The name is absent

556               Constitutional History.            [chap.

not seem certain that the diminution resulted from any change
in the royal policy. In the proposition for the resumption of
gifts, which was urged on Henry IV in 1404, the commons
declared that they had no wish to restrain any subject from
applying for licence either to fortify his castle or to inclose his
park ¹. But however freely this was done, the age of Edward
III would seem to have been the period of greatest activity in
this respect.

The licence to Crenellate occasionally contained the permis-
sion to inclose a park, and even to hold a fair. The first of the
two points must be interpreted to show that the royal jealousy
of forest rights was much less strongly felt than it had been in
the early Norman ^s and Plantagenet times, when forest admini-
stration was an important constitutional question. Edward I
had indeed granted that a writ ‘ ad quod damnum ’ should issue
out of chancery to any who wished to make a park ; the per-
mission, after due inquiry, was to be granted on the payment
of a reasonable fine³ : so that the increase of parks perhaps
may have kept pace with the multiplication of fortified houses.
It was an important privilege, whether looked at as an exten-
sion of forest liberties, or as an encroachment, as it often was,
on the waste or common lands of the manors. But land was
cheap and plentiful, and little heartburning seems to have been
produced by it among the classes that could make their voices
heard in parliament. On the class which was likely to produce
trespassers and poachers the hand of the law was heavy. The
statute of Westminster the First⁴ classed such offenders with
those found guilty of open theft and robbery, if they were
convicted of having taken any game ; the trespasser was liable
to three years’ imprisonment, to pay damages, and make a fine
with the king; and in the parliament of 1390 it was enacted
that no one possessing less than forty shillings a year, and no
priest or clerk worth less than ten pounds a year, should keep
a dog, ‘ Ieverer, n’autre chien ⁵? This early game-law was pri-

¹ Kot. Karl. iii. 548.        _   ² See Rot. Pip. 31 Нен. I, p. 58.

³ Rot. Parl. ɪ. 56 ; Statutes, ɪ. ɪʒɪ.

⁴ Statutes, i. 32. See also an ordinance of 1293 ; ib. p. in.

^s Stat. 13 Rich. H, c. 13 ; Statutes, ii. p. 65.

marily intended to stop the meetings of labourers and artificers,
and has little permanent importance besides.

473. In their great fortified houses the barons kept an Baroniai
.                _pπ             -                      ₁₁                    . establish-

enormous retinue of officers and servants, all arranged in menu
well-distinguished grades, provided with regular allowances
of food and clothing, and subjected to strict rules of conduct
and account¹. A powerful earl like the Percy, or a duke like
the Stafford, was scarcely less than a king in authority, and
much more than a king in wealth and splendour within his
own house. The economy of a house like Alnwick or Fother-
ingay was perhaps more like that of a modern college than that

of any private house at the present day. Like a king, too, the Great trains
^{j r}                           ɪ            ^j              .                   Ofservante.

medieval baron removed from one to another of his castles with
a train of servants and baggage, his chaplains and accountants,
steward and carvers, servers, cupbearers, clerks, squires, yeo-
men, grooms and pages, chamberlain, treasurer, and even
chancellor. Every state apartment in the house had its staff
of ushers and servants. The hall had its array of tables at
which the various officers were seated and fed according to
their degree. The accounts were kept on great rolls, regularly Household
made up and audited at the quarter days, when wages were
paid and stock taken. The management of the parks, the

¹ The following table is an abstract of the estimates given in the Black
Book of Edward IV on this point.

The columns do not exactly coincide. The whole number of inmates of
the Percy household in the reign of Henry VIII was ι66 ; see Northumber-
land Household Book, p. x, and the valuable note of Hume, Hist. Engl.,
vol. ii. note Z.

<<   <   279   280   281   282   283   284   285   >   >>