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VII
Hunting and Poaching
Hunting was the one of the great enthusiasms of the kings of England after the Conquest. Magnates both lay and clerical, and others with large landholdings also indulged within their own estates, but, as the outline of Forest Law makes clear, their right to hunt was always constrained by the interests of the king. As well as hunting in their own lands they also had the opportunity of being invited to hunt in the royal forests. But, the mass of the population of medieval England had very limited legal rights to hunting any sort of animal or bird for food or sport. This applied as much to the minority living in towns and cities as it did to the vast majority living in the countryside. But since when have legal restrictions stopped country people hunting small or large animals for food?
The chroniclers of Post-Conquest England recount several stories about the enthusiasm of William the Conqueror and his sons for hunting and their skill with the bow. One such tells of William running out of arrows while hunting and having to instruct a smith how to make arrowheads to his specification. There is also a story, reminiscent of Homerâs âThe Odysseyâ, telling how no one else could draw the Conquerorâs bow. This need not be taken literally; it is just a way of saying that William was a powerful archer. All three of his sons were enthusiastic hunting archers; William Rufus met his death while hunting with a bow. Wace recounts that Henry I broke his bow string while hunting and had to go to a peasantâs hut for spare.1 Another story that is difficult to take at face value since Henry would have been hunting in a royal forest, and the peasant would have been in grave danger of contravening Forest Law by having a bow string in his house. The real point of these stories is that the kings and princes of Norman England hunted with the bow, and so had a good understanding of the characteristics necessary in a bow for it to be effective.
There is plenty of evidence of the resentment generated by the restrictions enforced through the Forest Law and the extent of the royal forests from Henry Iâs reign onwards which may explain why there is little evidence of legal hunting by people other than members, officers or employees of the royal household before Magna Carta and the associated Forest Charter. A possible reference may be found in a charter of Henry I granted to the Abbey of St Peterâs in Gloucester. This gave the Abbey a tithe of all the venison taken within the âprovinceâ of the Abbey, and was addressed to all foresters, hunters and bowmen âin that part of Severn and Dene.â2 It is not clear that all those addressed in the charter were royal officers. William FitzStephan in his late twelfth century âDescription of Londonâ says that the citizens of London hawked and hunted with dogs, but he makes no mention of them using bows and arrows.3
However, people of all social groups hunted for food and sport throughout the Middle Ages, despite the legal restrictions. The higher classes often paid more rigorous financial penalties than the ordinary peasants and craftsmen when brought to the courts but they faced much less risk of imprisonment. Some poached with bows and arrows, having developed their archery skills for self-protection, or just as a social sport. People in medieval England had many holidays because of the number of religious festivals when work was prohibited. During the thirteenth century there were between forty and fifty religious holidays, in addition to Sundays when all work was forbidden.4 On top of these there were other days when all work except ploughing was forbidden, and others when women had to stop their domestic work. Holidays were enforced through the church courts, but there is no doubt that men did not always observe them. While work was forbidden on these holidays, sports and games (within bounds) were not, and as has been previously noted, archery was one of the pastimes along with wrestling and rock throwing that men practised to develop and show off their physical prowess. The practice of archery skills came to have wider consequences in the thirteenth century as changes in the Assizes of Arms meant that archers became more important militarily. Some men whose work required archery skills, such as parkers or foresters, served in thirteenth-century armies. But these professional archers could not have provided even the limited numbers of military archers employed in the twelfth and first half of the thirteenth century, so other men must have developed archery skills at this time.
This chapter will be all about men practising archery illicitly to put food on their own and their friendsâ tables. Medieval Englishmen used various methods to poach game, including large game such as deer, but bows and arrows were not the most commonly used. Yet on at least one occasion a king of England considered archers to be the major problem amongst the poachers preying on one of his forests. In 1276, no doubt as part of his efforts to re-establish law and order in his new kingdom, Edward I appointed Matthew de Columbar Justice to hold an inquisition into offences in the New Forest. He wrote to Matthew saying âBecause certain malefactor archers have recently entered and carried off beasts from the New Forest against the peace and without the permission of Queen Eleanor, we have appointed you to inquire into the matter by the oath of the good and loyal men.â5 The foresters put considerable efforts into preventing poaching, patrolling the forests to try to catch âmalefactorsâ, and no doubt to give potential poachers pause for thought about the likelihood of being identified while in the forest. Just being seen in a royal forest was enough to make you a suspicious person. From the regular complaints of foresters behaving oppressively, it seems clear that they enquired and searched wherever they believed they might find evidence. As will become apparent below, the local communities could prove very reluctant to bear witness in support of the forest officials when a case came to court. In the thirteenth century accusations of infringing Forest Law were heard by the Justices of the Forest Eyre. Since the Eyres were held both irregularly and increasingly infrequently, men often waited years before knowing the verdict. Usually those awaiting the Eyre were free, with neighbours or local men of standing being sworn to bring the accused before the Justices when they arrived. As a result, court rolls record many cases were the accused is not presented at court, or has died in the interim.
Poaching by Peasants
At the beginning of the fourteenth century between 80 and 85 per cent of the population of Medieval England lived in the countryside. The majority of these were peasants whose landholdings ranged from those holding 60 or more acres who would have had a very good standard of living to those with very small landholdings who had to find labouring work to survive. The majority of these peasants would be serfs, legally tied to a particular lordâs landholding, but there were substantial numbers of free peasants in parts of the country. Both groups of peasants, serfs and free, would include people with differing size landholdings, although freemen tended to have larger holdings on average.
The earliest surviving accounts of peasants poaching are found in the records of Eyre of Northamptonshire made in 1209. The actual date of the offences is not recorded but they could have happened at any time in the previous decade. Two brothers, Richard and Peter Gerewold, were seen in an enclosure in the forest with bows and arrows. They had no chattels that could be seized so the sheriff was instructed to bring them to the next Assize, with the threat that they would be outlawed for non-attendance. At the same Eyre, Ralph the son of Simon of Newland in Worcestershire didnât turn up to answer for being caught in the forest with a bow (arcus) with a string, a barbed arrow and a bolt (bulsone).6 This case is interesting because of the mention of the bowstring, to prove that threat was real, and the mention of two types of arrow, a barbed hunting arrow and a blunt bolt, that would have been used against small game and birds. Barbed heads are specifically mentioned in court records of the first half of the thirteenth century for two reasons. Firstly, the forest officers would have felt that there could be no doubt about the intentions of a man carrying a barbed arrow. Secondly, as noted in chapter IX, the archaeological record suggests that the use of true barbed heads was becoming more widespread at this time, so the court records were being precise recording this novelty. In another case, Geoffrey, son of Stephen Swift seems to have been very determined to hunt successfully, since, when he was caught in the kingâs enclosure at Weybridge, he was carrying a bow and five barbed arrows. This was the lesser of Geoffreyâs offences, since he also admitted to taking two fawns on another occasion. He was outlawed for non-attendance before the Justices rather than his offences.7
Men living in the royal forests could have bows and arrows in their houses if they had permission from the Justices of the Forest Eyre. Three more cases from these Eyres show men being charged with possession of unlicensed bows in the forests. In one a man was taken in the forest with just a bow and string, in another a man had both a bow and a crossbow, while the third just mentions the man had a bow. Although arrows donât seem to have been discovered in any of these cases the men were fined.8 These Eyres were held at the time that King John was trying to raise as much money as possible through the enforcement of Forest Law. Another sign of this determination to enforce Forest Law can be found in the general accusation that the inhabitants of Silberton took deer and wild beasts. Another township, Newton, was in trouble because the community had promised to deliver Thomas Gelee, the reaper, to the Eyre and failed. Thomas was accused of having shot a buck in Nossington wood.9
In the late 1230s, Gilbert Dun, the forester of Hainault Forest, was riding in the forest with his servant, when they saw eight men armed with bows and arrows. They challenged them but the men escaped into the forest.10 Gilbert may well have been relieved to have got away with challenging such a group, and not pressed his pursuit too closely.
Around the same time, the Parker of Woodham (modern W. Ferrers, Essex) saw men carrying bows and arrows in the park. He called for help and surrounded the park, whereupon sixteen men with bows and arrows and âthe venison of four beastsâ came out and crossed into the neighbouring park of the Bishop of Ely at Rettendon. They were now outside his jurisdiction so he raised the Hue and Cry against them. Some were found and identified, but they had no goods and chattels with the bounds of the forest of Essex by which they could be attached to appear before the Justices.11 This does not necessarily mean that they were poor; they may have come some distance to poach. But this case demonstrates the problems foresters and parkers could have protecting their forests because their powers in law were limited to the geographic boundaries of their forest or park.
A little later in 1239 there is a case from the records of the Essex Eyre, that shows that common men could mount well prepared poaching expeditions. John, the son of the Woodward of Chigwell was going through Hainault Forest, when he saw seven men, five with bows and arrows, and two with four greyhounds. Three of the greyhounds were masked, this may have been something like blinkers to stop poorly trained hounds being distracted while on the chase, or it may have been disguise to cover distinguishing marks. John hurried to tell his father that he recognised one of the men as John le Blund of Edmonton who âhe often saw ⌠coming to see his pigs which he had in the wood aforesaid for pannage.â12 Either John le Blund was careless, poaching in woods where he was well known, or he used his pigs as cover to check out the woods for venison, and to gain an idea of how assiduously the foresters patrolled.
In the 1251 three men from Corby were suspected of poaching in the royal forest of Rockingham in Northamptonshire. When the forest officers searched their houses they found thirteen Welsh (wallenses) arrows, but no bow in Robert of Corbyâs house. But in Geoffrey Gos of Corbyâs house they found pieces of venison, a bow with a string, seven barbed arrows and a small arrow with five fletches.13 These men were well equipped for poaching, Robert may well have hidden his bow, but he was very careless about his arrows. The range of types of arrow is interesting. The most unusual being the small arrow with five fletches, possibly similar to a modern âflu fluâ and used for shooting at small birds or squirrels up in trees.
One day in 1253 William of Rode, the walking forester of the park near Brigstock, met Geoffrey Catel and Peter Welp coming int...
