‘The Most Dangerous Game ...’

Notes on the Interpretation and Application
of  ‘Norman Forest Law’ within Sherwood Forest

by
Richard Rutherford-Moore © 2000

PART ONE 

THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  ‘FOREST LAW’  

Norman Forest Law decreed that within the given area of a ‘royal forest’ - and the boundaries of such areas were regularly ‘advertised’ - there were restrictions on access and utility, the initial difficulties caused by several aspects : main roads passing through royal forests, many villages (and sometimes even small towns) being within the bounds of royal forest, the abolishment of ‘custom, rights and privileges’ (previous grants which were fiercely opposed by the Church) concerning hunting, grazing and ‘assart’ and the creation of entire new areas or the expansion of existing areas now deemed ‘royal forest’. In any area deemed royal forest, ‘forest law’ would apply. After 1066 and up to 1086, land in conquered Anglo-Saxon England was re-apportioned by William I to leading Norman families who had supported him during the Conquest and this led to restrictions being placed by them on the lands they were given by the king in creating their own private ‘chases’ and ‘parks’ for hunting and natural resource purposes. In a period where the increase in population sought new land for agricultural purposes, hunting was the main leisure pursuit for most men - and it also served to put meat on the table for a family - and timber being the main resource for building and fabrication, any restrictions were greatly resented.   

Before the time of William the Conqueror, laws were in place to govern the grazing and pasture of husbandry, the hunting of wild game and the clearing or taking of timber : but being only casually enforced, the laws were seen as a guide rather than requiring obedience. The Normans re-stated, enhanced, added and above all strictly enforced the ‘forest laws’. The ‘death penalty’ - hanging - for offences by the Normans were at first abolished in favour of the Anglo-Saxon ‘were-gild’ but penalties for offences against ‘forest law’ were still severe - crippling fines, branding with a hot iron, the loss of body-parts or blinding. Capital punishment for serious offences against ‘forest law’ was re-introduced by William II in 1087 and continued throughout the reign of Henry I.

Norman Forest Law made offences within designated areas of royal forest against ‘Vert’ - the removal or destruction of natural greenery, growth or produce in any way in the form of the taking of firewood or timber, the clearing of woodland or unlawful pasturing of animals. Anyone could apply for a ‘licence’ to do all these things but if granted it would always involve the payment of a cash sum (there are a few distinctions over collecting deadwood as firewood but it involves the taking of fallen branches or the cutting of branches ‘less than the thickness of a thumb’ in return for a collective fee paid yearly by a local village). Similarly, offences against ‘Venery’ (wild game) were punishable under ‘forest law’ (the terms ‘venery’ or ‘venison’ in the medieval era are interchangeable and covered far more than just deer and dealt with all wild game (including birds) and involved within the term a degree of classification : ‘beasts of the forest’ were the fallow deer, the wild boar and the wolf : ‘beasts of the chase’ were the red and roe deer, the hare, the fox and the marten : ‘beasts of the warren’ were beaver, otters, badgers, wildcat, rabbit and the red squirrel and in terms of hawking also included game birds such as pheasant, partridge, pigeon, woodcock and snipe (wildfowl such as swans, duck and geese remain rather a hazy area but ‘forest law’ did include the taking of fish from lakes, streams and rivers).

The Sheriff had the sole responsibility for ‘law and order’ within his county and collecting any relative taxes in that county. Any monies or forfeits of land or goods due to convictions of offences against ‘forest law’ would be received or handled by the County Sheriff on behalf of the Crown. All land-lords within the County - and all their ‘woodwards’ - were also responsible to the Sheriff as the Crown representative in that county. The structure of a ‘royal forest’ seems to indicate that the appointed Kings’ Huntsman was considered to be on a par with the Sheriff and The Warden of the Forest (who were often one and the same person but each role had wholly different legal and practical responsibilities) with the Agisters and/or Verderers being responsible to the Sheriff in all legal applications.  The ‘bounds of a royal forest’ became the responsibility of a set number of named knights within the relative county who would ‘ride the bounds’ of the designated area on a regular basis to establish the boundaries so ‘ignorance was no excuse under the law’. Any private ‘chases’ or ‘parks’ adjoining that area would usually be designated by a ‘pale’ (fence) or a ditch, though parts of royal forests were also enclosed by such ‘pales’.

Within the bounds of a royal forest, the main force of applying ‘forest law’ would be the forester or ranger : these men on their appointment would swear an oath to the king to uphold ‘royal forest law’ and then be allotted by The Warden of the Forest, The Chief Agister or Verderer (or their deputies in the case of these roles being sinecures) to patrol and maintain a defined area within the royal forest in question. Foresters would serve as ‘policemen’ in everyday terms, though they would serve with Agisters and Verderers in terms of any accusations or arrests relating to ‘forest law’ as it would be those men and their clerks who would create and maintain the associated ‘paperwork’ to do with charges and summonses to court. Though foresters were sworn to the Crown, they would be responsible to the Warden or the Agister who would issue any necessary orders to do with the day-to-day running of the royal forest and give advanced notice of any intended ‘royal hunt’. The Verderer was responsible and accountable to the Sheriff - but the Foresters were first responsible to the Warden or the Verderer. Foresters were legally able to arrest or kill any offenders against ‘forest law’ : the formal arrest of an offender was for the forester to ‘touch’ the man concerned by placing a hand on his shoulder - but if a man was challenged and did not submit to arrest, the forester could use force to arrest him or if the man chose to run, the forester could legally shoot to kill. In many cases, a summons was issued even after no arrest had been made if the suspect had been seen committing or suspected of committing an offence and able to be identified.  Royal Foresters were legally obliged to ‘make themselves known’ in villages within their designated areas and foresters did wear a ‘royal livery’ for identification purposes in the form of an embroidered badge - a ‘hunting horn’ for foresters and an ‘woodsman’s axe’ for verderers (foresters were supposed to have received woollen cloth to make new clothing twice each year - four cloth-yards of grey wool cloth for winter and the same in green wool cloth for summer - but the extent of this issue of wool cloth and the design of the badges is unknown). Private ‘chases and parks’ close to royal forests involved the private employment of a ‘woodward’ by the land-lord concerned, and evidently these men also had to swear allegiance to uphold ‘royal forest law’ especially where their territories were adjacent to or deemed neighbouring the bounds of a ‘royal forest’ and such ‘woodwards’ could be summoned to attend a ‘forest court’.  Offences on such areas outside the bounds of a royal forest would be dealt with under the ‘common law’.

All ‘royal forest officials’ were answerable only to the Crown in all cases of ‘forest law’ (either to the king in person or his personal representative in the county, the Sheriff) and to be outside any secular or ‘common law’ but ‘associated deaths’ were subject to investigation via an old Anglo-Saxon law which was resurrected in 1194 by Richard I with the re-establishment of the old Anglo-Saxon post of ‘Crowner’ (or Coroner) purely due to what became  known after the Conquest of ‘presentment of Englishry’ in terms of assassination : if a dead body found anywhere could not be termed of ‘English’ descent - and any lack of proof would hence see the deceased being judged of ‘Norman’ descent - a financial fine or amercement in terms of Anglo-Saxon ‘weregild’ would be made on the nearest village or town. The coroner was responsible only to the King and not the County Sheriff which did cause a degree of resentment through overlapping responsibility and a clash of interests.

Some aspects of ‘forest law’ appear to have deliberately been kept vague but most ‘forest law’ offences were widely publicised. The ‘lawing of dogs’ within the bounds of a royal forest by the removal of three claws from each foot of a dog or hound making it difficult for the hound or dog to run an animal down (and in some cases, the removal of the canine teeth of the hound) whose mass would not pass through a set circumferential dimension to define their legal size as terriers or hound-pups were exempt if below a certain size, which seems to have been the dog or hound in question being able to pass through an iron circle six inches in circumference (at one Sherwood Forest court, a stirrup from the saddle of a horse seems to have been used) : the ‘lawing’ had to be done at a forest court by the use of tongs and/or a chisel and mallet and records kept. Similarly, any man riding a horse or seen carrying a bow or arrows, a hunting knife or a sword within the bounds of a royal forest would be stopped and subject to arrest - as was anyone within the bounds of a royal forest deemed to be ‘red-handed’ or ‘bloody-handed’ having bloodstains on his person or clothes or any person within the bounds of the royal forest carrying or transporting any animal (alive or dead) and anyone seen picking up or carrying a stick within the bounds of a royal forest was in breach of ‘forest law’. Such ‘laws’ were ‘open to interpretation’ in the widest sense but obviously being ‘open to interpretation’ gave the opportunity for bribery, blackmail or extortion by a corrupt forester or forest official. For a man even to be summoned to a forest court as a witness for the prosecution or defence would mean the loss of a days’ work and any loss or expenses a man incurred as a result of a summons to court (even as a witness) could not be reclaimed from the court. Failure to attend a ‘forest court’ would be subject to an attachment-amercement fine and if a summons was issued and the man failed to attend the court three times in succession this would see the guilty party named in court as an ‘outlaw’ - with any land, goods or chattels he owned or possessed then forfeit to the Crown.

Who were the main offenders against ‘Norman forest law’ and how were they dealt with … ?   Courts were established by William I to deal with offences against ‘forest law’ with the main court being the Forest Eyre, which sat every three years and presided over by the King himself or his personal representative in that county, the Sheriff : this senior court would deal with all serious offences and the main offenders brought to this court seem to be the higher echelons of society - the church and leading ‘aristocratic’ land-lords who could only be judged by their ‘peers’ and not be summoned, tried and judged by a ‘lower’ court. This court would also deal with ‘serious offences’ by the lower orders - there are cases where common men accused of an offence were imprisoned for quite a long time before this court sat, but these seem to concern men who ‘were not known locally’ or suspected of being ‘outlaws’ (in whose case being ‘outside the law’ if proven to be an outlaw would see them sent to the County Sheriff to be executed by hanging, or in the instance of proven infangetheof  legally executed by the local lord, both without any trial). Several ‘common men’ who were known locally and not imprisoned would be summoned to appear at this court when next it sat having been ‘bound over’ since the accusation was made by the payment of a bail-bond in the form of cash, animals or goods by him, his family or his village (there are cases where the accused was released on bail and then ran, becoming an outlaw by his failure to turn up at the court when summoned to do so and the cash, animals or goods then being forfeit to the Crown). Royal forests were initially divided for administration purposes into quarters within the old Anglo-Saxon ‘bailiwick’ and what were deemed minor offences of ‘forest law’ were based on the old Anglo-Saxon ‘woodmote’ and subject to a minor court held every forty days somewhere within a bailiwick within the bounds of a royal forest : these minor courts were presided over by the local Verderer or his deputy (appointed by the County Sheriff and legally representing the King) and dealt with any alleged or proven individual offence against vert or venery up to the value of one shilling (any offence judged above that value was referred to the next sitting of the Forest Eyre, but any required ‘bail-bond’ for a suspect was set by that particular forest-court).   

As opposed to ‘petty’ or ‘day-to-day’ violations dealt with in a verderer’s court, widespread or wholesale violations against ‘forest law’ in the medieval era dealt with by the far more senior Forest Eyre Court all seem to taken place at time of ‘great civil unrest’ : notably 1089-1100 (William Rufus) 1100-1135 (Henry I) 1135-1155 (the civil war between King Stephen and Empress Maud) 1185-1189 (the period just before the accession of Richard I), 1190-1194 (the absence of Richard I on crusade), 1202-1216 (King John, the French wars, the Baron’s Revolt and Magna and Minor Carta), 1264-1265 (Simon de Montfort’s Rebellion), 1322-3 (Edward II) and 1323-1330 (Edward III). It should be noted by the reader that the period of ‘civil wars’ and strife between 1307-1330 throw up most of the recorded evidence to support the actual existence of ‘Robin Hood’. Though it is traditional that ‘forest law’ has generally hated, there are no means of ascertaining how ‘corrupt’ and oppressively unpopular the forest-courts became, though evidence suggests that the three historical periods 1135-1155 / 1190-1216 / 1307-1330 saw widespread legal and illegal abuses including bribery, blackmail, extortion and embezzlement and the suspension of Sheriffs twice by the ruling monarch.

One outstanding case of abuse in the 12^th Century is a man quite illegally summoned to appear at a forest-court though it was widely known he was at the time absent on crusade in the Holy Land - the man was then made an outlaw for his failure to appear at court and his lands and property seized. The term ‘outlaw’ in the medieval era is given that as a man had turned his back on the law, then the law denied him his basic rights and disowned him. This is a slightly faulty admission on the part of any court as it reveals that the law was unable to catch or punish him. The apparent popular support of many such ‘bold outlaws’ by the ‘common people’ must mean that the ‘common people’ saw the law as being tyrannical. In the medieval era, there are examples of a powerful man having a strong castle and armed men to his back denying the law - and in several cases getting away with it. The term ‘outlaw’ disappeared from legal use as the forces of law and order became much stronger and there were very few places left where a law-breaker could hide in order to escape eventual capture and prosecution.

A survey of Sherwood in 1531 (upon which the first large-scale map of the forest drawn in 1609 was based) recorded that there were 4494 red deer and 1131 fallow deer within the bounds of Sherwood Forest. The numbers of deer plummeted in the 16^th and 17^th Century - a comparison with the numbers of deer in Bestwood Park in 1531 (being 691 fallow deer and 174 red deer) with the number of deer there in 1607 (300 fallow deer and 24 red deer) showed in 1616 that only 28 deer remained in total. At the time, it was remarked that the two royal hunting lodges (at Bestwood and Clipstone) were falling to pieces through lack of maintenance … and no wild boar had been reported in Sherwood for over four hundred years. By 1616, most of the ancient oaks in Sherwood had already been felled for use by the Royal Navy and in comparison to the year 1200 many thousands of acres of woodland, heath and waste had been cleared for agricultural purposes and the rearing of sheep. The collapse of ‘forest law’, the great increase in population and the overall habitat no longer favoured wild deer.

PART TWO

 ‘The Most Dangerous Game …’

 The only ‘weapon’ that seems to have escaped the notice or the attention of royal foresters and carried in a royal forest by a ‘commoner’ without risk of arrest was a ‘staff’ -provided it could not be proved to have been recently cut - as pilgrims and palmers used these staffs for support when walking long-distance to a holy place. Gripped a quarter of the way along at each end - which is what gave rise to the term ‘quarter-staff’ - a heavy wooden staff could make a formidable defensive and offensive weapon in the hands of a man who knew how to use it as one.

The two most dangerous times for anyone to be within the bounds of a royal forest was in October - the ‘Rut’ when red deer were mating - or the period known as  ‘fence-month’  being ‘the fifteen days before and after the Feast day of St John the Baptist’ (being the calendar date of June 24^th  but the actual date was fixed varied by moon-phase) that being the time that wild deer were giving birth to their young as nobody was permitted within the forest at that time and any trespasser or a suspected poacher seen off a main road at these times could be and would be legally shot on sight by patrolling foresters (who may themselves also have been under certain restrictions during this time).

Though pre-14^th Century records of same are very limited in terms of ‘foresters killed in the line of duty’, there was no doubt that the ‘most dangerous game’ to royal foresters was Man. Faced with the severe penalties of being convicted of an offence against ‘forest law’, many offenders would choose to run … and fight to kill if cornered. In the year 1135 at the start of the ‘civil war’ between King Stephen and the ‘Empress Maud’, verderers and their clerks in court were as usual keeping meticulous records concerning offences against ‘forest law’ - but it should not be thought that this iron rule was generally accepted and readers not think that within ‘forest law’, religious constraints and associated restrictions that a ‘commoner’ took no recourse to the ‘forest’. Many ‘forest law’ offences are recorded from ‘aristocrats to commoners’ and it goes without saying that many offences were committed but subsequently went unrecorded. Great resentment was shown against ‘forest ‘law’ - with the obviously associated and relative proverb becoming known as ‘If you must Poach in a Royal Forest - Don’t Get Caught !’  Casual poaching against either ‘common law’ or ‘forest law’ in the medieval era was able to be ‘controlled’ by foresters or rangers but difficult to actually ‘prevent’. From 1135 to 1155, the ‘civil war’ in England  saw great privations all over England and foresters of Sherwood would come under enormous outside pressure and struggled to maintain the integrity of the royal forest in the face of hundreds of trespasses and violations directly due to the civil war in a terrible period of increasing death and hardship through a succession of military actions and bad harvests leading to twenty years of almost complete anarchy described by one clergyman as a time of wholesale suffering by the common folk during a time ‘when Christ and his saints slept’.

The area shown in the associated map was within the bounds of the royal forest of Sherwood - the area contained many natural resources and many species of wild game, five villages and two religious houses in total home to around two hundred and fifty people and though covering twelve square miles was in the year 1200 the sole day-to-day responsibility of four foresters and one verderer - because of the wide area covered by just five men, transgressions of ‘forest law’ would be obvious (as they are today). Archery in Sherwood had reached such a notoriously popular level by 1138 that as King Stephen was fighting in the south, it was left to Archbishop Thurstan of York to call on them by name as ‘Men of Sherwood’ to fetch their bows to help defend England from a Scots invasion - which they duly did at the battle of Northallerton, described as shooting the Scots invaders as full as arrows as ‘hedgehogs were of spines’. This account indicates that the ‘men of Sherwood’ were widely known for their skill in archery so they must have been able to practise their archery somewhere safe from any arrest or accusation under ‘forest law’ : called upon again in 1140 to take sides in the on-going ‘civil war’, these same Sherwood archers appear to have declined to do so.

Pitched battles were fought on occasion in the medieval era within the bounds of royal forests between the forces of ‘law and order’ and organised poachers (and on occasion, sometimes are today with the cross-bow and the hound seeing a resurgence in modern poaching methods, not just for wild deer but also used on domestic sheep and cattle). By far the ‘most dangerous game’ for a royal forester was the ‘chevauchee’ : a planned and organised incursion by a large number of men from outside the bounds of a royal forest  into  the bounds of a royal forest to raid villages and illegally take game. Several examples of these raids are recorded : in the later medieval era, John de Lascelles, The Warden of the Royal Forest of Sherwood escorted by two royal foresters caught and arrested two men ‘under forest law’ who were disarmed and detained, locked-up in a village now known as Blidworth and designated to be turned-over to the Sheriff of Nottingham : during the night, a large body of armed men assaulted the sentinels (during which blows were exchanged), the ‘unknown assailants’ broke into the lock-up and freed the two men and then went on to virtually besiege the house where the Warden was spending the night. Though the men were known and several witnesses were called at the subsequent inquiry, no prosecutions resulted. This was at a time where the ‘forest’ was said to be ‘at peace’ following the arrest of the most notable Sherwood outlaw Roger Godberd by the deputy of the County Sheriff, Reginald de Grey. This particular Sheriff had already fought two pitched-battles involving ‘armed men against outlaws’ within the bounds of Sherwood Forest two years earlier (their alleged leader Roger Godberd was eventually caught by a posse commitatus by the son of the Sheriff and being imprisoned joined the service of the King after which no more is heard of him and it might be noted that there are mentions of ‘bounty-hunters’ setting off into royal forests hunting outlaws but never heard from again.) A particular occurrence of the above posse comitatus is that the broad-headed arrows carried by their associated archers after inspection by royal foresters ‘under the royal warrant’ were found to be set to be at the correct angle - at an angle of 180 degrees from vertical rather than 90 degrees to the cock-feather to better penetrate the ‘horizontal’ rib-cage of a man rather than the ‘vertical’ rib-cage of a deer. In 1313, two suspected poachers were arrested and locked-up near Rufford Abbey : again, they were illegally released at night in a raid by a band of ‘unknown men’ after sentinels were again ‘assaulted’ - and again, no prosecutions resulted from the subsequent inquiry, though it was said at the inquiry that the poachers were both ‘known by name’ though as no witnesses appeared for the prosecution this points to possible corruption within the system.  In all the accounts cited here, the use of informants, spies and counter-spies should be noted, especially during the reign of Edward II and the ‘inter-regnum of Edward III’ during the usurpation of the Crown by Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer between 1325-1330.

Another outstanding chevauchee of the mid-1320’s (including the capture and ransom of several kings’ officers from 1326 to 1332) were those of the notorious Folville brothers of Leicestershire who penetrated Sherwood from Derbyshire and held Blidworth village to ‘ransom’ and poached wide areas of the royal forest but whose gang had retired back to Derbyshire with the spoils before the current Sheriff of Nottingham Sir Robert de Colville could take any action against them - Robert de Colville did eventually catch the gang in 1341 and executed their leader but the gang’s outrages continued under another Folville leader for another three years. Taking advantage of the obvious weakness of Edward II, Sir Gosseline Denville led a band of two hundred mercenaries and ‘outlaws’ on an outrageous chevauchee plundering south Yorkshire and north Sherwood villages and monasteries during the baronial revolt led by the Earl of Lancaster and the upsets of 1322 and only upon being confronted  by the Sheriff of Yorkshire with six hundred armed men succumbed after a stiff fight at Cuckney in Sherwood Forest in which over two hundred men were killed - however Sir Gosseline was not punished as he escaped prosecution by swearing future allegiance to Edward II. There can be little doubt that such chevauchee incursions occurred in earlier eras as the earliest recorded raid into Sherwood Forest is by raiding Vikings circa AD860 - one notable chevauchee which had far-reaching consequences is the 12^th Century account of a sheep-stealing raid aimed at St Mary’s Priory coming into Sherwood via Felley Priory (lying outside the bounds of the royal forest) and entering the royal forest via the Leen Valley and Annesley which saw a complaint made by St Mary’s Priory (which was within Sherwood Forest and later became Newstead Abbey) to the Sheriff of Nottingham as these ‘outlaws’ then became permanently established in the Leen Valley and being far beyond the control of the royal foresters caused the creation of a second ‘Nottingham Castle’ manned by Irish mercenary soldiers in the late 1190’s - but the plan failed as the castle was too isolated and could not be properly supported due to a lack of cash and supplies : after the castle suffered a series of attacks by bands of outlaws, it was eventually abandoned (the foundations of their castle still exist). The reason given for the failure of any support from local land-lords was that a large area of land had been ‘aforested’ by the Crown to accommodate the building of the castle and because of this the sympathy of the local land-lords and the ‘commoners’ was wholly with the outlaws.

The establishment of a ‘royal foresters’ headquarters at the old Danelaw village of Papplewick within the Royal Forest of Sherwood would have been at the centre of ‘anti-forest law’ measures.  Another Foresters ‘headquarters’ may have been established at Wellow or Laxton to the north of Papplewick with a subsidiary head-quarters for foresters at Edwinstowe or Maunsfield.  From 1086 these headquarters seem to have managed the day-to-day administration of Royal Sherwood - the  excessive ‘corruption’ of County Sheriffs of ‘forest law’ did lead to their wholesale suspension during the reigns of Henry II and  Richard I - but after 1140 seem to have come under ever-increasing pressure, a pressure which caused a wholesale collapse in 1265 to be only partly re-asserted by the Crown until 1350 after which a slow decline seems to have occurred until 1500 when ‘forest law’ seems to have been considered a ‘non-entity’ and the forest courts lose a lot of their powers and begin to dissolve. Indeed, if recorded site-accounts here have any value, ‘forest law’ was by 1450 bordering on the ‘personal interpretation’ of a Sheriff rather than any ‘forest law’ supported by a court.  Magna Carta in 1215 was an attempt to limit the absolute power of a monarch and for the first time establish a basic ‘bill of rights’ - and it was also accompanied by a Minor Carta being ‘The Charter of the Forests’, setting down grievances concerning ‘abuses’ of royal forests by the monarchs Henry I, Richard I and King John. Though Magna Carta was signed and agreed by King John and his leading barons, the Pope refused to verify it and it was not until 1230 during the reign of Henry III that both Magna Carta and ‘The Charter of the Forests’ were once again proposed by the leading barons to avoid another descent into anarchy and became law. Though neither charters did much to improve the lot of a ‘commoner’ it did see some parts of ‘forest law’ being ‘relaxed’. An attempted re-assertion of ‘royal forest law’ by Charles I in 1640 to raise revenue failed to have any effect.

‘Robin Hood’ is depicted as fighting foresters, robbers, wild game and the occasional layman or labourer in various encounters. Breaches of ‘forest law’ always had their admirers and sympathisers, even though the subject of this admiration or sympathy might end up on the gallows : whatever folk-gibberish was later spoken of ‘Robin Hood’ in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, the original ballads and tales are probably based on true accounts of individual exploits in the face of ‘forest law’ and who got away with the offence.  Whether or not these ‘ballads’ are drawn from actual historical encounters is debateable but you can read both historical and fictional accounts between 1066 to 1350 against the background of ‘forest law’ that they could have been real events.  Foresters from 1080 were by necessity armed with bow, dagger (and possibly a sword at times) to enforce ‘forest law’ and no doubt forest-courts did become a little corrupt to varying degrees at time to time between the years 1135 and 1490 (during The Wars of the Roses small armies of soldiers on both sides were using the royal forests to both hide and subsist with legal authority proving quite unable to deal with them ) but the early Norman and Angevin monarchs weren’t stupid and the accent on ‘royal forest law’ was always limitation rather than prevention : everybody knew offences had and would continue to happen - including collusion by royal foresters who might at times of shortage due to a bad harvest or similar turn ‘a blind eye’ to the casual poaching or taking of ‘beasts of the warren’. The Charter of the Forests in 1215 was not by any means intended by the barons who dictated it to be greatly beneficial to the ‘common folk’ - but upon its adoption in 1230 it did open the door to largesse by these ‘aristocrats’ which was not by any means universal : and a largesse due to the suffering of the ‘common folk’ in Sherwood was possibly already operational before 1215 at the hands of royal foresters through the influence of ‘Robin Hood’ or otherwise. It should be noted that during the reign of Edward III and the arrival of ‘The Black Death’, though the population of England dropped by 45% as a result of this terrible plague a great deal of improvement and maintenance work was done in Sherwood Forest over the same period and the bounds regularly advertised and enforced.

The medieval forest traditionally offered shelter and sanctuary to anyone ‘on the run’ from the law or his lord. Hundreds of common people sought refuge in Sherwood during the time of the Anglo-Saxon revolts of 1075-1076 when Norman vengeance laid waste to a wide area from Nottingham to York : most of these refugees eventually died as the forest could not support the sudden arrival of such a large number of people seeking food. But - some people did survive and stay, making use of natural caves for shelter before settling and erecting their own cottages on the fringes of the royal forest. Several civil wars and major upsets in the medieval era saw ‘recalcitrants’ and ‘contrariants’ seek shelter in Sherwood Forest between the years 1075 and 1500 and in especially large numbers including ex-soldiers or deserters between 1135-1155, in 1215-6, in 1265 and again in 1322-3. Many of these men were desperate and turned to robbery to both subsist and pay the necessary fine to re-enter medieval society … 1323 sees a mention that because of this a large armed escort was required to pass through Sherwood Forest safely and avoid robbers and the escort was again required further north in passing along a certain stretch of The Great North Road at Barnsdale as many of the defeated rebels from the battle of Borobridge in 1322 had fled south and were sheltering in the forest, taking wild game and robbing travellers. At such times, as previously seen the royal forest officials of Sherwood would have probably sought military help from the Constable of Nottingham Castle to assist and support the royal foresters to catch, evict or eliminate such a large number of well-armed and desperate outlaws. One old ‘Robin Hood’ ballad has a royal forester acting as a guide to a military force passing through Sherwood Forest : any such illegal incursions or settlements in a royal forest caused a lot of long-term damage to trees and wild game which took many years to repair or restore. Several medieval monarchs during these uncertain times decreed that the trees and undergrowth on both sides of a main road should be cut back to the distance of a ‘bow-shot’ (taken to be 100 yards) to prevent robbery by ambush : though this was done in many places and though there was a main road - between Blyth and Nottingham - passing through Sherwood forest along which lay several large religious establishments there is no record of this removal of roadside growth being carried out in the royal forest of Sherwood.

A traditional Sherwood Forest folk-tale concerns King Henry II, a monarch notorious for both the strict enforcement of ‘forest law’ and wearing ‘common clothes’ : in 1175 out hunting in Sherwood, Henry II separated during the chase and became lost. When the king dismounted to get his bearings, his horse was spotted by a woodsman and without realising who the scruffy, thin and commonly-dressed rider was, the woodsman asked him if he was lost and gave him directions back to Nottingham. As it was a long ride to Nottingham, the woodsman then asked if he was hungry and generously produced a venison pasty from his scrip and broke it in two. He offered the king one half to eat and as he bit into his half the woodsman laughingly warned “Don’t let the King find out you’ve eaten one of his deer or we’ll both be in serious trouble!”