Common Land - Royal Forests 1

Royal Forests are much associated with common land although they originate for different reasons. In England the Anglo-Saxon kings first created "Royal Forests" but it was William 1 who imposed the first after 1066. It is likely that he "took-over" some or all of the the extant Royal Forests. But what are they?

Essentially they were areas of rural land of mixed uses where Forest Law was imposed. The sovereign did not necessarily directly own the land but merely used it for hunting. More correctly perhaps, under feudal land ownerships and tenures William and his successors owned all land absolutely. It was successively held under the king by barons then downwards by Lords of the Manor, ie by feudal alliance.

Overriding the feudal pattern of tenures the areas subject to Forest Law; in effect was a kind of "Green Belt" in favour of the king for hunting purposes. In other words like the Green Belt (1) it was not land owned by the king. The Forest Law was a harsh regime intended to ensure the husbandry of deer herds for hunting purposes. Trees vegetation and deer were safeguarded against miscreants who, initially at least, suffered severe penalties for loss of or damage to the king's "property".

The link to common land is that each of the Royal Forests would have had common land within their extent. Initially in William's time the common land was probably held directly by him by alloidal tenure (2): later, under Common Law it seems that the Lords of the Manor came to own common land. It was,of course subject to the customary rights of the commoners.

Note 1 In fact the original Green Belt was land owned by the London County Council under the Green Belt Act 1938; it was later imposed as a planning designation and the ownership requirement abandoned. Lullingstone Park in Kent is an example of such a land acquisition for Green Belt purposes but is now designated - as is most of the land surrounding London.

Note 2 Alloidal tenure is absolute ownership which recognises no superior owner. For example, all individual Anglo-Saxons owned their estates by alloidal tenure. Similarly, under today's "constitution" the Crown is the owner of all physical land by alloidal tenure. Thus freeholders own legal "estates" from the Crown - hence the concept and practice of "escheat" where a subject dies intestate with out heirs under the Rules of Intestacy.