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59-413: Wode is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: Peter Atte Wode (fl. c. 1325–1382), English judge Thomas Wode (died 1502), British judge Thomas Wode (MP) (by 1469–1532), English politician See also [ edit ] WODE (disambiguation) Woad (disambiguation) [REDACTED] Surname list This page lists people with

118-644: A "deer forest" generally has no trees at all. Marshlands in Lincolnshire were afforested. Upland moors too were chosen, such as Dartmoor and Exmoor in the South West, and the Peak Forest of Derbyshire . The North Yorkshire moors , a sandstone plateau, had a number of royal forests. William the Conqueror , a great lover of hunting, established the system of forest law. This operated outside

177-627: A considerable amount of wealth during this time. E. F. Atwood speculates that this family's treasure was gained as a result of the English success during the war. Froissart makes this observation in his Chronicles : After the battle of Caen "...the Englishmen were lords of the town three days and won great riches, the which they sent by barks and barges to Saint-Saviour by the river of Austrehem, two leagues thence, whereas all their navy lay". In 1346 Peter Atte Wode and his wife Laurencia recorded

236-476: A court of justice-seat (Forest Eyre) seems to have been in about 1635, in an attempt to raise money. By the Tudor period and after, forest law had largely become anachronistic, and served primarily to protect timber in the royal forests. James I and his ministers Robert Cecil and Lionel Cranfield pursued a policy of increasing revenues from the forests and starting the process of disafforestation. Cecil made

295-433: A deputy. He supervised the foresters and under-foresters, who personally went about preserving the forest and game and apprehending offenders against the law. The agisters supervised pannage and agistment and collected any fees thereto appertaining. The nomenclature of the officers can be somewhat confusing: the rank immediately below the constable was referred to as foresters-in-fee, or, later, woodwards , who held land in

354-622: A number of West Country forests, including Gillingham, Braydon and Dean, known as the Western Rising. Riots also took place in Feckenham, Leicester and Malvern. The riots followed the physical enclosure of lands previously used as commons, and frequently led to the destruction of fencing and hedges. Some were said to have had a "warlike" character, with armed mobs numbering hundreds, for instance in Feckenham. The rioters in Dean fully destroyed

413-527: A range of offences within the forests; by the mid-17th century, enforcement of this law had died out, but many of England's woodlands still bore the title "Royal Forest". During the Middle Ages , the practice of reserving areas of land for the sole use of the aristocracy was common throughout Europe. Royal forests usually included large areas of heath , grassland and wetland  – anywhere that supported deer and other game . In addition, when an area

472-619: A reference in the Rotulorum to Peter acquiring a commission to rebuild a portion of Windsor Castle during this period (there is no indication which Rotulorum records were used by Atwood during his research). The Atte Wodes had been in the employ of King Edward III since at least 1341. By 1346 three members of the Atte Wode family were serving in his royal bodyguard as Sergeants-at-Arms, including his father Geoffrey Atte Wode, his grand father Sir William Atte Wode (who had been knighted by

531-514: A separate concept. Trespasses against the vert were extensive: they included purpresture , assarting , clearing forest land for agriculture, and felling trees or clearing shrubs, among others. These laws applied to any land within the boundary of the forest, even if it were freely owned; although the Charter of the Forest in 1217 established that all freemen owning land within the forest enjoyed

590-607: Is a remnant of an older, much larger, royal hunting forest, which derived its name from its status as the shire (or sher) wood of Nottinghamshire, which extended into several neighbouring counties (shires), bordered on the west along the River Erewash and the Forest of East Derbyshire . When the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, the forest covered perhaps a quarter of Nottinghamshire in woodland and heath subject to

649-526: Is different from Wikidata All set index articles Peter Atte Wode Atte Wode was probably born in Coulsdon in Surrey (now Greater London ) according to Manning and Bray's History of Surrey . The precise date of his birth is not known, but it is presumed to have been sometime before 1325. His father was Geoffrey Atte Wode (Abt 1297–1346), a Serjeant-at-Arms to Edward III and his mother

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708-586: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is little more than propaganda. William Rufus , also a keen hunter, increased the severity of the penalties for various offences to include death and mutilation. The laws were in part codified under the Assize of the Forest (1184) of Henry II . Magna Carta , the charter forced upon King John of England by the English barons in 1215, contained five clauses relating to royal forests. They aimed to limit, and even reduce,

767-500: The Black Death decimated the population in 1348–49. On 15 September 1351 de Roulegh and Peter Atte Wode were removed from their positions on the commission as a result of complaints of impropriety by fellow commissioners. They were both tried and Peter Atte Wode was found to be innocent of the charges. De Rouglegh, however, was found guilty of extorting money from labourers, sent to prison and fined heavily Ruth Sewill maintains that

826-578: The Carolingian and Merovingian legal systems. In Anglo-Saxon England , though the kings were great huntsmen, they never set aside areas declared to be "outside" (Latin foris ) the law of the land. Historians find no evidence of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs (c. 500 to 1066) creating forests. However, under the Norman kings (after 1066), by royal prerogative forest law was widely applied. The law

885-640: The New Forest in 1877. Since the conquest of England, the forest, chase and warren lands had been exempted from the common law and subject only to the authority of the king, but these customs had faded into obscurity by the time of The Restoration . William I , original enactor of the Forest Law in England, did not harshly penalise offenders. The accusation that he "laid a law upon it, that whoever slew hart or hind should be blinded ," according to

944-901: The New Forest , three others in Hampshire , Windsor Forest in Berkshire , the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, Waltham or Epping Forest in Essex, three forests in Northamptonshire , and Wychwood in Oxfordshire. Some of these no longer had swainmote courts thus no official supervision. They divided the remaining forests into two classes, those with and without the Crown as major landowner. In certain Hampshire forests and

1003-788: The South West of England, forests extended across the Upper Jurassic Clay Vale. In the Midlands , the clay plain surrounding the River Severn was heavily wooded. Clay soils in Oxfordshire , Buckinghamshire, Huntingdonshire and Northamptonshire formed another belt of woodlands. In Hampshire , Berkshire and Surrey , woodlands were established on sandy, gravelly, acid soils. In the Scots Highlands,

1062-518: The common law , and served to protect game animals and their forest habitat from destruction. In the year of his death, 1087, a poem, " The Rime of King William ", inserted in the Peterborough Chronicle , expresses English indignation at the forest laws. Offences in forest law were divided into two categories: trespass against the vert (the vegetation of the forest) and trespass against the venison (the game). The five animals of

1121-407: The hare , coney , pheasant , and partridge . In addition, inhabitants of the forest were forbidden to bear hunting weapons, and dogs were banned from the forest; mastiffs were permitted as watchdogs, but they had to have their front claws removed to prevent them from hunting game. The rights of chase and of warren (i.e. to hunt such beasts) were often granted to local nobility for a fee, but were

1180-405: The surname Wode . If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name (s) to the link. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wode&oldid=1107028387 " Category : Surnames Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description

1239-412: The 11th century, and at the height of this practice in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, fully one-third of the land area of Southern England was designated as royal forest. At one stage in the 12th century, all of Essex was afforested. On accession Henry II declared all of Huntingdonshire to be a royal forest. Afforestation , in particular the creation of the New Forest , figured large in

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1298-615: The 1630s. Each disafforestation would start with a commission from the Exchequer, which would survey the forest, determine the lands belonging to the crown, and negotiate compensation for landowners and tenants whose now-traditional rights to use of the land as commons would be revoked. A legal action by the Attorney General would then proceed in the Court of Exchequer against the forest residents for intrusion, which would confirm

1357-569: The Court of Verderers. A further Act was passed in 1964. This forest is also managed by Forestry England . A forest since the end of the Ice Age (as attested by pollen sampling cores ), Sherwood Forest National Nature Reserve today encompasses 423.2 hectares, (1,045 acres) surrounding the village of Edwinstowe , the site of Thoresby Hall . The core of the forest is the Special Area of Conservation named Birklands and Bilhaugh . It

1416-576: The Delimitation of Forests Act 1640 ( 16 Cha. 1 . c. 16, also known as Selden 's Act) to revert the forest boundaries to the positions they had held at the end of the reign of James I. The Forest of Dean was legally re-established in 1668 by the Dean Forest Act 1667 . A Forest Eyre was held for the New Forest in 1670, and a few for other forests in the 1660s and 1670s, but these were the last. From 1715, both surveyors' posts were held by

1475-621: The Forest lands described in Domesday Book as within the forest. Successive kings tried to recover the "purlieus" excluded from a forest by the Great Perambulation of 1300. Forest officers periodically fined the inhabitants of the purlieus for failing to attend Forest Court or for forest offences. This led to complaints in Parliament. The king promised to remedy the grievances, but usually did nothing. Several forests were alienated by Richard II and his successors, but generally

1534-573: The Forest of Dean, most of the soil belonged to the Crown and these should be reserved to grow timber, to meet the need for oak for shipbuilding . The others would be inclosed, the Crown receiving an "allotment" (compensation) in lieu of its rights. In 1810, responsibility for woods was moved from Surveyors-General (who accounted to the Auditors of Land Revenue) to a new Commission of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues . From 1832 to 1851 "Works and Buildings" were added to their responsibilities. In 1851,

1593-513: The King's sole rights as enshrined in forest law. The clauses were as follows (taken from translation of the great charter that is the Magna Carta ): After the death of John, Henry III was compelled to grant the Charter of the Forest (1217), which further reformed the forest law and established the rights of agistment and pannage on private land within the forests. It also checked certain of

1652-518: The Peter Atte Wode described in this court document was from Charlwood , Surrey; however, she does not provide documentation for her claim. No other Atte Wode's from this part of Surrey rose to prominence, so it seems unlikely that her assertion is correct. Atte Wode became associated with William of Wykeham (1320–1404). His association with Wykeham undoubtedly enhanced his stature and helped increase his wealth. Jean Froissart (1337–1405),

1711-772: The Shire . Royal forest A royal forest , occasionally known as a kingswood ( Latin : silva regis ), is an area of land with different definitions in England , Wales , Scotland and Ireland . The term forest in the ordinary modern understanding refers to an area of wooded land; however, the original medieval sense was closer to the modern idea of a "preserve" – i.e. land legally set aside for specific purposes such as royal hunting – with less emphasis on its composition. There are also differing and contextual interpretations in Continental Europe derived from

1770-563: The activities of the Freeminers . The sale of cordwood for charcoal continued until at least the late 18th century. Deer were removed in 1850. The forest is today heavily wooded, as is a substantial formerly privately owned area to the west, now treated as part of the forest. It is managed by Forestry England . Epping and Hainault Forest are surviving remnants of the Royal Forest of Waltham. The extent of Epping and Hainault Forests

1829-558: The commissioners again became a Commissioner of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues . In 1924, the Royal Forests were transferred to the new Forestry Commission (now Forestry England ). The Forest of Dean was used as a source of charcoal for ironmaking within the Forest from 1612 until about 1670. It was the subject of a Reafforestation Act in 1667. Courts continued to be held at the Speech House , for example, to regulate

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1888-480: The emerging new class of wealthy land owners in England who were not members of the aristocracy but grew wealthy through their association with the royal family. His ancestors would continue to acquire land, particularly in Surrey, construct the large manor house known as Sanderstead Court which is depicted in Neal's Views , continue serve the royal family in a variety of positions, and also become elected as Knights of

1947-430: The enclosures surrounding 3,000 acres in groups that numbered thousands of participants. The disturbances tended to involve artisans and cottagers who were not entitled to compensation. The riots were hard to enforce against, due to the lack of efficient militia, and the low-born nature of the participants. Ultimately, however, enclosure succeeded, with the exceptions of Dean and Malvern Chase. In 1641, Parliament passed

2006-416: The extortions of the foresters. An "Ordinance of the Forest" under Edward I again checked the oppression of the officers and introduced sworn juries in the forest courts. In 1300 many (if not all) forests were perambulated and reduced greatly in their extent, in theory to their extent in the time of Henry II . However, this depended on the determination of local juries, whose decisions often excluded from

2065-551: The famed chronicler of medieval England and France, says in his Chronicles (1395): At this time reigned a priest called William of Wykeham . This William of Wykeham was so much in favour with the King of England, that everything was done by him, and nothing was done without him. Atte Wode was jointly appointed a Justice in Eyre south of the Trent along with Wykeham on 13 July 1361, a position he held until about 1367. The Eyre Court

2124-632: The first of many land transactions in Sanderstead in Surrey (now Greater London) and surrounding counties. This would begin a long association with the Atwood family in Sanderstead. While he owned land in several locations (including Woodmansterne acquired in 1360 and Chipstead Manor acquired in 1364), it seems likely that Peter lived at Wood Place in Coulsdon, the ancestral home; in 1350, he

2183-693: The first steps towards abolition of the forests, as part of James I's policy of increasing his income independently of Parliament. Cecil investigated forests that were unused for royal hunting and provided little revenue from timber sales. Knaresborough Forest in Yorkshire was abolished. Revenues in the Forest of Dean were increased through sales of wood for iron smelting. Enclosures were made in Chippenham and Blackmore for herbage and pannage. Cranfield commissioned surveys into assart lands of various forests, including Feckenham, Sedgemoor and Selwood, laying

2242-465: The folk history of the " Norman yoke ", which magnified what was already a grave social ill: "the picture of prosperous settlements disrupted, houses burned, peasants evicted, all to serve the pleasure of the foreign tyrant, is a familiar element in the English national story .... The extent and intensity of hardship and of depopulation have been exaggerated", H. R. Loyn observed. Forest law prescribed harsh punishment for anyone who committed any of

2301-407: The forest and apprehending offenders. The forests also had surveyors , who determined the boundaries of the forest, and regarders . These last reported to the court of justice-seat and investigated encroachments on the forest and invasion of royal rights, such as assarting. While their visits were infrequent, due to the interval of time between courts, they provided a check against collusion between

2360-428: The forest in exchange for rent, and advised the warden. They exercised various privileges within their bailiwicks . Their subordinates were the under-foresters, later referred to as rangers . The rangers are sometimes said to be patrollers of the purlieu. Another group, called serjeants -in-fee, and later, foresters-in-fee (not to be confused with the above), held small estates in return for their service in patrolling

2419-415: The forest into them were permitted to be killed if causing damage. Payment for access to certain rights could provide a useful source of income. Local nobles could be granted a royal licence to take a certain amount of game. The common inhabitants of the forest might, depending on their location, possess a variety of rights: estover , the right of taking firewood; pannage , the right to pasture swine in

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2478-426: The forest protected by law were given by Manwood as the hart and hind (i.e. male and female red deer), boar , hare and wolf . (In England, the boar became extinct in the wild by the 13th century, and the wolf by the late 15th century.) Protection was also said to be extended to the beasts of chase , namely the buck and doe ( fallow deer ), fox, marten , and roe deer , and the beasts and fowls of warren :

2537-457: The forest; turbary , the right to cut turf (as fuel); and various other rights of pasturage ( agistment ) and harvesting the products of the forest. Land might be disafforested entirely, or permission given for assart and purpresture . The justices of the forest were the justices in eyre and the verderers . The chief royal official was the warden. As he was often an eminent and preoccupied magnate, his powers were frequently exercised by

2596-408: The foresters and local offenders. Blackstone gives the following outline of the forest courts , as theoretically constructed: In practice, these fine distinctions were not always observed. In the Forest of Dean , swainmote and the court of attachment seem to have been one and the same throughout most of its history. As the courts of justice-seat were held less frequently, the lower courts assumed

2655-534: The foundations of the wide-scale abolition of forests under Charles I . The commissioners appointed raised over £25,000 by compounding with occupiers, whose ownership was confirmed, subject to a fixed rent. Cranfield's work led directly to the disafforestation of Gillingham Forest in Dorset and Chippenham and Blackmore in Wiltshire. Additionally, he created the model for the abolition of the forests followed throughout

2714-666: The king), and his uncle Richard Atte Wode. Jesse's Memorials of London describes his grandfather's service to Edward III as Captain of the Guard The London Letter Books describe Richard's role in moving the invasion fleet down the Thames in 1345 during the Hundred Years' War with France. Based on Peter's land transactions after the successful campaign in 1346, the Atte Wodes seem to have acquired

2773-474: The power to fine offenders against the forest laws, according to a fixed schedule. The courts of justice-seat crept into disuse, and in 1817, the office of justice in eyre was abolished and its powers transferred to the First Commissioner of Woods and Forests . Courts of swainmote and attachment went out of existence at various dates in the different forests. A Court of Swainmote was re-established in

2832-646: The preceding 20 years. In 1875 and 1876, the corporation bought 3,000 acres (12 km ) of open wasteland. Under the Epping Forest Act 1878 , the forest was disafforested and forest law was abolished in respect of it. Instead, the corporation was appointed as Conservators of the Forest. The forest is managed through the Epping Forest Committee. The New Forest is home to the British cultural minority known as New Forest Commoners . An Act

2891-422: The rights of agistment and pannage . Under the forest laws, bloody hand was a kind of trespass by which the offender, being apprehended and found with his hands or other body part stained with blood, is judged to have killed the deer, even though he was not found hunting or chasing. Disafforested lands on the edge of the forest were known as purlieus ; agriculture was permitted here and deer escaping from

2950-416: The same person. The remaining royal forests continued to be managed (in theory, at least) on behalf of the Crown. However, the commoners' rights of grazing often seem to have been more important than the rights of the Crown. In the late 1780s, a royal commission was appointed to inquire into the condition of crown woods and those surviving. North of the Trent it found Sherwood Forest survived, south of it:

3009-418: The settlement negotiated by the commission. Crown lands would then be granted (leased), usually to prominent courtiers, and often the same figures that had undertaken the commission surveys. Legal complaints about the imposed settlements and compensation were frequent. The disafforestations caused riots and Skimmington processions resulting in the destruction of enclosures and reoccupation of grazing lands in

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3068-566: The system decayed. Henry VII revived "Swainmotes" (forest courts) for several forests and held Forest Eyres in some of them. Henry VIII in 1547 placed the forests under the Court of Augmentations with two Masters and two Surveyors-General. On the abolition of that court, the two surveyors-general became responsible to the Exchequer. Their respective divisions were north and south of the River Trent . The last serious exercise of forest law by

3127-517: Was Anisia. Peter and his wife, Laurencia, had at least one son who was also named Peter Atte Wode (Bef 1363-aft 1384) who was a Knight of the Shire and married Petronilla. On 15 March 1351 Peter Atte Wode and John De Roulegh along with seven others were appointed as "keepers" to the "joint commission for the peace and for labourers" in Surrey. This commission was formed in several counties in England to provide an enforcement for new laws that had been enacted to regulate labour and provide for peace after

3186-571: Was created to hear cases involving forest law in the Royal Forests of England. Wykeham eventually became the Bishop of Winchester , and was also the Lord Chancellor under both Edward III and Richard II . William of Wykeham was appointed the King's Commissioner in charge of rebuilding Windsor Castle and Clerk of all the King's Works in his Manors of Henley-on-Thames ( Oxfordshire ) and Easthampstead ( Berkshire ). E. F. Atwood has found

3245-454: Was designed to protect the " venison and the vert". In this sense, venison meant "noble" animals of the chase – notably red and fallow deer , the roe deer , and wild boar – and vert meant the greenery that sustained them. Forests were designed as hunting areas reserved for the monarch or (by invitation) the aristocracy . The concept was introduced by the Normans to England in

3304-451: Was greatly reduced by inclosure by landowners. The Hainault Forest Act 1851 was passed by Parliament, ending the Royal protection for Hainault Forest. Within six weeks 3000 acres of woodland was cleared. The Corporation of London wished to see Epping Forest preserved as an open space and obtained an injunction in 1874 to throw open some 3,000 acres (12 km ) that had been inclosed in

3363-523: Was initially designated forest, any villages, towns and fields that lay within it were also subject to forest law. This could foster resentment as the local inhabitants were then restricted in the use of land they had previously relied upon for their livelihoods; however, common rights were not extinguished, but merely curtailed. The areas that became royal forests were already relatively wild and sparsely populated, and can be related to specific geographic features that made them harder to work as farmland. In

3422-479: Was licensed by the Bishop to maintain an oratory (a private chapel) at Wood Place. The precise date of his death is not known, but on 20 December 1382 Laurencia, now a widow, founded a chantry at Newark Priory (which was dissolved in 1538) and endowed a mass for the soul of Peter Atte Wode. Peter Atte Wode amassed a sizeable estate during his lifetime as the scattered records demonstrate, and he stands an example of

3481-581: Was passed to remove the deer in 1851, but abandoned when it was realised that the deer were needed to keep open the unwooded "lawns" of the forest. An attempt was made to develop the forest for growing wood by a rolling programme of inclosures. In 1875, a Select committee of the House of Commons recommended against this, leading to the passage of the New Forest Act 1877 , which limited the Crown's right to inclose, regulated common rights, and reconstituted

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