Autobiography of Seventy Years Part 77

Her Majesty's Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, VERDERERS' COURT.

Verderers: Charles Bathurst, Esq. Sir Thomas H.

Crawley-Boevey, Bart.

Maynard Willoughby Colchester-Wemyss, Esq.

Russell James Kerr, Esq.

Deputy-Surveyor: Philip Baylis, Esq.

Steward: James Wintle.

----NOTICE---- The VERDERERS of Her Majesty's Forest of Dean hereby give Notice that the COURT of ATTACHMENT of our Sovereign Lady the Queen for the said Forest will be holden by adjournment, at the Speech House, in the said Forest, at half-past Two o'clock, in the afternoon, on the following days during the year 1897, viz.: Wednesday, the 27th January; Monday, the 8th March; Sat.u.r.day, the 17th April; Thursday, the 27th May; Tuesday, the 6th July; Monday, the 16th August; Friday, the 24th September; Wednesday, the 3rd November; Monday, the 13th December; James Wintle, Steward.

Newnham, 1st January, 1897.

Many years ago I stood in the Court Room examining a similar notice, puzzled at the absence of any system or order in the times appointed for the sittings, which did not come once a month, or every six weeks; and did not even fall twice in succession on the same day of the week. Turning to the landlord of the hotel I asked, "What is the rule for holding the Court?

_When_ is it held?" _"Every forty days at twelve o'clock at noon"_ was the reply. Reflection showed that so strange a periodicity related to no notation of time with which we are now in touch; it must belong to a system that has pa.s.sed away; but what could this be?

We are reminded by the date of the building we are in (1680), that the room itself cannot have been used for much more than two centuries for holding the Courts.

But there was a Verderer's Court held in several Forests besides this Forest of Dean, long before the Stuart days.

The office itself is mentioned in Canute's Forest charter, dating back nearly nine hundred years; and as at that period about a third of England was covered with Forests, their influence must have been very powerful; and local laws and customs in them must have been far too firmly established for such a man as Canute to alter them. He could only have confirmed what he found; much as he confirmed the laws of nature as they affected the tides at Southampton!

The next Forest Charter of national importance after Canute's, is that of Henry III., in 1225. It is clear that he, again, made no material change in the old order of things; and in recapitulating the old order of the Forest Courts, he ordains that the Court of Attachment (called in Dean Forest the Court of the Speech) was to be held _every forty days._ This Court was one of first instance, simply for the hearing of evidence and getting up the cases for the "Swainmote,"* which came _three times a year._ The Swains were free man; and at their _mote_ evidence was required from _three_ witnesses in each case, on which the Verderer and other officers of the king pa.s.sed sentence in accordance with the laws laid down in this Charter. From this Swainmote there was a final appeal to the High Court of the Judges in Eyre (Eyre, from "errer" to wander, being the Norman French for Itinerant, or, on Circuit) which was held _once in three years._

[Footnote]

* That the Forest Charter of Hen. III. did not establish these courts is proved from a pa.s.sage in Manwood, cap. 8, which runs thus: "And the said Swainmotes shal not be kept but within the counties in the which they have been used to be kept."

[End of Footnote]

The forty-day court was common to all the ancient forests of Britain; and that they go back to _before_ the time of Henry III. is clear from the following extracts from c.o.ke's Fourth Inst.i.tute, for which I am indebted to the kindness of James G. Wood, of Lincoln's Inn.

CAP. LXXIII.

Of the Forests and the Jurisdiction of the Courts [p 289] of the Forest.

And now let us set down the Courts of the Forests--Within _every_ Forest there are these Courts 1. The Court of the Attachments or the Woodmote Court. This is to kept before the Verderors every forty days throughout the year --and thereupon it is called the Forty-day Court--At this Court the Foresters bring in the Attachments de viridi et venalione [&c &c]

2. The Court of regard or Survey of days is holden every third year [&c &c]

3. The Court of Swainmote is to be holden before the Verderors as judges by the Steward of the Swainmote thrice in every year [&c]

4. ------ The Court of the Justice Seat holden before the Chief Justice of the Forest ---- aptly called Justice in eire ------ and this Court of the Justice Seat cannot be kept oftener than every third year.

[319] _For the antiquity of such Forests within England as we have treated of the best and surest argument therof is that the Forests in England (being in number 69) except the New Forest in Hampshire erected by William the Conqueror as a conqueror, and Hampton Court Forest by Hy 3, by authority of Parliament, are so ancient as no record or history doth make any mention of any of their Erections or beginnings._

Here then we have clear evidence that nearly seven hundred years ago the Verderer's Court was being held at periods of time that bore no relation to any division of the year known to the Normans or Plantagenets, or, before them, to the Saxons, or even, still earlier, to the Romans. We are, therefore, driven back to the period before the Roman invasion in Britain, and when the Forest legislation was, as Caesar found it, in the hands of the Druids. In his brief and vivid account of these people he tells us that they used the Greek alphabet; and as he also says they were very proficient in astronomy, it seems clear that they had their astronomy from the same source as their literature. Their astronomy involved of necessity their notation of time. And the Greeks, in turn, owed their astronomy to the Egyptians, with whom the year was reckoned as of three hundred and sixty days; and this three hundred and sixty-day year gives us the clue to the forty-day period for holding the Forest Courts in Ancient Britain.

We cannot fail to be struck, as we examine the old Forest customs, with the constant use of the _number three,_ as a sacred or "lucky" number, on every possible occasion. We have just seen the role it plays in the Mine Court, with its _three_ presiding officials, its jury of multiples of _three_ (twelve, twenty-four, forty-eight); its holly stick oath sworn by _three_ witnesses. We have notice the Swainmote Court, also requiring _three_ witnesses, held _three_ times a year, and subordinate to the Court of Eyre held once in _three_ years; to which should be added the perambulation of the Forest bounds at the same triennial visit in Eyre, when the king's officers were accompanied by nine foresters in fee (_three threes_) and twenty-four jurors (_eight threes_).

To go fully into the role of the number three in British traditions would require a profound study; but it may be useful briefly to note its influence on the Bardic poetry-- the Triads, where the subjects are all grouped in threes.

Nor was this predilection confined to the Island. We find it affecting the earliest history of Rome itself, with its _nine_ G.o.ds ("By the nine G.o.ds he swore") and the _nine_ books which the Sibyl destroyed by _threes,_ till the last _three_ were saved. Then we have the evidence in the name _nundina_*

for a market, that the week was originally a cycle not of seven, but of _nine_ days; and our own saying that a given thing is a _"nine days wonder"_ is undoubtedly a survival from the period when the nine days made a week,** for such a phrase expresses a round number or unit of time; not nine _separate_ days.

[Footnotes]

* The Romans meant by _nundinae_ periods that were really of eight days; but they made them nine by counting in the one _from_ which they started. So accustomed were they to this method of notation that the priests who had the control of the calendar, upset Julius Caesar's plan for intercalating a day once in _four_ years ("Biss.e.xtile") by insisting that the interval intended was _three_ years! Augustus was obliged to rectify this by dropping the overplus day it occasioned. It is this Roman custom of _inclusive_ reckoning which has led to the French calling a week _huit jours_, and a fortnight, _une quinzaine_.

** The word week comes from _wika_ (= Norsk _vika_) to bend or _turn_. The idea connected with it was no doubt that of the moon's turning from one of its quarters to the next. I can remember when some of the people in "the Island" in Gloucester always made a point of _turning_ any coins they had in their pockets when it was new moon and repeating a sort of invocation to the moon! How or when the nine day week was exchanged by western nations for the seven day one, we do not know; but it is likely that it may have been brought about by the Phoenicians and Jews, who regarded the number _seven_ as the Druids regarded _three_--as something especially sacred.

They had much of the commerce of Southern Europe in their hands, and, therefore, a certain power in controlling the markets, which it would be a convenience to Jews to _prevent_ falling on the sabbath day. The circ.u.mstance that the lunar month fitted in with four weeks of seven days no doubt made it easier to effect the change from _nundinae_.

[End of Footnotes]

Shakespeare had been struck with the relationship of the _nine_ day week, alluded to in the proverb, to the more modern one of seven days, as is shown by his very clever juxtaposition of the two in "As You Like It." In Act III., Scene 2, he makes Celia say to Rosalind

"But didst thou hear _without wondering_ how thy name should be hanged and carved upon these trees?"

And Rosalind replies

"I was _seven_ of the _nine days out of the wonder_ before you came"--_etc._

Gloucester, down till the Norman time, and after, was the great manufactory of the iron brought from the Forest of Dean. The metal was brought up the Severn by barges, to the quay which stood at the road running straight down from Longsmith Street (in which Charles h.o.a.r's house stands), and buried under all this street we find the cinder and slag of the Roman forges. In Domesday book (which was ordered to be drawn up at a Parliament in Gloucester in 1083) it states that the City had paid to the King (_i. e.,_ Edward the Confessor) ten _dicres_ of iron yearly. This is very remarkable, for a dicre was three dozen rods or bars; so that the whole tribute was three hundred and sixty bars, or _one bar per day for the Druid year of three hundred and sixty days._*

[Footnote]

* For more than a century after Julius Caesar had altered the year to three hundred and sixty-five days, the Roman soldiers were still paid at the ancient rate of three hundred and sixty days only, losing the rest as _"terminalia,"_ or days not counted as belonging to the year! The proof of this is that in the time of Domitian a soldier's _year's_ pay divided by three hundred and sixty gives an even number of _ases_.

[End of Footnote]

And now we come back to the Verderer's Court at the Speech House with a clear reason for its being held _"every forty days at twelve o'clock at noon."_

Forty days was the _ninth_ of the Druid year of three hundred and sixty, and was a period of five weeks of eight days each, but which according to the ancient method of counting were called _"nine-days."_ And the reason the Court sits "at Twelve o'clock at noon" is because the Druid day began at noon. Even now, within ten miles of where I write, the children on Minchinhampton Common, on the Cotteswold hills, keep up _"old May Day,"_ which was the opening of the Druid year, though they are ignorant of this. Boys and girls arm themselves on that day with boughs of the beech, and go through certain games with them; but exactly as the clock strikes _twelve_ they throw them away, under pain of being stigmatized as _"May fools!"_

Well has Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, that _"All_ things are _in all_ things!" Even this commonplace list of Court days in the Forest of Dean becomes a beautiful poem when the light of such a past shines on it; just as the veriest dust of the Krakatoan volcano evolves itself into every color of the rainbow when it rises into the sunset sky.

Since writing this paper I find that Philip Baylis, the Verderer of the Forest of Dean, has kindly sent three or four dozen of young oak trees from the Government plantations, to Washington, in order that they may be planted there and in some other places in the United States, to begin the century with. The State Department of Agriculture has arranged for the planting of these oaks, and the periodical record of their measurements, so that a valuable basis will be established for an experiment that may be carried on for a century, or more; and we, the archaeologists of the nineteenth century, shall have wiped away the stigma implied in the old Aberdeen Baillie's remark, that as _Posteerity_ had never done anything for us, we ought not to do anything for _posteerity!_

The Earl of Ducie has sent, accompanying these Forest of Dean oaks, four small plants, seedlings from the great Chestnut Tree on his Estate at Tortworth; the largest and oldest of its sort in Great Britain. It measures forty-nine feet round the trunk.

Leaving the Speech House for Coleford and Newland we descend a steep hill for half a mile, and crossing the rail at the Station we begin to ascend the opposite rise through the woods.

As the carriage climbs slowly up we keep on the lookout for the margin-stones of the Roman paving which here and there show through the modern metaled surface--pieces fifteen to twenty inches long by about five inches in thickness, and set so deep in the ground that eighteen hundred years' wear has never moved them. They are b.u.t.tressed on the outer edge by similar blocks set four or five inches lower, and themselves forming one side of the solidly paved water-way or gutter which was constructed as part of every such road on a steep gradient, to secure it from abrasion by flood or sudden rush from heavy rainfall. There are many excellent examples of this in the Forest of Dean. We are on the watch, however, for some part where the _"margines"_ remain on _both_ sides of the way. At last we come upon such a place, and alighting from the carriage we strain the tape measure across at two or three points. The mean we find to be thirteen feet and seven inches. As the Roman foot was just over three per cent.

less than ours, this means that the Romans built the road here for a fourteen-foot way. So far as I have examined their roads they were always constructed to certain standard widths--seven feet, nine feet, eleven feet, thirteen feet, fourteen feet, or fifteen feet.

It is not too much to say that most of the main roads in England are Roman; but the very continuity of their use has caused this to be overlooked. All the _old_ roads in the Forest of Dean have been p.r.o.nounced by the Ordnance Surveyors, after close examination, to bear evidences of Roman paving, although for some centuries since then wheel carriages went out of use here!

There is a vivid description in Statius of the making of an imperial-road through such another Forest (if not indeed this very one!) especially worth recalling here, because it was written at very nearly the period of the building of this track over which we are journeying; _i. e.,_ near the end of the first century.

The poet stands on a hill from which he can see the effect of the united work of the army of men who are engaged in the construction: perhaps a hundred thousand forced laborers, under the control of the legionary soldiers who act as the engineers. He makes us see and hear with him the tens of thousands of stone cutters and the ring of their tools squaring the "setts"; and then one platoon after another stepping forward and laying down its row of stones followed by rank after rank of men with the paviours' rammers, which rise and fall at the sweep of the band-master's rods, keeping time in a stately music as they advance; the continuous falling and crashing of the trees as other thousands of hands ply the axes along the lines, that creep, slowly, but visibly, on through the Forest that no foot had ever trodden--the thud of the mult.i.tudinous machines driving the piles in the marshy s.p.a.ces; the whole innumerable sounds falling on the ear like the roaring of a great and vast sea.

The language Statius uses is more simple than mine; but this is substantially the picture he gives: and I know of nothing that so impresses on the imagination the thunder of the power of the Roman Empire as this creation in the wilderness, in one day, of an iron way that shall last for all time.

We are here in the sweet silence of a summer morning, eighteen hundred years after such a scene, and able mentally to catch some glimpse of it; some echo of the storm that has left behind it so ineffaceable a mark.

"I intended to ask you just now whether the man you spoke to in the road was a typical native of the district?" said Senator h.o.a.r. "He was dark and swarthy, with very black hair and piercing eyes; not at all like the majority of people we see in Gloucester for instance." "Yes, he is a typical Forester"; exactly such a man as Tacitus describes his Silurian ancestors; so Spanish in appearance that he tries to account for it by remarking that _"that part of Britain lies over against Spain";_ as if it was such a short run across the Bay of Biscay to the upper end of the Bristol Channel that nothing would be more natural than for Spaniards to sail over here with their wives and families and become Silures!

These Western Britons, both here in the Forest and in Cornwall certainly remind one of Spaniards. The type is of an older Celtic than that of the present Welsh people proper, as some evidences in the language also point to the occupation being an older one. With respect to this particular district of the Forest and the East of Monmouthshire, one more element must not be left out of the account; and that is, that Caerleon was founded by the second legion being removed to it from Gloucester about the time this road was made; and that it remained for three hundred years the headquarters of that legion, which was a Spanish one raised in the time of Augustus.

Forty years ago I remember being at Caerleon (two and one half miles from Newport), when I met the children of the village coming out of school. It was hard to believe they were not Spanish or Italian!

At all events this part of Britain lies over against Boston; and Americans can cross over and see Caerleon for themselves more easily than the people could, of whom Tacitus wrote.