ABSTRACT
Forests consisted of an area of land outside the common law, which operated under special laws and regulations designed to protect the king’s hunting. Quite apart from the problems of administering large royal forests the implementation of forest law was liable to be abused by local forest officials and its enforcement aroused bitter resentment among the populace. As with the royal forests the principal beast of the park was the fallow deer, though red deer were also quite common and other animals such as semi-wild cattle appear in park records. The primary purpose of the medieval park was to keep deer for hunting, but other animals were sometimes kept including semi-wild white cattle. In addition to regular manorial woodland, substantial areas were devoted to hunting. Hunting within the forests was still restricted to the king and to his ensigns, though the enforcement of this restriction became increasingly difficult, especially after the mid-fourteenth century.
