If we could see again our present Park lands with the eyes which saw them eight or nine centuries ago, we should doubtless find them sheltering game in abundance. Owls screeched among the gnarled trunks of the old trees which grew in the undisturbed forest, foxes and squirrels played at hide-and-seek, deer abounded, wild boars and wolves were plentiful, flocks of wild fowl stayed their flight at the marshes; in fact, all the wild animals known in Britain at that time were to be found in those forest lands, protected by the strictest game laws.
After his coronation in London, William the Conqueror gave a wide extent of land, including the Manor of Eia, to Geoffrey de Mandeville, a Norman knight who had distinguished himself in the battle of Hastings. When Geoffrey and his wife found age creeping upon them, they wished to secure the right of being buried in Westminster Abbey, and as a bribe the old knight handed over the Manor of Eia to the monks of Westminster. Thus, what is now Hyde Park, throughout its wide extent, became Church land.
In the Domesday Book the area of modern Hyde Park is thus described:
“Osvlvestane Hundred.
“Geoffrey de Mandeville holds Eia. It was assessed for ten hides. The land is eight carucates. In the demesne there are five hides and there are two ploughs there. The villanes have five ploughs, and a sixth can be made. One villane (has) half a hide there, and there are four villanes each with one virgate, and fourteen others each with half a virgate, and four bordars with one virgate, and one cottager. Meadow for eight ploughs; and sixty shillings for hay. For the pasture, seven shillings. With all its profits it is worth eight pounds; when received, six pounds: in the time of King Edward, twelve pounds. Harold the son of Earl Ralph held this manor; whom Queen Editha had charge of with the manor on the very day in which King Edward was alive and dead. Afterwards William the Chamberlain held it of the Queen in fee to farm for three pounds yearly, and after the death of the Queen he held it of the King in the same manner. There are now four years since William lost the Manor, and the King’s farm has not been rendered therefrom, that is twelve pounds.”
Some explanation of the terms used is desirable.
“Villeins” were the serfs, and were divided into classes, namely, those who were sold with the land on which they dwelt and worked, and those who were the absolute property of their master, and could be bought and sold at his will. The former class, known as villeins regardant, often rented small holdings from their master, and paid rent by produce, amongst these being the “bordars.”
A “hide” of land was of different sizes in different localities, but probably contained about 100 acres, and apparently four virgates formed a hide. The carucate was rather larger than a hide. The assessment referred to was Danegelt, a tax of twelve pence on every hide of land, first imposed by Ethelred the Unready as a means of raising money to keep the Danes out of England.
“Meadows for eight ploughs” meant feeding capacity for teams of eight ploughs. The woods were estimated in like manner. “Pannage and woods for swine” was the mode of expressing the extent of the coppices and forest land, where the Saxon pigs were given their due, and allowed to roam in cleanliness and comfort, routing up the roots and munching the berries. They were a very different kind of animal from the poor degraded beast that wallows in the mire nowadays, which we call a pig.
There is a record extant of our Tudor Queen Mary, after a day’s hunting in one of the forests in the neighbourhood of London, sending a command to a farmer who held land there, that he must not allow his swine to roam in the woods and grub holes, in which the horses stumbled, thus endangering the life of the Royal lady; and, in terms brooking no delay, she demanded that the holes already made should be filled up.