Two men were accused of failing to ‘law’ their dogs, which meant cutting off three claws from each forepaw to prevent them running after game. The only way to avoid this was to pay a heavy exemption fee, called ‘hound-geld’.
‘Bloody barbarians, all of them,’ snarled the dog-loving Gwyn under his breath, as Michael Crespin, a thickset middle-aged man with cropped blond hair and watery blue eyes, intoned the requirements for this mutilation, even down to the size of the block of wood, the two-inch chisel and the mallet. One of the accused pleaded that his dog was small enough to be exempt from lawing, and an argument developed between the foresters, the verderer and the man as to the criteria for exemption.
‘If a hound can crawl through a stirrup, it need not be lawed!’ claimed the man, indignant at being locked in a filthy gaol for three weeks on such an accusation.
Crespin gave the man a gratuitous blow on the shoulder. ‘You’re a liar, man. That bitch could not be passed through the five and three-quarter inches of a Malvern chase strap, which is the legal measure.’
‘Did you actually try the dog against that measure?’ asked Philip de Strete.
‘I had no need, sir. I could tell from experience that it would not pass.’
Gwyn again rumbled his resentment as this distortion of justice, but de Wolfe laid a restraining hand on his arm. The accused man was trying another stratagem.
‘If you will not believe that, then let me pay the hound-geld now. That dog is too small to hunt anything bigger than a rat, but I am willing to pay, rather than perish in that foul prison!’
The mention of money sent the foresters to the table to murmur with the verderer and, after some nodding of heads, de Strete scowled at the prisoner and gave him an option. ‘Five marks hound-geld or take your chance at the Eyre.’
The man winced and looked desperately into the crowd, where his wife, brothers and father were listening anxiously. After some worried consultation, they nodded and, without further ado, Crespin pushed the man towards the driver of the ox-cart, for him to release the irons on his wrists. Five marks was a fortune to a peasant, who would have to borrow hundreds of pennies from his relatives and probably go hungry for many months to come.
The coroner and his officer waited while the rest of the venison cases were dealt with by the arrogant forest officers, who took every chance to commute crimes for cash. One man was accused of ‘stable-stand’, being seen on a horse carrying a bow. Another was committed for a ‘bloody-hand’ offence, being found with bloodstaining on his breeches, though he loudly proclaimed that he had merely been killing one of his own geese, but had no witness to prove it. A similar situation involved a free man who was accused of both ‘back-bear’ and ‘dog-draw’, being seen carrying the carcass of a fox while walking in the forest with his dog. He insisted that he had found the fox dead with injuries inflicted from a wolf’s fangs and that, as his dog was properly lawed, it was quite legal. No notice was taken of his protestations, but he was allowed to be mainprised, a form of bail, on the payment of two pledges from his family, each of four marks.
As soon as these cases were finished, the Woodmote moved on to the larger number of offences against the vert. These were dealt with rapidly, and again it seemed to John that financial extortion was the main object. In many cases, guilt was declared with almost no evidence and with no chance for the accused to utter a word in his defence. The choice was usually offered of paying a fine or being committed to the Forest Eyre, even when the value of the transgression was patently over the threshold of four pence. When someone declined to pay the amercement, he was bound over with a much greater attachment fee, to ensure his appearance at the distant court, so in either event he was financially crippled either personally or after having to borrow from his family.
Though the system was no different in principle to that of the other courts, it was being applied with a ruthless and avaricious disregard for natural justice. Philip de Strete seemed only to be a figurehead in the proceedings, and appeared to accede to all the murmured advice from the two foresters.
‘This is a damned disgrace!’ rumbled Gwyn. ‘I wonder how faithfully those clerks are allowed to record all these payments. I’ll wager the biggest portion goes into the officers’ purses every forty days.’
They waited a while longer, listening to a series of cases concerning the illegal cutting of branches of more than an inch thick, of the offence of ‘purpestre’, which was the building of a hut on the owner’s land without a fee; causing ‘waste’ by cutting down bushes; and illegal ‘assart’, the removal of stumps and roots to enlarge cultivated ground. A few were fined for wrongful ‘agistment’ — letting their livestock feed in the forest either without sufficient fee or during the current ‘fence month’, fifteen days either side of the feast of St John the Baptist, when the hinds were calving. John was interested to hear all these archaic regulations, some going back to the Saxon kings. He knew of some of them and decided not to mention to Gwyn that it was Edward the Confessor who had brought in the mutilation of forest dogs — not by lawing the claws, but by ‘hombling and hoxing’, cutting the sinews of the back legs so that they could hardly walk, let alone run.
As the cases were completed and the remaining prisoners were herded back to their cart and the rest of the crowd began to thin out, de Wolfe decided it was time for him to have words with the foresters.
With Gwyn close behind, he pushed himself from his pillar and thrust his way through the spectators to reach the front of the court.
Philip de Strete gaped up at them in surprise, then rose in reluctant greeting to a more senior law officer. The two foresters and their thuggish pages made no effort to be civil, but stood to one side, scowling at the coroner and his massive henchman.
‘What brings you here today, Sir John?’ asked the new verderer, anxiously. The sheriff’s description to him of the coroner’s personality suggested that his presence would not bring him joy.
‘I have some serious questions for these officers of yours, de Strete. And I think this is one case that has not been brought to your attention during today’s proceedings.’
Lupus and Crespin glowered at the coroner, well aware of what he meant.
‘Murder was done in the forest two days ago. Has your court no interest at all in recording that?’ he boomed. ‘Do you all still deny that such a major breach of the King’s peace does not come under the common law? And if you do, why have you not dealt with it yourself, as by default it must lie within someone’s jurisdiction?’
It was a neat trap, and the inexperienced, rather stupid verderer could only gape ineffectually at the coroner. ‘What murder is this?’ he managed to croak, after a moment.
‘Edward of Manaton — shot in the back with an arrow. An arrow that strongly resembles those used by your foresters — the same foresters who were seen passing through Manaton at about the time of the murder.’
De Strete jerked his head around to stare at his men. ‘Why wasn’t I told of this?’
William Lupus ignored him and spoke directly to de Wolfe.
‘It was no murder, Crowner,’ he said contemptuously. ‘It was a justifiable killing under forest law.’ His skull-like face was impassive as he tried to stare down the coroner.