The picture above shows the front cover of another good read for our current topic. Written by Travis Elborough and published two years ago it is a readable paper back, clearly thoroughly researched and, although not a ‘university book’ in the sense that the sources of facts presented are not often credited, it does have an index and a surprisingly comprehensive bibliography.
A familiar overview is that the notion of parks (as opposed to public parks) was brought to England by the Norman overlords of the late 11th century. In the sense that all the land of the country was now formally designated as being owned by the monarch (William I) and that by royal dictate the Anglo-Saxon landowners were replaced by Norman barons and lords of the manor so a situation arose whereby parks could be created across the landscape with relative ease. Such parks were hunting parks and anything but open to the public, with harsh punishments reserved for any such persons found there. Hunting parks were neither forest (in the 20th century meaning of the term) nor just open pasture but areas that combined patches of woodland/forest, areas of undergrowth and open grassland. Here deer (generally mostly fallow deer), hares, rabbits and game-birds (for those particularly skilful with a bow or sling) could live undisturbed until such time as the baron, visiting monarch or ecclesiastical big-wig should desire to engage in a formal hunt, at which time the carnage could be great (for example it is recorded that in later times James I delighted when a deer had been killed in dismounting, slitting open its belly and splashing around his feet in its entrails, possibly being some compensation for the fact that he did not possess a manly knight-like figure but was ‘seedy’ in stature and prone to ill-health).
(To be continued).