A warren is a network of wild rodent or lagomorph, typically rabbit

burrow An Eastern chipmunk at the entrance of its burrow A burrow is a hole or tunnel excavated into the ground by an animal to construct a space suitable for habitation or temporary refuge, or as a byproduct of locomotion. Burrows provide a form of sh ...

s. Domestic warrens are artificial, enclosed establishment of

animal husbandry Animal husbandry is the branch of agriculture concerned with animals that are raised for meat, fibre, milk, or other products. It includes day-to-day care, selective breeding, and the raising of livestock. Husbandry has a long history, starti ...

dedicated to the raising of

rabbits Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit specie ...

for meat and fur. The term evolved from the medieval Anglo-Norman concept of free warren, which had been, essentially, the equivalent of a

hunting license A hunting license or hunting permit is a regulatory or legal mechanism to control hunting, both commercial and recreational. A license specifically made for recreational hunting is sometimes called a game license. Hunting may be regulated ...

for a given woodland.

Architecture of the domestic warren

The cunicularia of the monasteries may have more closely resembled

hutch Hutch may refer to: Places * Hutch, Kentucky, an unincorporated community located in Bell County, Kentucky, United States * Hutchinson, Kansas ("Hutch"), a city in Kansas, United States * Hutchinson, Minnesota ("Hutch"), a city in Minnesota, ...

es or pens, than the open enclosures with specialized structures which the domestic warren eventually became. Such an enclosure or ''close'' was called a ''cony-garth'', or sometimes ''conegar'', ''coneygree'' or "bury" (from "burrow").

Moat and pale

To keep the rabbits from escaping, domestic warrens were usually provided with a fairly substantive

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive ...

, or ditch filled with water. Rabbits generally do not swim and avoid water. A '' pale'', or fence, was provided to exclude predators.

Pillow mounds

Mediaeval Rabbit Warren, Hollybush Hill - geograph

The most characteristic structure of the "cony-garth" ("rabbit-yard") is the pillow mound. These were "pillow-like", oblong mounds with flat tops, frequently described as being "cigar-shaped", and sometimes arranged like the letter ⟨E⟩ or into more extensive, interconnected rows. Often these were provided with pre-built, stone-lined tunnels. The preferred orientation was on a gentle slope, with the arms extending downhill, to facilitate drainage. The soil needed to be soft, to accommodate further burrowing. This type of architecture and animal husbandry has become obsolete, but numerous pillow mounds are still to be found in Britain, some of them maintained by English Heritage, with the greatest density being found on Dartmoor.

Further evolution of the term

Ultimately, the term "warren" was generalized to include wild

s. According to the 1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica'':

The word thus became used of a piece of ground preserved for these beasts of warren. It is now applied loosely to any piece of ground, whether preserved or not, where rabbits breed. see also

The use is further extended to any system of burrows, e.g., "

prairie dog Prairie dogs (genus ''Cynomys'') are herbivorous burrowing ground squirrels native to the grasslands of North America. Within the genus are five species: black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnison's, Utah, and Mexican prairie dogs. In Mexico, p ...

warren". By 1649, the term was applied to inferior, crowded human accommodations and meant "cluster of densely populated living spaces" ('' OED''). Contemporarily, the leading use seems to be in the stock phrase "warren of cubicles" in the workplace.

References

{{Subterranea Livestock Agricultural buildings Buildings and structures used to confine animals Animals and humans Shelters built or used by animals Leporidae