The Charter of the Forest of 1217 ( la, Carta Foresta) is a
charter
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the rec ...
that re-established for
free men
"Free Men" is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, which originally appeared in his collection ''The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein'' (1966) and was later collected in Expanded Universe (Heinlein), ''Expanded Univer ...
rights of access to the
royal forest
A royal forest, occasionally known as a kingswood (), is an area of land with different definitions in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The term ''forest'' in the ordinary modern understanding refers to an area of wooded land; however, the ...
that had been eroded by King
William the Conqueror
William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...
and his heirs. Many of its provisions were in force for centuries afterwards. It was originally sealed in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
by the young
King Henry III, acting under the regency of
William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke
William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1146 or 1147 – 14 May 1219), also called William the Marshal (Norman French: ', French: '), was an Anglo-Norman soldier and statesman. He served five English kings— Henry II, his sons the "Young King" ...
. It was in many ways a companion document to
Magna Carta
(Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the ...
.
The Charter redressed some applications of the Anglo-Norman
Forest Law that had been extended and abused by King
William Rufus
William II ( xno, Williame; – 2 August 1100) was King of England from 26 September 1087 until his death in 1100, with powers over Normandy and influence in Scotland. He was less successful in extending control into Wales. The third so ...
.
History
"Forest" to the
Normans
The Normans (Norman language, Norman: ''Normaunds''; french: Normands; la, Nortmanni/Normanni) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norsemen, Norse Viking settlers and indigenous West Fran ...
meant an enclosed area where the monarch (or sometimes another aristocrat) had exclusive rights to animals of the chase and the greenery ("
vert
Vert or Verts may refer to:
* Vert (heraldry), the colour green in heraldry
* Vert (music producer) (born 1972), pseudonym of Adam Butler, an English music producer
* Vert (river), in southern France
* Vert (sport), a competition in extreme vers ...
") on which they fed.
[Geraldine van Buren, "Take Back Control: A new Commons Charter for the twenty-first century is overdue, 800 years after the first": in ''Times Literary Supplement'', 10 March 2017, pp. 23–25.] It did not consist only of trees, but included large areas of
commons
The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons ...
such as heathland, grassland and wetlands, productive of food, grazing and other resources. Lands became more and more restricted as
King Richard and King John designated greater and greater areas as royal forest. At its widest extent, royal forest covered about one-third of the land of southern England.
Thus it became an increasing hardship on the common people to try to farm, forage, and otherwise use the land they lived on.
The Charter of the Forest was first issued on 6 November 1217 at
St Paul's Cathedral, London
St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grad ...
, as a complementary charter to
Magna Carta
(Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the ...
from which it had evolved. It was reissued in 1225 with a number of minor changes to wording, and then was joined with Magna Carta in the
Confirmation of Charters
(Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the ...
in 1297.
At a time when royal forests were the most important potential source of
fuel
A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy but ...
for cooking, heating and industries such as
charcoal burning
A charcoal burner is someone whose occupation is to manufacture charcoal. Traditionally this is achieved by carbonising wood in a charcoal pile or kiln.
Charcoal burning is one of the oldest human crafts. The knowledge gained from this indust ...
, and of such hotly defended rights as
pannage
Pannage (also referred to as ''Eichelmast'' or ''Eckerich'' in Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia) is the practice of releasing livestock-domestic pig, pigs in a forest, so that they can feed on falle ...
(pasture for their pigs),
estover
Estover is a district in Devon, England, within the Plymouth boundary area. The original hamlet was extensively developed during the 1970s, into what became back then a large housing estate, consisting almost entirely of council houses (construc ...
(collecting firewood),
agistment
Agistment originally referred specifically to the proceeds of pasturage in the king's forests. To agist is, in English law, to take cattle to graze, in exchange for payment (derived from the Old English ''giste'', ''gite'', a "lying place").
H ...
(grazing), or
turbary
Turbary is the ancient right to cut turf, or peat, for fuel on a particular area of bog. The word may also be used to describe the associated piece of bog or peatland and, by extension, the material extracted from the turbary. Turbary rights, whic ...
(cutting of turf for fuel), this charter was almost unique in providing a degree of economic protection for free men who used the forest to forage for food and to graze their animals. In contrast to Magna Carta, which dealt with the rights of barons, it restored to the common man some real rights, privileges and protections against the abuses of an encroaching aristocracy. For many years it was regarded as a development of great significance in England's constitutional history, with the great seventeenth-century jurist Sir
Edward Coke
Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”.
History
The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sa ...
referring to it along with Magna Carta as the Charters of England's Liberties,
and Sir
William Blackstone
Sir William Blackstone (10 July 1723 – 14 February 1780) was an English jurist, judge and Tory politician of the eighteenth century. He is most noted for writing the ''Commentaries on the Laws of England''. Born into a middle-class family i ...
remarking in the eighteenth century that:
Contents
The first chapter of the Charter protected common pasture in the forest for all those "accustomed to it", and chapter nine provided for "every man to agist his wood in the forest as he wishes".
It added "Henceforth every freeman, in his wood or on his land that he has in the forest, may with impunity make a mill, fish-preserve, pond, marl-pit, ditch, or arable in cultivated land outside coverts, provided that no injury is thereby given to any neighbour." The Charter restored the area classified as "forest" to that of
Henry II's time.
Clause 10 repealed the death penalty (and mutilation as a lesser punishment) for capturing deer (
venison
Venison originally meant the meat of a game animal but now refers primarily to the meat of antlered ungulates such as elk or deer (or antelope in South Africa). Venison can be used to refer to any part of the animal, so long as it is edible, in ...
), though transgressors were still subject to fines or imprisonment. Special
verderers' courts were set up within the forests to enforce the laws of the charter.
Development
By Tudor times, most of the laws served mainly to protect the timber in royal forests. However, some clauses in the Laws of Forests remained in force until the 1970s, and the
special courts
An extraordinary court, or special court, is a type of court that is established outside of ordinary judiciary, composed of irregularly selected judges or applies irregular procedure for judgment. Since extraordinary court can be abused to infrin ...
still exist in the
New Forest
The New Forest is one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in Southern England, covering southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire. It was proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror, featu ...
and the
Forest of Dean
The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and northwest, Herefordshire to the n ...
. In this respect, the Charter was the statute that remained longest in force in England (from 1217 to 1971), being finally superseded by the
Wild Creatures and Forest Laws Act 1971
The Wild Creatures and Forest Laws Act 1971 (c 47) is an Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom, Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act implemented recommendations contained in the second report on statute law revision,The Law Com ...
. The Charter was a vehicle for asserting the values of the commons and the right of commoners against the state and the forces of commodification. The Act that replaced it was about the protection of nature and administering the commodification of natural resources.
To mark 800 years of the Charter of the Forest, in 2017 the
Woodland Trust
The Woodland Trust is the largest woodland conservation charity in the United Kingdom and is concerned with the creation, protection, and restoration of native woodland Natural heritage, heritage. It has planted over 50 million trees since 1972 ...
and more than 50 other cross-sector organisations joined forces to create and launch a
Charter for Trees, Woods and People
Since 2017, the Woodland Trust has led 70 United Kingdom organizations in the call for a Charter for Trees, Woods and People.
History
The Charter of the Forest was first signed on 6 November 1217 as a sister charter to the Magna Carta from whi ...
, reflecting the modern relationship with trees and woods in the landscape for people in the UK.
Significance
According to
Guy Standing, the Charter "was not about the rights of the poor, but about the rights of the free. For its time and place, it was a radical assertion of the universality of freedom, its commonality."
Surviving copies
It is claimed that only two copies of the 1217 Charter of the Forest survive, belonging to
Durham Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert of Durham, commonly known as Durham Cathedral and home of the Shrine of St Cuthbert, is a cathedral in the city of Durham, County Durham, England. It is the seat of t ...
and
Lincoln Cathedral
Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln Minster, or the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln and sometimes St Mary's Cathedral, in Lincoln, England, is a Grade I listed cathedral and is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Lincoln. Constructio ...
. The Lincoln copy is normally on display in the
David P J Ross Magna Carta Vault in
Lincoln Castle
Lincoln Castle is a major medieval castle constructed in Lincoln, England, during the late 11th century by William the Conqueror on the site of a pre-existing Roman fortress. The castle is unusual in that it has two mottes. It is one of only ...
, together with the Lincoln copy of Magna Carta. A manuscript of the 1225 reissue narrowly escaped destruction in 1865 and is now available in the
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
(Add. Ch. 24712).
However, there is another recently discovered copy of the Charter of the Forest in
Sandwich Guildhall Museum in Kent.
In popular culture
The Charter has inspired the name of the Read-Opera ''The Charter of the Forest,'' which deals with themes such as free people's relation to power, which were codified in one form by the original Charter of the Forest.
See also
*
English land law
English land law is the law of real property in England and Wales. Because of its heavy historical and social significance, land is usually seen as the most important part of English property law. Ownership of land has its roots in the feudal ...
*
Forestry in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom,The United Kingdom (sometimes abbreviated to UK) is a political unit (specifically a country), the British Isles is a geographical unit (the archipelago lying off the northwest coast of Europe), and Great Britain is the name of ...
*''R v Hampden'' (1637) 3 Howell State Trials 825, known also as the ''Case of Shipmony'', leading to the
Ship Money Act 1640
The Ship Money Act 1640 (16 Car 1 c 14) was an Act of the Parliament of England. It outlawed the medieval tax called ship money, a tax the sovereign could levy (on coastal towns) without parliamentary approval. Ship money was intended for use in ...
Notes
References
*
GC Homans, ''English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century'' (1941)
*H Rothwell, ''English Historical Documents 1189–1327'' (1995)
*
P. Linebaugh, ''The Magna Charta Manifesto'' (2008)
External links
BBC Radio 4 "The Things We Forgot to Remember," Series 2 Episode 4, from 6:15 onwards*
*
*
*
*
Lincoln Castle Magna Carta (and Charter of the Forest) display page
{{Authority control
1210s in law
1217 in England
1225 in England
1297 in England
Medieval charters and cartularies of England
Medieval manuscripts
Magna Carta
Government documents
Political charters
English forest law
Henry III of England
Public commons