[149]. Illiberalis; perhaps a freedman, or a free man not a landowner. The distinctions here are liber, illiberalis, servus.
[150]. This must denote gentry, something more than mere freedom.
[151]. The mediocris is defined as twýhynde, the liberalis as twelfhynde. § 33, 34.
[152]. This regulation was very likely forced upon him by his Witan, inasmuch as it is also recorded in his laws, § 81. “Every one shall be entitled to his hunting both in wood and field, upon his own property. And let every one forego my hunting: take notice where I will have it untrespassed upon, on penalty of the full wíte.”
[153]. See Vol. I. p. 312.
[154]. Cod. Dipl. No. 1086. Bishop Denewulf gave Ælfred forty hides at Alresford, loaded with various conditions: among them, that his men should be ready “ge tó ripe ge tó hunt[n]oðe,” that is at the bishop’s harvest and hunting.
[155]. Cod. Dipl. No. 1287. Oswald bishop of Worcester, stating the terms on which he let the lands of his see, includes among them the services of his tenants at his hunting: “Sed et venationis sepem domini episcopi [clearly a park] ultronei ad aedificandum repperiantur, suaque, quandocumque domino episcopo libuerit, venabula destinent venatum.”
[156]. The importance of pannage or masting was such as to cause the introduction of a clause guarding it, in the Charta de Foresta,—a document considered by our forefathers as hardly less important than Magna Charta itself: see § 9. Domesday usually notes the amount of pannage in an estate, and Fleta (Bk. ii. cap. 80) thinks it necessary to devote a chapter to the subject.
[157]. The Oldsaxons in Westphalia called a distinguished class of persons Erfexe, or Hereditary axes, from their right to hew wood in the Mark. Möser (Osnab. i. 19) gives an erroneous derivation for this name, but Grimm corrects him: Deut. Rechtsalt. 504.
[158]. “Dunhelmum veniens, locum quidem natura munitum, sed non facile habitabilem invenit, quoniam densissima eum silva totum occupabat,” etc. Transl. Sci. Cuðb. Bed. Hist. vol. ii. p. 302. The earliest grants of land on which these establishments were placed, usually state the land to be silva or silvatica.