[902]. See W. Coventry, II. 207, and Stubbs’ Preface, lxxxvii. By a writ of 18 May, 1204 (New Rymer, I. 89), he disafforested all Devonshire except Dartmouth and Exmoor.
[903]. R. Wendover, III. 227. This, however, is clearly a biased account of the king’s resumption of forest tracts illegally put under cultivation by way of purpresture.
[904]. See Select Pleas of the Forest, xiv. The permanent routine work performed by this functionary must not be confused with the intermittent duties of the Justices of Forest Eyres: although he was almost invariably a member of the commission who went on circuit: e.g. chapter 16 of the Forest Charter speaks of the Chief Forester holding pleas of the forest.
[905]. Select Pleas, xv.
[906]. Mr. Turner, in Select Pleas, xvii.
[907]. Engelard de Cygony, for example, whose name appears in chapter 50, occupied this double position. Chapter 16 of Carta de Foresta forbids castellans to determine pleas of the forests, thus strengthening the presumption that wardens were usually constables.
[908]. Select Pleas, xix.
[909]. Ibid., xxi.
[910]. The same chapter, however, fixed the rates of “chiminage.”
[911]. For the earliest notice of verderers see Select Pleas of the Forest, xix., n. Their appointment in the county court may indicate that they acted in some measure as a check on the professional foresters in the interests of the people generally, as well as a check on the warden in the interests of the king. Within the forest the warden, with the verderers and foresters, offered an exact parallel to the sheriff with the coroners and bailiffs (or serjeants) in other parts of a county.