwood Forest that remained under forest law.

The following statistcs are from his paper Crook, D. 2001. The Development of Private Hunting Rights in Nottinghamshire, c1100-1258. Transactions of the Thoroton Society, 105.

The newly reduced boundary of Sherwood Forest was confirmed in 1227. From this period there was a massive sudden increase in the number of Charters of Free Warren granted in Nottinghamshire:

In the period 1225-1257 33 lords secured charters in at least 69 places around the county.

At least 50 of these were in areas disafforested in 1227.

Alongside those named above- it also seems that the Knights Hospitaller of the order of St John of Jerusalem, enjoyed the right to free warren over their lands of Kirkby Hardwick- and that they may have acquired this right from the Knights Templar (see Kirkby Hardwick and the warrior monks entry for more details).

In conclusion it seems then, that landowners and lords wished to gain the status associated with a Charter granted by the king to the right to hunt Beasts of the Warren on their land.

Within the forest it was still illegal to hunt the Beasts of the Chase, but in the newly disaforested areas available in the 13th century many lords sought to emulate the the King and prove their status by gaining this Charter of Free Warren.

As pointed out by Crook- this also gives us another level of evidence as to where the Forest jurisdiction had lain in the 12th century.

Medieval sports and pastimes in the Forest

2011-11-15T16:48:00.003Z

Sport and the forest are intrinsically linked.

The official declared purpose for a forest after all was for hunting the beasts of the chase.

Alongside this kingly pursuit, lords and landowners often enjoyed the privilege to hunt the beasts of the warren- including wild cats, squirrel, hare and fox (more on the right to Free Warren soon).

Especially popular with the upper classes was hunting with the hawk, and an entire courtly etiquette built up around this sport with certain birds being limited in their use to only certain levels of society (more soon).

These sports left their mark on Medieval Sherwood Forest through the presence of the great royal deer parks of Clipstone, Bestwood and the Castle Park.

Also through such landscape features as the ‘King’s stands’: areas where the king would wait and shoot arrows from, when deer were driven past.

A site near Gleadthorpe in the north of the forest was known as ‘Kyngges Trist’ in the early 15^th century (Belvoir map).

As well as these forest sports there were many common medieval sports played by everyday people in the English countryside.

Archery was the mot popular sport- especially from the 14^thcentury when Edward III demanded practice from his subjects at the town butts (see archery in the forest entry).

This sport was even more popular following the banning of many others in its favour...

One of these was described as ‘abominable… more common, undignified and worthless than any other game, rarely ending but with some loss, accident or disadvantage to the players themselves’ (Coulton 1940).

...Football of course!

It was played by teams sometimes numbering hundreds on pitches sometimes miles long. It would be easy to see games being played on the wide expanses of the heaths and commons of the forest, with people falling into gorse bushes and rolling in the heather and brambles.

Football was played in Nottingham in the Medieval period (Foulds in Beckett 2006), and luckily there were 'bonesetters' in the town to deal with the casualties!

It survives in this form in the Shrove Tuesday matches played in nearby Ashbourne.

Picutre: Ashbourne Shrove Tuesday Football match- uppers v downers

Ian Mortimer in his Time travellers guide to the 14^th century (2008) suggests that the only rules associated with football at the time were those banning it!

This blood thirsty and violent sport was repeatedly banned in the 14^th century.

It seems a surprise that football was considered so barbarous, when it is viewed alongside some of the other popular sports of the day.

Bear and bull bating were immensely popular along with dog fights and cock fighting. A bear may have been kept in Nottingham, as John Draper held the position of Bearward in 1433 (Foulds, in Beckett 2006). There is also a Bearward Street recorded on the 1610 map of Nottingham by John Speed.

All are shocking to us now- but it was different age.

The 1609 crown survey map of Sherwood Forest shows a circular cock pit for crowds to watch cock-fighting matches- a specially built stage with one circle for the contest and a viewing circle surrounding it.

This suggests official backing as such a site could hardly be deemed an underground venue, located as it was on the Kings own manor of Arnold. Interestingly it is now under a modern day a golf course…

Picture: Exerpt from the 1609 Crown Survey of Sherwood Forest by Richard bankes. (Mastoris and Groves 1998).

The Major Oak in the Sherwood Forest National Nature Reserve (believed to be 1,000 years old and the hideaway of Robin Hood) was itself at one time known as the 'Cock-Pen Tree', because many feathery pugilists were reputidly stored within its mighty trunk between competitions.

The poem about the hero Gamelyn dating from the 14th century tells of a wrestling match- which the hero wins- where the traditional prize is a Ram. Wrestling too was a popular sport. As were many trials of strength (the most obvious being the tournament- originally embodied by the melee and later by the joust- this will receive its own entry soon).

The Bishop of Rochester suggested wrestling belonged in the same category as glutony, and chatting idly in the market, and anything else that distracted the populace from listening to the sermons' (Mortimer 2008).

Obviously gambling played a major part in contests between animals, and those between people. As well as this people played dice, quoits, cards, and horse racing.

Along side bloodsports, fighting, gambling (and football) people also enjoyed stick and ball games and even 'real tennis'.

According to Mortimer tennis would take place when a net was strung across the street- with extra points for hitting the ball through peoples windows- needless to say it was not popular with many townsfolk!

In the forest itself the 1609 Crown Survey Map also shows an outdoor bowling alley on the Mount Hooton Escarpment roughly on the line of modern day 'Forest Road' overlooking the Nottingham Lings to the north and Nottingham town to the south. Doubtless bowls was in some way more violent than nowadays too!

The Medieval period was an age of contrasts; and as well as enjoying bouts of extreme violence people listened to plays, songs, music and poems, they loved dancing and they watched acrobats and mummers.

One of the favourite pastimes was listening to ballads of heroes and legends... many of who will be discussed soon including the outlaws Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, Fulk Fitzwarin, Eustace the Monk, the hero Gamelyn, Hereward the Wake, and of course others including Robin Hood himself.

These heroes and outlaws, and their actions help us to see what fired peoples imaginations. They show us the values of the common man at the time in ways that the laws and etiquettes of the social elite never can.

In the same way the games, sports and pastimes of ordinary people help to give us a glimpse into their lives and concerns.

The actions and day to day lives of the ordinary people in Medieval Sherwood Forest are what help to bring the place back to life.

Archery in the Forest

2011-11-14T18:15:00.000Z

The archery contest is a major recurring theme in the legends of Robin Hood.

In the earliest Ballads the archery contest appears twice in the Gest, and once in the The Potter. (For an introduction to the ballads and legend see the Legend of Robin Hood enrty) in all three of these instances the location of the contest is specified as Nottingham.

On the second occasion in the Gest, and again in The Potter the location given is the town Butts (Holt 1989).

Such contests must have been common in medieval times, with people shooting at Butts, or watching others.

In the Assize of 1242 the possession of sword, bow, arrows and knife was enjoyed on all free men who held land worth £2 to £5 a year or chattels (carriable possessions) valued between £6 and £13 6s. 8d. (note this is based on a persons wealth). In 1363 Edward III instructed that archery practice was to be compulsory on feast days and Sundays, and in 1465 Edward IV required that Butts would be maintained in every township for regular practice on festivals (Holt 1989).

In a forest it was illegal to travel with a bow and arrow.

The town Butts would therefore have been one of the few places that shooting arrows was permitted.

This must have made them popular to say the least.

In Nottingham the town Butts were located beside the road to Derby outside the Chapel Bar gate to the northwest of the town walls in a triangle of land between Derby Road and the Castle Deer Park near the modern day 'rope walk' (Butler 1950).

Maybe this was where Robin Hood undertook his legendary competition?

Fire in the Forest

2011-11-13T17:23:00.001Z

The proceedings of the Forest Eyres and Attachment courts are full of the records of encroachment on the woods of the forest.

People were constantly being fined for chopping down trees.

Alongside this attack on the 'Green' or 'Vert' of Medieval Sherwood Forest by the people who lived there, there were also natural disasters that chopped away at the trees and woods of the forest overtime.

One obvious problem of living in an area dominated by vast areas of open heathland and large tracts of woodland was of course fire.

The Middleton Forest Book opens with a reference to the village of Mansfield Woodhouse burning to the ground in 1304! (Boulton 1964)

Timber was requested of the King from Sherwood Forest to allow the rebuilding of the town including the Kirk (church) which had been ‘brenned’ or burned in the disaster.

A recent Archaeological project undertaken by Nottinghamshire Community Archaeology ‘the Mansfield Woodhouse Little Big Dig’ – digging test pits in the gardens in the historic core of the town with volunteers as a community project- produced excellent results.

Radio-carbon dating of charcoal fragments found in test-pits has produced dates from within 10 years of the 1304 date.

This information has helped discover the original layout of the village- which was altered in the rebuilding.

(The report by David Budge of Nottinghamshire County Council Archaeology team should be available soon .See Nottinghamshire Community Archaeology for more information)

This disaster at the end of the reign of Edward I is documented because Mansfield Woodhouse was a royal manor born out of the manor of Mansfield.

Another disaster from the end of our period shows well the panic and mass response to the terror of a forest fire, and shows how dangersous a long hot summer in Sherwood could be:

‘In 1624 during the great drought of that year Sherwood Forest suffered a great fire, and White (Worksop, the Dukery, and Sherwood forest) quotes from a manuscript preserved in the British museum in which it says that there was such a mist of smoke and particles that people thought it was an eclipse of the sun, but when the true cause was discovered ‘there came command from the justices to raise the country there about and bring pickaxes, spades and shovels to make dikes and trenches to break the fire in the forest’. This fire, four miles long and half a mile wide, was stopped at the wood between Mansfield and Nottingham’.

(Illingworth Butler 1946)

Fires are still common in the summer in the large plantations of Clipstone, Blidworth and the other woods of the high forest- where laws to prevent camp fires etc. reduce the number of fires being casually and deliberately lit by most people.

If you imagine a world where shepherds would sit with flocks on the open heath, charcoal burners plied their trade in the myriad of woods, travellers camped by the roadside, foresters, woodcutters, woodwards, sawyers and many others had fires as they worked…and where outlaws lit fires in the depths of the woods…

...also a world where timber-framed buildings and thatched roofs were the norm…

…it is undoubted that the threat of fire was a very real and very common occurrence in Medieval Sherwood Forest.

Mutilation and Damnation

2011-11-11T13:09:00.002Z

Poaching in the royal forests was a dangerous game-

Forest law was severe in the 11^thand 12^th centuries with blinding and castration along with mutilation through chopping off of hands and feet, a possible, if not inevitable punishment of trespass against the venison.

But it wasn’t just fear of temporal punishment- or justice handed out in the name of the King that could face a would be poacher...

If that wasn’t enough- the church could also get involved!

Picture: The Doom Painting at Blyth (on the edge of Sherwood Forest)- the devil dragging the dammed into the depths...

Of course they only bothered when the poaching encroached onto church land…

In 1253 an announcement was made by the bishops:

‘We arrayed with our pontificals. With candles burning in our hands, solemnly declare the sentence of cursing in all trespassers and breakers of the liberties of the church’ – After the invocation of the authority of the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles Peter and Paul, all the Apostles, Martyrs, Lord Edward the Confessor, St. Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury and Martyr, all the Confessors, Virgins and the Saints of God: and then proceeded: ‘we accurse and from the privileges of Holy Church we sequester and depart all those that from henceforth wittingly or maliciously deprive or despoil the Holy Church of their right…’

(Illingworth Butler 1946)

Leaving apart the question as to why all the virgins in the world seem to form part of the jury...

It would appear that alongside having suffered mutilation, castration, and general abuse for contravening the forest law- excommunication and eternal damnation would also then face the condemmed if he or she had chased the prey onto church lands.

Being as though the lands and woods and arable strips owned by the Archbishop of York, Abbots, Priors and various churches littered the landscape of the forest- often not obviously marked to the would be poacher- this extra level of punishment could prove trickier to avoid than might be thought…

Egmanton Way and the Priors of Sherwood

2011-11-10T19:24:00.000Z

Medieval Sherwood Forest was criss-crossed by roads running through the heath and woodland joining up the many forest communities and providing passage to the wider world.

It is the presence of such roads, and the feared journeys through them that no doubt led to the many legends of hooded outlaws roaming the woods.

The King’s Highway to York ran from Nottingham up the eastern side of the forest. The other great highway ran up the western side from Nottingham to the great royal manor of Mansfield.

Along the southern edge of the forest, running along the northern bank of the Trent, hugging the bottom of the Clay ridge of the Mercia mudstones, a third highway ran from Nottingham to the Archbishop of York’s manor at Southwell- the religious heart of the county (more soon).

Alongside these major highways were a myriad of smaller roads which travelled across the forest- some of them were ‘Pack mans’ ways- little more than footpaths or causeys (causeways) as they were known, for pedestrian use (see Road Tax entry).

There were however other medium sized route ways presumably providing cart track ways between settlements.

Many of these are listed on the Belvoir map of the early 14^th century.

Some of these carry descriptive names such as ‘ye ryge (ridge) way’, ye brome (broome) gate. Others carry the name of the settlement through which they pass, or are near to ‘Papulwyk (papplewick) Way’, ‘ye roide of Buluel' (Bulwell).

One road is named ‘Egmanton Way’ but this is a puzzle as it is not in the proximity of Egmanton at all.

Egmanton village lay four miles to the east of the 13^th century forest boundary near to the village of Laxton.

Egmanton had a Motte and Bailey Castle, but was considerably smaller in stature as a village than its neighbour at the time.

Laxton had been the seat of the keepers of Sherwood Forest since the De Caux dynasty, who were hereditary keepers through marriage into the D’Everingham family up until the late 13^th century.

Laxton had been remodelled during this time and may well have had pretensions of becoming a market town (Challis 1994), until keepership was stripped from the D’Everinghams for trespass against the Vert (more to come soon).

Any road heading in that direction at that time would most likely have been called ‘Laxton Way’ not the lesser ‘Egmanton Way’.

So what reason could there be for the name of the road? The location of Egmanton, and the relative positioning of the name on the Belvoir Map suggests it ran from the southwest to Egmanton in the northeast.

One clue could come from where it may have been heading from.

The Priors of Sherwood Forest were granted lands around Nottinghamshire for their Priory at Newstead- founded in the late 12^th century by Henry II.

As time passed many more parcels of land and other offerings were granted to the priory.

Picture: Newstead Abbey (priory) West Front

The Newstead Cartulary of 1344 contains record of the land granted to the Priory by people wishing to secure a place in heaven, and eternal peace.

One such entry is a licence to appropriate the Church of Egmanton on 31^st October 1315:

‘Edward by the grace of God King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine, to all to whom the present letters shall come, greeting. Know ye that of our special grace we have granted and given licence on behalf of us and our heirs, as far as in us lies, to our beloved in Christ, the Prior of Newstead in Shyrewode, and the Convent of the same place, that they themselves may appropriate the church of Egmanton, in the diocese of York, which is of their own advowson, and having appropriated it, may hold it to their own use for themselves and their successors for ever, without annoyance or hindrance by us or our heirs, Justices, Escheators, Seriffs, or others our Bailiffs or Ministers whomsoever. The statute of Mortmain notwithstansding. In witness thereof we have had these our letters made patent. As witness myself at Clypston, the thirty-first day of October, in the ninth year of our reign.

(Gray (Ed.) 1940).

Notice that Edward II was staying at his favoured royal retreat at Clipstone (see King John's Palace entry for more details).

So the Priors of Newstead owned the church at Egmanton from 1315 onwards.

It would seem likely then that the name of the road reflects this land grant by King Edward II to the Priors of Sherwood- the road linked Newstead Priory to its church in Egmanton.

This is an insight into how the actions of the powers of the land could impact on even the smallest aspect of the life and landscape of the forest.

the oulde course of the Trente at Shelforde

2011-11-08T17:42:00.066Z

The 1609 crown Survey of Sherwood Forest by Richard Bankes was a map and accompanying terrier produced on behalf of the newly crowned King James I (1603-1625), to check on land ownership and assarting (clearing of woodland against the Forest Law) within the Medieval Forest of Sherwood. This was for purposes of taxation (Mastoris and Groves 1998) (more on the 1609 map soon).

This map shows the boundary of Sherwood Forest deviating from the route of the River Trent, to follow an ‘oulde course of Trente at Shelforde'. The map below is based on this evidence.

Picture: Extract from Medieval Map of Sherwood Forest by Andy Gaunt and Alan McCormick-(currently unpublished)

This former route of the river seems to have been an original course according to this map.

But was this an original single channel of the river?

These answers can be found by using landscape archaeology techniques, and through examination of the other surviving sources.

There were two branches of the trent in 1609, but what about earlier?

By the 16th centry there were two channels:

In 1592 these channels would be the cause of a dispute taken all the way to the Star Chamber of Elizabeth I. This was due to damming of the northern channel with a wier by Sir Thomas Stanhope. He even built locks to allow traffic through the more important northern course through a pound lock he constructed in 1577 between the island of Prier Houlte and Shelford. (Salisbury 1982, Revill 1971).

The southern channel at this point was used for powering mills (this dispute and locks will be discussed in a future entry- the locks are the oldest example known on the Trent).

This is backed up by evidence from the earlier Tudor period that shows the route had gone out of use for major river transport by these times:

The Henry VIII Sherwood Forest boundary perambulation states:

‘and from thence it ascendeth up the River of Trent, near unto the Abbey or Mannour of Shelford. Soe that the said Abbey is without the Forrest, and from thence by the said water of Trent, where of ancient time it were wont to runne, thorough the meadows of Shelfoe Towne, on the South East part of the New Course now of Trent along, to the Mannour of Collwick, and there where the Trent was wont to run of old time, Soe that the Inclosure called Heylin is within the Forrest, and from thence by the said water of Trent, wherelsoe it antiently rann, downe unto Nottingham Bridge, alias Holl-beth Bridge, alias Hellibeth Bridge, where it began, soe endeth.’

It would appear then that there were two courses of the river by the 16th century.

The southern route of the Trent was no longer a navigable part of the river by the reign of Henry VIII, and was considered an old course at this time.

The northern channel was therefore the main navigable route by the 16^th century, and would remain so from then onwards.

So did the course alter dramatically in the medieval period? Perhaps an event of flooding forced an entirely new course to the north? Or was there already a large meander to the north of the southern route?

Mapping evidence both modern and historic suggests the northern course of the river was in existence- and was perhaps the main channel through most of the Medieval period.

All the fields south of the current river channel (the northen course) were in Shelford parish, suggesting the northern river course was there when the village was formed- and was a considerably more formidable boundary than the southern course.

The exception is Burton Meadow (see map)- the shape of this field suggests it was within a previous looped Meander of the Trent heading south from the northern channel.

Burton Meadow was originally connected to the rest of Burton parish, and this meander must have been cut off at the neck - seperating Burton Meadow from the other fields of Burton at some point after the parishes of Burton and Shelford were formed.

This would also suggest that the northen course was there in the early Medieval period.

The shape of this ancient meander around Burton Meadow accounts for the sudden right angle seen in the southern course of the Trent just to the north of Shelford. It was here that it originally joined the northern channel.

It would therefore seem that there were two courses of the Trent in the Medieval period at Shelford, the southern of which formed the Medieval boundary of Sherwood Forest, the northern of which formed the older parish boundaries.

Interestingly the medieval perambulations of Henry III and Edward I make no mention of two courses of the trent.

Why is this?

It seems that where the boundary encountered more than one river channel it followed the external channel- extending forest jurisdiction over the largest area.

A similar situation occurred on the River Leen near Nottingham, where the river also had a number of courses.

The course furthest to the West was the one used as the boundary here.

The old course of the Trent at Shelford then, was not an original,single channel, but one of two courses- and was referred to as ‘old’ in the 16^th and 17^th centuries as such because it had by then gone out of use.

Photograph: The River Trent at Shelford- from Gibbet hill facing north.

The two courses of the River Trent can still be seen in the landscape today. The northen course was canalized by the Trent navigation works in the 18th century, but can clearly be seen on the photographs below. The old course to the south which formed the boundary of Medieval Sherwood Forest can be seen preserved by a line of trees.

Photograph: The River Trent at Shelford- from Gibbet hill facing north.

Forest Law Outlaws

2011-11-06T11:13:00.001Z

The Sherwood Forest Eyre courts have records surviving from 1287 and 1334.

These record fines and punishments relating to crimes committed against the forest law.
A number of incidents are recorded showing how people were outlawed as a direct result of forest law.

In 1267 John De lascelles, the steward of Sherwood, caught 2 men with bows and arrows in the forest and took them to Blidworth.

(Probably intending to take them to Nottingham Castle in the morning).

In the night 20 men armed with swords and bows and arrows burst in released the men, and beat up Johns servants who were acting as guards.

They then went to the stewards house, where they broke the windows and shouted insults at him.

In the following inquests many of the men involved could not be found… (Turner 1901)

Then an excerpt from the Eyre of 1334 states:

It is presented and proved… that Hugh of Wotehale of Woodborough, William Hynde, Wilcock, formerly the servant of the parson of Clifton and Stephen Flemming of Nottingham on the Thursday…

…were in the wood of Arnold, in the place that is called Throwys, with bows and arrows… they shot a Hart so that it died… And its flesh was found putrid and devoured by vermin… and the arrow was found in the said Hart…

…the aforesaid Hugh came before the justices and is sent to prison

…the aforesaid Stephen is dead; therefore nothing of him…

…And the aforesaid William and Wilcock are not found… were exacted in the county and did not appear; therefore they are outlawed... (Turner 1901)

Ranulf Earl of Chester

2011-11-05T14:55:00.001Z

The poem Piers Plowman by William Langland of 1377 contains the earliest known literary reference to Robin Hood:

‘I kan nought parfitly my Paternoster

as the preest it singeth

but I kan rhymes of Robyn hood and

Randolf Earl of Chestre’

Translates to:

I do not know my Paternoster

perfectly as the priest sings it,

but I know rhymes of Robin Hood

and Randolf Earl of Chester.

(See legend of Robin Hood entry and outlaws page for more information)

Clearly in the fourteenth century Randolf or Ranulf as he was then known rivalled Robin Hood for the fame of his exploits…

So who was the mysterious Ranulf Earl of Chester and how did he fit in to the story of Sherwood Forest?

His exploits in the anarchy of the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda (1135-1154 see medieval kings part 1 entry) made him famous enough at the time to rank alongside Robin Hood... this link on its own makes him important here... he was also involved in the affairs of the forest itself... but it was through his death that he would most affect the story of Sherwood Forest.

He was Ranulf de Gernon the Fourth Earl of Chester descended from the Counts of Bayeux.

He fought initially against King Stephen for the empress Matilda after his lands in the north were granted to King David I of Scotland as part of a truce signed between David and King Stephen.

Ranulf took Lincoln Castle against Stephen, but he was forced to flee when Stephen retook the castle almost immediately.

He joined forces with Robert Earl of Gloucester the half brother of the Empress Matilda and Lincoln was recaptured and Stephen forced to surrender.

this victory at the battle of Lincoln put Matilda on the throne. She was never officially crowned and so the first female monarch of England is never usually listed as such.

King David of Scotland had been allied to Matilda since 1141 and so following a further aborted attempt by Stephen at taking Lincoln from Ranulf- the Earl switched sides.

For Ranulf fighting to get his land back from Scotland was more important than any loyalty to others!

Fear of deceit however by many supporters of King Stephen including William Peverel the younger (keeper of Nottingham Castle) resulted in Ranulf being held prisoner by Stephen on charges of Treason.

He was held in chains (literally smothered beneath heavy coils of metal chain) until his release could be secured.

He broke the terms of his release and went on the rampage attacking Lincoln once more.

In 1149 he resolved his territorial problems with David of Scotland through a meeting between them and Matilda's son Prince Henry of Anjou (the future Henry II).

He was now back on the side of the Angevins (Matilda, her husband Geoffrey Plantaganet, and their son Henry of Anjou. Henry would become King Henry II and he and his sons were known as the Angevin Kings- they were the Dukes of Anjou).

The anarchy ended with the surrender of Stephen and the acceptance of Matilda's son Henry as Stephens’s heir (see medieval kings part 1, the Normans: 1066-1154 entry for more).

The story does not end there however.

During the time Ranulf was fighting for the Angevins- Prince Henry gave him the fee of Robert De Caux- Hereditary keeper of the Forest of Sherwood (more on the Keepers of Sherwood Forest soon)- in an abortive grant known as the 'Treaty of Devises' (Crook 1980)

Robert De Caux was a supporter of King Stephen's cause along with William Peverel the younger (son or grandson of William Peverel who had built Nottingham Castle on the orders of William the conqueror in 1087).

William Peverel maintained King Stephens cause against Ranulf in Nottinghamshire.

It seems that Ranulf was attempting during this time to seize control of the keepership of Sherwood Forest and others in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire by gaining the De Caux barony for himself! (Crook 1980)

Ultimately this failed! But he was very much involved in the destiny of the forest and its inhabitants at the time!

In 1153 Ranulf was poisoned by William Peverel the younger along with a number of his retainers...

As stated William Peverel the younger was a supporter of King Stephen.

As a result he was stripped of his lands and exiled by Henry II after his succession in 1154, for this treachery in the killing of Ranulf.

When Henry II marched on Nottingham, William Peverel fled- possibly being tonsured and admitted into the priory at Lenton (founded by his grandfather) as refuge.

Wliiams lands: 'The honour of Peverel' a collection of vast landholdings centered on the south and western sides of Nottinghamshire fell into crown hands.

This would have an impact on the boundaries of Medieval Sherwood Forest which were extended over these lands in the reign of Henry II, Richard I and King John.

It is interesting how Ranulf linked as he was through the poem Piers Plowman to the legend of Robin Hood, should have had such a direct link to Sherwood Forest with his attempts to gain the keepership, and through his death to one of the most important acts in Medieval Sherwood Forest...

The demise of the Hounour of Peverel and the possession of these lands by the crown would be a seminal moment in the history of Sherwood Forest.

The expansion of Forest Law under the reign of the Angevin Kings over these lands would add to the grounds for discontent over the forests nationally that would ultimately result in the declaration of the Charter of the Forest in 1217.

Disquiet over the forest laws and the expansions of the forest under Henry II and his sons was an important factor in the push for the Magna Charta in 1215… and this extension in Nottinghamshire was one such example...

The murder of Ranulf by Peverel was just one little part of a fascinating and long history of Medieval Sherwood Forest, but was never the less important to the story…

More on the Peverels, Lenton Priory, Magna Charta and the Forest Charter coming soon…

the Honour of Peverel

2011-11-03T18:33:00.002Z

Domesday Book of 1086 lists a number of major landowners in Nottinghamshire.

The main ones among these include:

The King,

The ArchBishop of York,

The Bishop of Lincoln,

Walter D'Aincourt

There were many others, but the chief landowners in terms of the scale of their possessions were Roger De Bully and William Peverel.

The land holdings of Roger De Bully (the Hounour of Tickhill) were concerntrated in the north of the county and will be the subject of a post soon, for now we will look at the lands of William Peverel- collectively known as the Honour of Peverel.

William Peverel was perhaps the illegitimate son of William the Conqueror, and he fought alongside him at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

He became custodian of vast tracts of land in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and built Peveril Castle in Castleton in Derbyshire as well as Nottingham Castle for William I.

His collection of Manors known as the Honour of Peverel were presented to him as such by King William I.

In Nottinghamshire at Domesday he held 43 Manors, a number of associated Berewicks (outliers to manors), as well as large amounts of Sokeland (land that owed tax to a manor). This land was concerntrated in the south and western parts of the county (see map).

Domesday possessions of William Peverel: image by the author.

William Peverel was a very important magnate locally as builder and custodian of Nottingham castle in 1067.

He also founded Lenton Priory which would become the richest religious house in Sherwood Forest and Nottinghamshire.

However despite this little is known about his life.

William Peverel the younger was the son or Grandson of William Peverel senior.

He too was an important figure locally- involved heavily in fighting for King Stephen in the Anarchy he was driven into exile by Henry II in 1154.

He had poisoned Ranulf Earl of Chester in 1153, and was banished for his actions- possibly taking refuge in Lenton Abbey, founded by his grandfather (more on Ranulf Earl of Chester coming soon).

The Honour of Peverel was taken into the hands of the crown by Henry II.

This was important for the history of Sherwood Forest as it allowed extension by the Crown of Forest law over these lands (it is assumed it was not in the forest before this time - see below).

This expansion of the Forest both locally and nationally would be part of the disquiet that led to Magna Charta in 1215, and to the subsequent Charter of the Forest in 1217 under Henry III.

The Charter of the Forest led to boundary disputes and a reduction of the area under forest law.

It seems the forest retreated back within earlier boundaries following these disputes.

The area under the Honour of Peverel, especially that in the area of the Wapentake of Broxtowe (see map- area to west of Forest) was disaforested and this probably meant it was outside the original forest.

The Honour of Peverel is important then, as it helps us to understand why Medieval Sherwood Forest was the shape it was.

We know that all of Nottinghamshire north and West of the River Trent was Forest in the reign of Henry II, Richard I and John (see boundaries page for more information).

The Honour of Peverel was in crown hands at this time- due to the reasons outlined above.

Following the Charter of the Forest the areas of the Honour of Peverel were deemed to be outside the forest suggesting that they had been originally outside the forest.

It would seem then that the jurisdictions of early Norman lords, castles and politics following the conquest had an impact on the original shape of the Norman Forest in Nottinghamshire...

More to come on Hunting for the Norman Forest soon... including the castlery of Nottingham, the Honour of Tickhill, and more...

Kirkby Hardwick and the Warrior Monks

2011-10-31T17:40:00.002Z

The boundaries of Medieval Sherwood Forest were disputed during the 13^th century.

From that time onward they were perambulated frequently.

Some of these perambulations survive and have been preserved in a number of sources including the Sherwood Forest Books.

Notable survivors include the perambulations of Henry III and Edward I as well as from the time of Henry VIII.

On the western side of the forest these perambulations all include reference to a place called Kirkby Hardwick as a boundary marker of Sherwood Forest.

This is a place that still exists to this day- although it is not known to many.

The site was until recently home to Victorian and earlier buildings forming a grand manor house. The site was set within Tudor walls of a large and high satus building from the 16th century. The site was aslo obviously prominent in the landscape in medieval times as...

The perambulations of Henry III and Edward I mention:

‘Deinde inter campos de Herdwike et de Kyrkeby et moram de Kyrkeby…’

‘Next go between the fields of Kirkby Hardwick and the moor of Kirkby’

The perambulation of Henry VIII also mentions some of the fields and a dovecote belonging to Kirkby Hardwick including:

Stonne Pitt (stone Pit or quarry) meadow, Hardwicke Dove Coate (Dovecote), Hardwicke Hall Gate, Head of the water of Man (River Maun), the Long Meadow…

– all helping to give us a picture of the landscape at the time.

By the time of this later perambulation the forest boundary had moved westwards to include the parish of Sutton and the Kings Wood of Fullwood to the north of Kirkby Hardwick.

Kirkby Hardwick was left out of the forest at this time.

The only part within the forest was the area of lings (heather) heathland which occupied the eastern side of the manor. The hall and its fields were left out of the forest.

Picture: Map of the landholdings of Kirkby Hardwick by the author from historic Mapping sources- Sherwood Forest boundary is dashed red line

This suggests it was an important place at this time, and as stated previously the ruined walls of a substantial Tudor building still survive that co-incide with this period.

The site was recently subject to a community excavation led by Nottinghamshire Community Archaeology (more soon).

The name Hardwick means ‘Herders Wick’ or ‘Shepherds enclosure’ and it was probably an outlier of Kirkby in Ashfield in its original form.

Kirkby Hardwick seems to have sprung to greatest prominence with its ties to Bess of Hardwick in the 16^th century, but it had important links before that time.

The Forest Eyre of 1334 lists possessions of the Priors of Newstead in Kirkby Hardwick that were exempt from Forest Law.

This link to a religious house is important. The religious communities of the forest, and the churches, Bishops and particularly the Arch Bishop of York were given many exemptions from the laws of the forest.

The inquisitiones post mortem for Nottinghamshire into the inheritance of a Robert Illyngworth in the early 14^th century mention links to the Knights of St John of Jerusalem the Knights Hospitaller as the owners of at least part of the manor.

Also to their previous rights to Free Warren where the land was not in the forest.

Free Warren was granted by Charter from the King and allowed exclusive rights to hunt cat, squirrel, hare rabbits and other beast of the warren.

This was a high honour.

This reference to the Knights Hospitaller is exciting as there are not many links to the military orders of the Middle Ages in the forest.

Possibly even more exciting is that the post mortem also mentions a number of ‘Temple’ properties in the same entry.

This suggests that the Knights Hospitaller gained these lands from the Knights Templar when their order was suppressed from 1312 onwards.

Could Kirkby Hardwick have links to the Knights Templar?

Research by the author is continuing…

More on the Millitary orders of the Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem and the Knights Templar in Medieval Sherwood Forest…

…also more on Charters of Free Warren and other hunting rights soon…

Gadding About in the Forest

2011-10-28T15:40:00.002+01:00

Medieval Sherwood Forest was criss-crossed by a number of roads winding through the heath and woodland heading out from Nottingham to the towns of the north.

The Kings Highway ran from Nottingham to York, passing the Cistercian Abbey at Rufford. It crossed the great heaths of Basford Lyngges the great common of Arnold, and then across Salterford Waste.

It then passed through the wooded area of Balkhaw, near to the mighty oaks of Hay Wode, past ye Byschope wode- belonging to the Arch-Bishop of York and the Burne Abotote Wode of the Abbot of Rufford before crossing the heathland of the lordship of Rufford Abbey.

Sanctuary and refreshment could then be sought at Rufford Abbey before journeying on to the north.

The western highway by-passed the enormous Royal Deer Park of Bestwood, following the park pale (fence) to the west. After passing Bulwel towne and crossing the heathland of Kyghill refuge could similarly be sought at the Augustinian Priory of Newstead.

Amongst the vagabonds, travellers, outlaws, malefactors, pilgrims and foresters, farmers, tradesmen and others who would have passed by on the roads…

A traveller might meet a monk ‘gadding about the forest’

‘Gadding about’- is to wander aimlessly and without purpose - a phrase still used locally to this day!

Many a complaint was issued regarding the monks of Newstead ‘gadding about’ – effectively going AWOL from the priory (without permission of the prior!)

In 1304 the monks there were forbidden to keep more than 2 horses- possibly to try to reduce the number of monks on the loose in the Forest!

(More on the priors of Newstead, the monks of Rufford and journeys through the landscape of Medieval Sherwood Forest soon)

the Great Famine 1315-16

2011-10-25T13:18:00.002+01:00

The 14^th century was a dramatic time in Sherwood Forest and throughout the region around Medieval Nottinghamshire with many outlaws roaming the countryside!

…it was a century of enormous social change and social strain.

…Locally bands of evil doers and malefactors such as the Folville gang and the notorious Coterel gang roamed the countryside… robbing and kidnapping… (see outlaws page)

…Edward III would storm into Nottingham Castle and regain control of his Kingdom from the usurper Roger Mortimer -who had taken the throne along with his mistress Queen Isabella from Edward II her husband.

(more of that and the red hot poker later)…

Nationally the peasants would revolt in 1381…

… and the Hundred years War was kicked off by Edward III in 1337…

The Scottish raids of the Reivers wreaked havoc!

‘This social anarchy…’ saw ‘the creation of bands of vagabonds and outlaws in Sherwood Forest and other forests as the result of Scots’ raids and the famine of 1315-16’ (Cameron 1971).

Alongside The great political stories of the day and the impact this could have on the people... natural disasters also forced many into outlawry!

In 1315 great floods and famine struck the country.

The River Trent burst its banks destroying roads and bridges, and damaging crops.

The Hethbeth bridge (modern day Trent Bridge) was damaged along with the causeway linking it to Nottingham.

This would have had an impact on trade in the town.

Grain prices went through the roof as crops failed.

People began to starve!

The following dramatic entry from the Nottingham Date Book 850-1884 demonstrates the panic of the time:

‘Nottingham, at this time, along with the rest of the kingdom was grievously affected with famine… children were stolen and converted to food, and prisoners newly brought into jails, were, in several instances, torn to pieces by previous inmates , and eaten half alive…’

(Nottingham Date Book 850-1884).

Perhaps a little dramatic- but not likely to be entirely inaccurate…

This famine was followed by a sheep moraine and panic must have engulfed the area.

Many people died, and many of those who survived seem to have been forced by circumstance to take to the forest as outlaws- perhaps bacause they were behind on their rents and payments...

Normality did eventaully return to Sherwood Forest and the rest of the country in the aftermath of the great famine, and life settled back into the cycle of the seasons…

…. But it would not be long before King Death was roaming again… in 1348/9 up to a quarter of the population would fall to the horror of the Black Death as it spread like wildfire around the kingdom….

But more of that later…

The Great famine of 1315 is a stark reminder of how difficult and hard life could be in Medieval Sherwood Forest.

Voices from the forest

2011-10-16T20:22:00.003+01:00

The oldest surviving map of Sherwood Forest is known as the Belvior Map and is dated from the late 14th or early 15th centry.

It is a fantastic resource for understanding and rebuilding the landscape of Medieval Sherwood Forest

It is also possible to hear the voices of the people who lived in the forest from a detailed study of its text.

The map consists of a list of places and topographic features such as hills, streams and valleys.

Picture: Photographic monatage of the Belvoir map, property of the Duke of Rutland dating to the late 14th or early 15th century.

The names used in the map have a distinctively northern aspect revealled by the form 'forth' for ford and also the use of the word 'hoyle' for hole (Ferny Hoyle, Netilworth Hoyles, Tyb Hoyle) and 'roide' or 'royde' for road ( ye royde of Boluel, ye Rede Royde Hil, Yo Roide Imbelow) (Barley 1986).

This diphthongization had been thought characteristic of the area of South Yorkshire, but this map shows this accent and dialogue was spoken throughout Medieval Sherwood Forest as well.

If you want to hear the voices of Medieval Sherwood Forest I would recommend a visit to Hoyland Common in South Yorkshire or some of the other former coal mining communities around Barnsley- this accent is alive and well, and makes great listening.

It is wonderful to be able to hear the voices of the Medieval people of Sherwood Forest through this historic map.

The people can be heard if you know where to listen...

King John's Palace

2011-09-29T12:59:00.003+01:00

In the heart of Medieval Sherwood Forest lies the Royal Deer park of Clipstone. This royal park was the centre of royal hunting and politics in the forest from the late 12th to the end of the 14th century.

Picture: The ruins of King John's Palace, King's Clipstone, Sherwod Forest Nottinghamshire.

The park and its royal palace -also known as the King's Houses (and later King John's Palace) was visited by all eight monarchs from Henry II to Richard II.

It was the scene of parliament and was used by Richard I to entertain William the Lion, King of Scotland.

Much archaeological work has recently been undertaken by myself, and also by Channel Four's Time Team.

Perhaps the most work undertaken on the site has been by James Wright Senior archaeologist (built heritage) at the Museum of London Archaeology, and former Archaeological and Historic buildings officer at Nottinghamshire County Council.

James's expertise in Archaeology, castles and historic buildings along with his previous experience as a stone mason has led to much research and new interpretations of the site. Some of this work is summarised in his book the Casltes of Nottinghamshire- recommended by this site.

In no small part due to his efforts the site was consolidated and repaired by partership between English Heritage and Nottinghamshire County Council.

I consider this site to be perhaps one of the most important in Medieval Sherwood Forest.

I have decided to leave the full explanation to James Wright himself- who is best placed to give the full picture.

The wikipedia page he has authored can be accessed through the link below:

James Wright's King John's Palace entry