Our English Towns and Villages

by H. R. Wilton Hall

5. In all parts of England to-day we have parks, belonging to big mansions; and our big towns and cities have their parks too, which are usually recreation-grounds for the people. A park in Norman and in Early English times was very different in appearance from our parks, whether in town or country. Just as the king had his great forests for hunting wild beasts, so in the later Norman times the great lords were anxious to enclose pieces of waste and forest land for the same purpose.

6. As we have seen, there were in early times vast tracts of wild, uncultivated, unenclosed land, partly wooded and partly heath lands, between the manors, which belonged to the king. The king alone could give leave to make a park. In the reign of King Henry III especially we find many such parks were "empaled". Of course the nobles had to give something to the king for this privilege.

7. Many of the old parks in England, now celebrated for their fine timber and beautiful scenery, date back to this period; but they were at first much wilder, and the trees then were neither so many nor so fine as they are now. The deer in them to-day just serve to remind us of the "wild beasts" with which they were stocked.

8. The laws for preserving the wild beasts and the game in these parks and forests and chases were very strict, harsh, and severe. Many of these new parks took away from the villeins, who lived in the neighbourhood, certain rights and privileges which their forefathers had had "time out of mind".

9. Though the land could not be bought and sold outright, manors became divided and subdivided, let and underlet, for various terms of years, and in many curious ways, so that in time the profits, or the income, of a manor, instead of going straight to the lord of the manor, might be going to half a dozen different persons and places. For instance, the half of a manor might be divided amongst several people for, say, twenty years, or for the lives of three or four people; but at the end of the twenty years, or on the death of the last of those persons, it must go back to the lord of the manor, who could keep it in his hands, or let it out in other ways to quite a different set of people.

10. It is not very difficult to understand that the management of an estate of many manors, broken up into many small portions, became very complicated. Records of all these various transactions had to be made in writing and carefully kept, and copied and re-copied time after time. People who understood all the "ins and outs" of the laws relating to the possession of land became very important and very busy.

11. There are immense numbers of documents, some of them dating back to Norman and even earlier times, still in existence. The Record Office, in London, has many thousands of documents connected with the king's business; the monasteries each had their own records, but most of them disappeared in the sixteenth century; every old estate has such documents; and many of the old manors have still records going back many centuries. Of course thousands more of these old documents have been lost, some destroyed purposely, and others through carelessness and ignorance. Some have been burnt in times of danger, when their owner, knowing that there were documents amongst them which might get him into trouble, and cost him his head, set fire to bundles of papers and parchments. Others have been stored away in dark, damp cellars, and forgotten for years and years; and rats and mice have nibbled them away, or mildew and damp have caused them to rot.

12. Those that we have left can still be read, and it is surprising to find in many cases how well they have been preserved all through the centuries. The letters are very often beautifully formed, and the whole still clear and distinct. They were written in Norman French and Latin, the latter being the language in which law business was carried on for many centuries.

Summary.—New grants of land were constantly being made by the king out of his own land. Manors were divided and new manors made down to the time of King Edward I. Then a single manor would often be let out in different portions to various tenants for a term of years, but they always came back to the lord of the manor. He could not sell his land outright.

Parks for hunting were portions of "forest" taken in by leave of the king. They began to be common in the time of King Henry III. The trees were not as fine as they are now. Only the deer in them remain to remind us of the "wild beasts".

The manors being let out in so many portions, there was much writing to be done relating to them. Many of these documents are still in existence, and can be read. The Record Office in London is the place where most of the old records belonging to the king are kept. All towns have their records, and a large number of manors have them also. The documents of that period were always written in Latin or Norman French.