Christopher FitzRandolph, great-grandfather of Edward "the pilgrim" FitzRandolph, appears in Thorton's Nottinghamshire on a list of 1538-1539 official perambulators of Sherwood Forest:

"A Perambulacion of the fforrest of Sheerewood made the nineth day of September in the Thirtyeth year of the Reigne of King Henry the Eighth (by the grace of God of England and strance King defender of the faith Lord of Ireland and Supreme head upon earth of the English Church;) By Robert Brymesley, Gabriel Berwicke, Richard Perepoint Esqr's; Alexander Merring, Christopher ffitzrandole, Robert Whitemore, John Walker, Manrite Orrell, John Garnon, John Palmer Gentlemen; Robert Levett. William Mellars, Robert Rawson, John Lofscowe, John Bristow, and Robert North, Regarders of the said fforrest of Sheerewood."

Regarders were, in the hierarchy of forest officials, "...twelve knights chosen to carry out a general inspection of the forest every three years," according to the Nottinghamshire Heritage Gateway:

http://www.nottsheritagegateway.org.uk/places/sherwoodforest.htm

Does anyone know who would have appointed the regarders/inspectors?

Was this an honorary role given to trusted or well-connected local men?

And/or were the chosen men likely to have been especially familiar with the forest environs due to their land holdings, or be experienced at surveying or some related discipline?

On 28-May-22 6:36 AM, Girl57 wrote:
> Christopher FitzRandolph, great-grandfather of Edward "the pilgrim" FitzRandolph, appears in Thorton's Nottinghamshire on a list of 1538-1539 official perambulators of Sherwood Forest:
>
> "A Perambulacion of the fforrest of Sheerewood made the nineth day of September in the Thirtyeth year of the Reigne of King Henry the Eighth (by the grace of God of England and strance King defender of the faith Lord of Ireland and Supreme head upon earth of the English Church;) By Robert Brymesley, Gabriel Berwicke, Richard Perepoint Esqr's; Alexander Merring, Christopher ffitzrandole, Robert Whitemore, John Walker, Manrite Orrell, John Garnon, John Palmer Gentlemen; Robert Levett. William Mellars, Robert Rawson, John Lofscowe, John Bristow, and Robert North, Regarders of the said fforrest of Sheerewood."
>
> Regarders were, in the hierarchy of forest officials, "...twelve knights chosen to carry out a general inspection of the forest every three years," according to the Nottinghamshire Heritage Gateway:
>
> http://www.nottsheritagegateway.org.uk/places/sherwoodforest.htm
>
> Does anyone know who would have appointed the regarders/inspectors?
>
> Was this an honorary role given to trusted or well-connected local men?
>
> And/or were the chosen men likely to have been especially familiar with the forest environs due to their land holdings, or be experienced at surveying or some related discipline?

According to Charles Young in _The Royal Forests of Medieval England_
(1979), writing about the Angevin system:

p. 49: "The Assize of Woodstock in 1185 provided that in each county
where there was a royal forest twelve knights were to be chosen to guard
the king's venison and vert, and these officials were later referred
to as regarders."

p. 53: "Other officials with duties in respect to the forest were the
verderers and the regarders, and these officials were chosen in county
court under the supervision of the sheriff."

p. 54: "The sheriff alone was responsible for holding the election of
verderers and regarders and for holding the regard."

p. 87: "The only other type of forest official whose work was of general
importance was the regarder. According to the sixth chapter of the
Charter of the Forest, the regarders should make the regard every third
year, and it was essential that a regard be made before the coming of
the justices in eyre for forest pleas. The sheriff chose the regarders
(usually twelve) when ordered to do so by a royal letter ... Although
the foresters were expected to lead the regarders, the regarders were
required to make the regard on their own initiative if necessary and to
present the results to the justices in eyre. No man was allowed to be a
regarder and a coroner at the same time. [para] The regard consisted of
a general inspection of the forest to determine the answers to a number
of specific questions known as the chapters of the regard. The major
thrust of these chapters was to determine whether anyone had made
assarts to bring forest land into cultivation, had constructed buildings
or other encroachments known by the general term of purprestures, or had
cut trees and thereby created waste in the forest ... Because they were
like the verderers in being independent of the foresters, the regarders
provided another check on any abuse committed by those officials."

pp. 157: "Another indication of the decline of the royal forest in the
fourteenth century can be seen in what happened to the regard, an
institution that provided a general survey of the vert and of
encroachments upon the forest ... Because commissions for making the
regard were issued as letters close to the sheriffs, some idea of the
continuity of this aspect of the forest administration can be derived
from the Close Rolls. In the 1340s and 1350s the number of counties in
which regards were held declined, then almost disappeared south of the
Trent after 1360, and ended completely in the south after 1387. The
three forests north of the Trent in which regards were n1ade regularly
were Inglewood, Pickering, and Sherwood."

Peter Stewart

--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com

On Friday, May 27, 2022 at 9:40:07 PM UTC-4, pss...@optusnet.com.au wrote:
> On 28-May-22 6:36 AM, Girl57 wrote:
> > Christopher FitzRandolph, great-grandfather of Edward "the pilgrim" FitzRandolph, appears in Thorton's Nottinghamshire on a list of 1538-1539 official perambulators of Sherwood Forest:
> >
> > "A Perambulacion of the fforrest of Sheerewood made the nineth day of September in the Thirtyeth year of the Reigne of King Henry the Eighth (by the grace of God of England and strance King defender of the faith Lord of Ireland and Supreme head upon earth of the English Church;) By Robert Brymesley, Gabriel Berwicke, Richard Perepoint Esqr's; Alexander Merring, Christopher ffitzrandole, Robert Whitemore, John Walker, Manrite Orrell, John Garnon, John Palmer Gentlemen; Robert Levett. William Mellars, Robert Rawson, John Lofscowe, John Bristow, and Robert North, Regarders of the said fforrest of Sheerewood."
> >
> > Regarders were, in the hierarchy of forest officials, "...twelve knights chosen to carry out a general inspection of the forest every three years," according to the Nottinghamshire Heritage Gateway:
> >
> > http://www.nottsheritagegateway.org.uk/places/sherwoodforest.htm
> >
> > Does anyone know who would have appointed the regarders/inspectors?
> >
> > Was this an honorary role given to trusted or well-connected local men?
> >
> > And/or were the chosen men likely to have been especially familiar with the forest environs due to their land holdings, or be experienced at surveying or some related discipline?
> According to Charles Young in _The Royal Forests of Medieval England_
> (1979), writing about the Angevin system:
>
> p. 49: "The Assize of Woodstock in 1185 provided that in each county
> where there was a royal forest twelve knights were to be chosen to guard
> the king's venison and vert, and these officials were later referred
> to as regarders."
>
> p. 53: "Other officials with duties in respect to the forest were the
> verderers and the regarders, and these officials were chosen in county
> court under the supervision of the sheriff."
>
> p. 54: "The sheriff alone was responsible for holding the election of
> verderers and regarders and for holding the regard."
>
> p. 87: "The only other type of forest official whose work was of general
> importance was the regarder. According to the sixth chapter of the
> Charter of the Forest, the regarders should make the regard every third
> year, and it was essential that a regard be made before the coming of
> the justices in eyre for forest pleas. The sheriff chose the regarders
> (usually twelve) when ordered to do so by a royal letter ... Although
> the foresters were expected to lead the regarders, the regarders were
> required to make the regard on their own initiative if necessary and to
> present the results to the justices in eyre. No man was allowed to be a
> regarder and a coroner at the same time. [para] The regard consisted of
> a general inspection of the forest to determine the answers to a number
> of specific questions known as the chapters of the regard. The major
> thrust of these chapters was to determine whether anyone had made
> assarts to bring forest land into cultivation, had constructed buildings
> or other encroachments known by the general term of purprestures, or had
> cut trees and thereby created waste in the forest ... Because they were
> like the verderers in being independent of the foresters, the regarders
> provided another check on any abuse committed by those officials."
>
> pp. 157: "Another indication of the decline of the royal forest in the
> fourteenth century can be seen in what happened to the regard, an
> institution that provided a general survey of the vert and of
> encroachments upon the forest ... Because commissions for making the
> regard were issued as letters close to the sheriffs, some idea of the
> continuity of this aspect of the forest administration can be derived
> from the Close Rolls. In the 1340s and 1350s the number of counties in
> which regards were held declined, then almost disappeared south of the
> Trent after 1360, and ended completely in the south after 1387. The
> three forests north of the Trent in which regards were n1ade regularly
> were Inglewood, Pickering, and Sherwood."
>
> Peter Stewart
>
> --
> This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
> https://www.avg.com
Peter, thank you for this helpful and interesting information. It gives me much better insight about regarders and the context of their work. Is it fair to say that Sherwood Forest was among the best known of the King's Forests, way back when, or am I just thinking that because of Robin Hood?

On 29-May-22 5:39 AM, Girl57 wrote:
> On Friday, May 27, 2022 at 9:40:07 PM UTC-4, pss...@optusnet.com.au wrote:
>> On 28-May-22 6:36 AM, Girl57 wrote:
>>> Christopher FitzRandolph, great-grandfather of Edward "the pilgrim" FitzRandolph, appears in Thorton's Nottinghamshire on a list of 1538-1539 official perambulators of Sherwood Forest:
>>>
>>> "A Perambulacion of the fforrest of Sheerewood made the nineth day of September in the Thirtyeth year of the Reigne of King Henry the Eighth (by the grace of God of England and strance King defender of the faith Lord of Ireland and Supreme head upon earth of the English Church;) By Robert Brymesley, Gabriel Berwicke, Richard Perepoint Esqr's; Alexander Merring, Christopher ffitzrandole, Robert Whitemore, John Walker, Manrite Orrell, John Garnon, John Palmer Gentlemen; Robert Levett. William Mellars, Robert Rawson, John Lofscowe, John Bristow, and Robert North, Regarders of the said fforrest of Sheerewood."
>>>
>>> Regarders were, in the hierarchy of forest officials, "...twelve knights chosen to carry out a general inspection of the forest every three years," according to the Nottinghamshire Heritage Gateway:
>>>
>>> http://www.nottsheritagegateway.org.uk/places/sherwoodforest.htm
>>>
>>> Does anyone know who would have appointed the regarders/inspectors?
>>>
>>> Was this an honorary role given to trusted or well-connected local men?
>>>
>>> And/or were the chosen men likely to have been especially familiar with the forest environs due to their land holdings, or be experienced at surveying or some related discipline?
>> According to Charles Young in _The Royal Forests of Medieval England_
>> (1979), writing about the Angevin system:
>>
>> p. 49: "The Assize of Woodstock in 1185 provided that in each county
>> where there was a royal forest twelve knights were to be chosen to guard
>> the king's venison and vert, and these officials were later referred
>> to as regarders."
>>
>> p. 53: "Other officials with duties in respect to the forest were the
>> verderers and the regarders, and these officials were chosen in county
>> court under the supervision of the sheriff."
>>
>> p. 54: "The sheriff alone was responsible for holding the election of
>> verderers and regarders and for holding the regard."
>>
>> p. 87: "The only other type of forest official whose work was of general
>> importance was the regarder. According to the sixth chapter of the
>> Charter of the Forest, the regarders should make the regard every third
>> year, and it was essential that a regard be made before the coming of
>> the justices in eyre for forest pleas. The sheriff chose the regarders
>> (usually twelve) when ordered to do so by a royal letter ... Although
>> the foresters were expected to lead the regarders, the regarders were
>> required to make the regard on their own initiative if necessary and to
>> present the results to the justices in eyre. No man was allowed to be a
>> regarder and a coroner at the same time. [para] The regard consisted of
>> a general inspection of the forest to determine the answers to a number
>> of specific questions known as the chapters of the regard. The major
>> thrust of these chapters was to determine whether anyone had made
>> assarts to bring forest land into cultivation, had constructed buildings
>> or other encroachments known by the general term of purprestures, or had
>> cut trees and thereby created waste in the forest ... Because they were
>> like the verderers in being independent of the foresters, the regarders
>> provided another check on any abuse committed by those officials."
>>
>> pp. 157: "Another indication of the decline of the royal forest in the
>> fourteenth century can be seen in what happened to the regard, an
>> institution that provided a general survey of the vert and of
>> encroachments upon the forest ... Because commissions for making the
>> regard were issued as letters close to the sheriffs, some idea of the
>> continuity of this aspect of the forest administration can be derived
>> from the Close Rolls. In the 1340s and 1350s the number of counties in
>> which regards were held declined, then almost disappeared south of the
>> Trent after 1360, and ended completely in the south after 1387. The
>> three forests north of the Trent in which regards were n1ade regularly
>> were Inglewood, Pickering, and Sherwood."
>>
>> Peter Stewart
>>
>> --
>> This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
>> https://www.avg.com
> Peter, thank you for this helpful and interesting information. It gives me much better insight about regarders and the context of their work. Is it fair to say that Sherwood Forest was among the best known of the King's Forests, way back when, or am I just thinking that because of Robin Hood?

Others here are bound to know more than I do about Sherwood - all I can
report is copy-pasted from a scan of Charles Young's book, as cited above:

p. 10: "there is no mention of Sherwood Forest [in Domesday Book], and
its condition in the eleventh century can only be a matter of speculation"

p. 84: "In Sherwood Forest some of the foresters in fee held bailiwicks
large enough to need a riding forester, two foot foresters, and some
boys for their administration."

p. 99 (table from the eyre rolls): in 1263-87 Sherwood averaged 8 cases
per year for "trespass of venison", more than any of the 12 other
forests listed - e.g. the New Forest averaged 4 cases per year from
1270-1280.

p. 125: "In 1298 Richard Oysel was commissioned to sell trees, wood, and
underwood up to two thousand pounds in the forests, hayes, chaces,
parks, and woods of the king south of the Trent. In Sherwood Forest he
sold almost six thousand oaks along with other wood and underwood for
almost £718, and in various other royal woods and parks his sales
amounted to three hundred pounds. Three years later he added another
£273 from woods and parks in Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire." It
isn't clear to me that the £718 from Sherwood north of the Trent was
considered as part of the amount required from forests south of the Trent.

pp. 129: "Agistment in the larger Sherwood Forest to the north was more
profitable [than in Groveley and Clarendon forests], yielding an average
annual income of £3 12s. 6d ... Nevertheless, even small sums over these
periods of time did add up to respectable totals of more than 23 pounds
for Groveley, 71 pounds for Clarendon, and 211 pounds for Sherwood."

pp. 162-163: "In 1323 Edward II ordered William de Vescy and his fellow
justices to hold an inquest into the office of the warden of Sherwood
Forest ... He held ten knights' fees in chief, and all his lands were
outside the regard and his dogs exempt from being lawed. At the last
eyre it had been determined by William and his fellow justices that the
bailiwick was held by the warden and his heirs in perpetuity. Eleven
years later an examination of rolls by the treasurer and chamberlains
proved equally effective in determining why the office of a forester in
fee within Sherwood had been taken into the king's hands by Edward II
and remained there under his son. This searching of the records showed
that the man's father had appeared before William de Vescy and fellows
in a forest eyre to account for his tenure and that of his father by
producing rolls in which he was found to have made erasures to the great
damage of the king and, thus, forfeited his office."

You may find useful information here:
https://archive.org/details/selectpleasoffor00grearich/page/n277/mode/2up

and elsewhere in the same book.

Peter Stewart

On 28/05/2022 20:39, Girl57 wrote:
> Is it fair to say that Sherwood Forest was among the best known of the King's Forests, way back when, or am I just thinking that because of Robin Hood?

The New Forest in Hampshire is, I think, the best known. Sherwood is
the probably the best known N of the Trent followed, maybe, by the High
Peak.

This map, basedon Ian Simmons' map, shows the various forests but down't
label them all:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Royal.Forests.1327.1336.selected.jpg

On Sunday, May 29, 2022 at 6:52:43 AM UTC-4, Ian Goddard wrote:
> On 28/05/2022 20:39, Girl57 wrote:
> > Is it fair to say that Sherwood Forest was among the best known of the King's Forests, way back when, or am I just thinking that because of Robin Hood?
> The New Forest in Hampshire is, I think, the best known. Sherwood is
> the probably the best known N of the Trent followed, maybe, by the High
> Peak.
>
> This map, basedon Ian Simmons' map, shows the various forests but down't
> label them all:
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Royal.Forests.1327.1336.selected.jpg
Peter and Ian, this is fascinating; thank you. I'd never thought about royal management of forests, and even the definition of "forest." Will look at book and map. Re: "...and all his lands were outside the regard and his dogs exempt from being lawed..." With these benefits of wardenship, why would the fear of being caught not dampen the temptation to take advantage?

I wouldn't have guessed that Sherwood isn't mentioned in Domesday. And I didn't know what "lawing" was until just now...Great explanation and context at these (non-scholarly) sites:

https://www.modernmolosser.com/why-medieval-mastiffs-had-their-toes-amputated#:~:text=Among%20the%20best%2Dknown%20brutality,the%20royal%20forests%20were%20established.

http://newforestcommoner.co.uk/2017/06/11/new-forest-medieval-dog-maiming/

I'm glad not to be tangling with Normans. And that lawing apparently wasn't done by Christopher FitzRandolph's time. Though it was probably common in the era of his (likely, though not proved) many-times great-grandfather, Ranulph Fitz Robert of Middleham (ca 1185-1252), Forester of Wensleydale, York, listed in Douglas Richardson's "Magna Carta Ancestry."

For anyone interested, this is also good (non-scholarly) forest insight:

https://medium.com/illumination/the-rules-of-royal-forests-6592016e6434

The Calendars of Patent Rolls and Close Rolls have many instances of these forestry posts being granted to royal officials and king's clerks. The grant often also conferred the right to exercise the position by deputy.

Wibs

On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 5:08:48 AM UTC-4, Wibs wrote:
> The Calendars of Patent Rolls and Close Rolls have many instances of these forestry posts being granted to royal officials and king's clerks. The grant often also conferred the right to exercise the position by deputy.
>
> Wibs
Wibs, thank you. This helps a lot. Trying to find insight about Christopher so I can place him in larger context of family and other relationships.

The FitzRandolph pedigree in a Notts visitation includes a couple of interesting notes about Christopher having received a letter/instructions from Henry VIII:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Visitations_of_the_County_of_Nottingham/U3KODwAAQBAJ?q=langton+hall,+nott&gbpv=1#f=false

But I don't know where these references would have come from or how reliable they are. It does make me wonder who Christopher and his family knew, etc.