Page:VCH Rutland 1.djvu/272

 A HISTORY OF RUTLAND No serfs are mentioned in the Rutland Domesday, but they are to be found in a few of the manors now belonging to that county, which at the time of the Survey were included in Northamptonshire. Between Domesday and Magna Charta there is a large gap in the records of actual facts, but from knowledge which we otherwise possess a good deal may be inferred as to the economic condition of the people. We know, for instance, that large tracts of the county consisted of royal forest, and that the people in such districts would be subject to the operation of the harsh forest laws. In Rutland, as in other counties, many men had lands within the king's forest, but these lands were subject to very burdensome re- strictions. The holders could not make any assarts or inclosures without special licence, and very frequently when licence for an inclosure was obtained the hedges and fences had to be of such a height as to allow the beasts of the chase to enter freely. In other parts of the country, not within the king's forests, landowners could inclose portions of their woods and wastes provided sufficient common of pasture was left for their under- tenants.* If a forest landowner tried to reclaim any of his waste land without special licence he was liable to be deprived of the fruit of his labour and enterprise, as, if discovered, the assart was taken into the king's hands.'' Among the offenders against the forest laws are frequently found officers charged with the upholding of these laws. We hear of parks and woods being wasted, and unjust extortions and accusations made by them.* Such transgressions are not surprising, because many of these officers held their offices ' at farm ' from the king, and made their profits from the forest and its inhabitants.' The roll of the Rutland Eyre for 1269^° gives many in- stances of the extortions and persecutions suffered by the people of that county. We read there that ' because of the turbulence which prevailed recently in the realm,' the king had granted thorns and underwood in his wood of Stokewood for the inclosure of the town of Oakham. The wood was to be inclosed for three years, so that the young underwood might not be destroyed by the grazing of animals, but Peter de Nevill, the king's chief forester in Rutland, kept the wood in defence for five years, and so deprived the neighbouring people of their right of common, and also extorted many fines from them on account of their beasts found in the said wood." The same Peter also imprisoned ' Master William de Martinvast ' without any warrant, on the supposed ground that he was ' an evildoer with respect to the venison of the lord King,' and only liberated him for a fine of 100s. Peter also took from the sister of Master William 20 heaped quarters of wheat, of the value of ^4, because she had received the goods and chattels of her brother.^^ Another man, on suspicion of having taken a rabbit, was bound with iron chains and imprisoned for two days and two nights in Peter de Nevill's private gaol at AUexton, in which there was water at the bottom.^' Taking unjust tolls was another method of extortion ; for example, a cart laden with ash trees belonging to one Geoffrey the son of ° Statute of Merton, 1235. ' For an example of this in Rutland see Forest Proc. Exch. T.R. 139. ' Forest Proc. Exch. T.R. 249, m. I. • Turner, Sckct Pleas of the Forest (Selden Soc), p. xxi. " Forest Proc. T.R. no. 140 ; Turner, op. cit. 43-53. " Ibid. " Ibid. 49. « Ibid. 50. 212