they can find such timber . . . but if they can find it not to fell any from
there, until they have a further order from the king.
In 1263, when timber was wanted in a hurry after a fire at Westminster,
100 oaks were ordered from the New Forest, 80 from Guildford, and 40 from
Havering Park, but only 20 from Hainault.
The apparent infrequency of prosecutions concerning timber in the Forest
courts (10) compared with their abundance in Sherwood and Dean, further
supports the thesis that there were comparatively few timber trees in the Essex
Forests at this time.
Wood
The king as landowner had some wood in Hainault Forest. It appears
always in the form of robur trees. The meaning of the word is not certain: it is a
non-timber tree, not necessarily an oak, used for firewood (robur ad focum);
often "a dry robur" or "an old robur not bearing leaves" is specified.
Circumstantial evidence supports the meaning "pollard", proposed by
W. R. Fisher (24).
Robora were occasionally used on the king's own works, such as the 30 sent
to a lime-kiln (rogus) at the Tower in 1228. Most of them were gifts, for instance
to houses of friars, to the lepers of Ilford, or to Helen Dun, the king's old nurse,
to whom he sent two or three every year.
Henry III ordered a total of 404 robora from the Forest, an average of
about seven a year (Fig. 9). There were none in Havering Park.
But it is probable that much of the wood, as in later centuries, belonged to
the commoners. The existence of pollarding is first attested in the "present-
ments of vert" — illicit use of the Forest vegetation — coming before the courts.
Lopping is first explicitly mentioned in 1365 (24). In 1304 Richard Sagor carted
away charcoal from the king's demesne in the forbidden month (mense vetito);
his cart and three horses were confiscated, and he had to pay 5s for the cart and
5s for each horse to get them back (58). It was the breach of the forbidden
month — 10 June to 8 July, when the does were supposed to fawn — that made
the action illegal; even Ancelin le Heir, who felled three of his own hedgerow
oaks at that time, lost a cart valued at 1s and a horse at 3s 4d (58). The penalties
were not as severe as they seem, for the actual price of a cart-horse averaged
18s (47).
The evidence strongly suggests that Epping and Hainault Forests in the
middle ages, as in later centuries, were full of pollard trees. Coppicing, referred
to in many other Forests, is not mentioned at all here. The pollard wood
belonged to commoners, who come to our attention only when caught breaking
the law. Landowners owned the pollard boilings, but could cut them down only
when dead and of no further use to the commoners. Henry Ill's seven robora a
year represent those pollards that died on his share of Hainault Forest.
34