A free warren—often simply warren—is a type of franchise or privilege conveyed by a

sovereign ''Sovereign'' is a title which can be applied to the highest leader in various categories. The word is borrowed from Old French , which is ultimately derived from the Latin , meaning 'above'. The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch, ruler or ...

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

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 ...

to an English subject, promising to hold them harmless for killing

game A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (suc ...

of certain species within a stipulated area, usually a

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...

or small

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

. The sovereign involved might be either the

monarch A monarch is a head of stateWebster's II New College DictionarMonarch Houghton Mifflin. Boston. 2001. p. 707. Life tenure, for life or until abdication, and therefore the head of state of a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest authority ...

or a

marcher lord A Marcher lord () was a noble appointed by the king of England to guard the border (known as the Welsh Marches) between England and Wales. A Marcher lord was the English equivalent of a margrave (in the Holy Roman Empire) or a marquis (in ...

Law

The grant of free warren could be as a gift, or in exchange for consideration, and might be later alienated by the grantee. The stipulated area might be coextensive with the frank-tenement of the grantee, or it might be discontinuous or even at a considerable remove from the grantee's holdings. The right of free warren did not extend automatically to the freeholder of the soil. Although the rights of free warren are usually discussed in the context of forest law, the only law which applied within the warren was

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omniprese ...

. Thus, even though the warrant ultimately derived from the sovereign, the only statutes applied to poachers in a warren were the common-law crimes of

theft Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for som ...

and

trespass Trespass is an area of tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person, trespass to chattels, and trespass to land. Trespass to the person historically involved six separate trespasses: threats, assault, battery, woundi ...

. The privilege of free warren was a

reciprocal Reciprocal may refer to: In mathematics * Multiplicative inverse, in mathematics, the number 1/''x'', which multiplied by ''x'' gives the product 1, also known as a ''reciprocal'' * Reciprocal polynomial, a polynomial obtained from another pol ...

relationship. The grantee of the warren was granted an exemption from the law (under which all game in the realm was property of the sovereign), but the grantee owed the sovereign the stewardship and protection of the game from all others who might wish to hunt it.

Etymology

Modern

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

''warren'' ← ME ''warrene'', ''warreine'' ← ONF ''warrenne'' ← Germanic present participle of *''warian'' "to take care; to cause to care (for)" ← causative of *''waran'' "to care" ← ''*war'' "care". Doublet of ''

guarantor In finance, a surety , surety bond or guaranty involves a promise by one party to assume responsibility for the debt obligation of a borrower if that borrower defaults. Usually, a surety bond or surety is a promise by a surety or guarantor to pay ...

''. Related to OHG ''werien'' (i.e. ''*wärian'') "to defend, protect", and also to English "a-ware, wary".

Free warren and domestic warren

The original use of ''free warren'' was as a legal term. However, as the franchise defined both a set of species and a geographic extent, the natural semantic extensions arose, namely for the individual animals as a group, or for the land they inhabited. As it became pragmatically necessary for freeholders not holding a free warren to enclose their breeding establishments, these "closed warrens" or domestic warrens began also to be designated simply as "warrens" (use recorded in 1378; OED). In 1649 the metaphoric use as "cluster of densely populated living spaces" is recorded.

Warren and warden

The Mediaeval Latin form of the word ''warenna'' was used in legal documents such as

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 t ...

. In addition, the office of warden is used for the overseer of a warren:

(5) But the warden, as long as he hath the custody of the lands, shall keep up and maintain the houses, parks, warrens, ponds, mills, and other things belonging to them, out of their issues;

The warden of a

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 ...

was often the

castellan A castellan is the title used in Medieval Europe for an appointed official, a governor of a castle and its surrounding territory referred to as the castellany. The title of ''governor'' is retained in the English prison system, as a remnant ...

constable A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in criminal law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. A constable is commonly the rank of an officer within the police. Other peop ...

of the nearest royal castle; over time the less exalted title of ''warrener'' evolved for the custodian of the lowest of the hunting franchises, the warren.

Warren and warrant

The adjective ''free'' in ''free warren'' does not refer to the lack of enclosure surrounding the precincts of the warren, but rather to the fact the "liberty" of hunting derives from a warrant of the sovereign. That is,

The term "warrant" occurs very early in constitutional documents: it is found in the Assize of Clarendon and the Assize of the Forest, both in the reign of Henry II., but in neither case in its modern meaning. The original meaning seems to have been more akin to guarantee (q.v.), warranty or security; and to some extent the term implies something in the nature of a guarantee or representation by the person issuing the warrant that the person who acts on it can do so without incurring any legal penalty.

All of the terms ''warrant'', ''warrantor'', and ''warranty'' are used in

Henry II of England Henry II (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Curtmantle (french: link=no, Court-manteau), Henry FitzEmpress, or Henry Plantagenet, was King of England from 1154 until his death in 1189, and as such, was the first Angevin kin ...

's Assize of the Forest (a.k.a. Assize of Woodstock) in 1184: :Article 2. Item, he has commanded that no one shall have bows, arrows, dogs, or hounds in his forests, unless

uch person Uch ( pa, ; ur, ), frequently referred to as Uch Sharīf ( pa, ; ur, ; ''"Noble Uch"''), is a historic city in the southern part of Pakistan's Punjab province. Uch may have been founded as Alexandria on the Indus, a town founded by Alexand ...

has the warrant of the king or of some other man who can awfullybe his warrantor. :Article 9. Item, the king forbids all clergymen to commit any offences touching his venison or his forests. He strictly orders his foresters that, if they find such men committing offences, they shall not hesitate to lay hands on those men in order to hold them and put them under attachment; he himself will give full warranty.

Beasts of warren

The permission to take game was limited to certain types of animals. Generally, the killing of

vermin Vermin ( colloquially varmint(s) or varmit(s)) are pests or nuisance animals that spread diseases or destroy crops or livestock. Since the term is defined in relation to human activities, which species are included vary by region and enterp ...

(defined as

predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill t ...

s and other beasts not fit for the table) was not regulated. This definition was flexible, however, depending on whether the animal was thought to provide good sport, as wolves, foxes, badgers, or bears. In practice, vermin could only be killed on the commons or waste, since none but the grantee was permitted to have instruments of the hunt within the warren.

Manwood

The most cited authority on forest law,

John Manwood John Manwood (died 1610) was a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, gamekeeper of Waltham Forest, and Justice in Eyre of the New Forest under Elizabeth I of England. He was a close relative, probably a nephew, of Sir Roger Manwood, Lord Chief Baron of th ...

, cites these beasts of warren:

"The beasts and fouls of Warren are these, The Hare, the Cony, the Pheasant, and the Partridge, and none other are accompted beasts or fouls of Warren."

However, Manwood is mistaken in his assignments, since the

roe deer The roe deer (''Capreolus capreolus''), also known as the roe, western roe deer, or European roe, is a species of deer. The male of the species is sometimes referred to as a roebuck. The roe is a small deer, reddish and grey-brown, and well-adapt ...

was transferred to "beast of warren" from "beast of the forest" in the fourteenth century. Roe deer are still found within woodlands named "Warren" in contemporary England. The 1911 Encyclopedia adds roe,

woodcock The woodcocks are a group of seven or eight very similar living species of wading birds in the genus ''Scolopax''. The genus name is Latin for a snipe or woodcock, and until around 1800 was used to refer to a variety of waders. The English ...

, quail, rail and

heron The herons are long-legged, long-necked, freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 72 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Members of the genera ''Botaurus'' and ''Ixobrychu ...

to Manwood's list. On the other hand,

grouse Grouse are a group of birds from the order Galliformes, in the family Phasianidae. Grouse are presently assigned to the tribe Tetraonini (formerly the subfamily Tetraoninae and the family Tetraonidae), a classification supported by mitochondria ...

are not birds of warren. Fox, wolf, cat, badger, and squirrel are sometimes also added. Sometimes domestic swine are mistakenly thought to be beasts of warren, due the right of

pannage Pannage (also referred to as ''Eichelmast'' or ''Eckerich'' in Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia) is the practice of releasing livestock- pigs in a forest, so that they can feed on fallen acorns, be ...

References

Bibliography

ARTFL Project: Webster Dictionary, 1913, p *Blackstone, xxx. 9999. ''Commentaries on the Laws of England'

*[http://info.sjc.ox.ac.uk/forests/glossary.htm Forests and Chases in England and Wales, c. 1500 to c. 1850 A Glossary of Terms and Definitions] * * *{{cite EB1911 , wstitle=Forest Laws, volume=10 , pages=644–645 *Stubbs, William. 1900 ''Select Charters and Other Illustrations of English Constitutional History'', p. 74. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John, with and Historical Introduction, by William Sharp McKechnie (Glasgow: Maclehose, 1914).
Medieval English law Rights