Shotover Country Park was once part of the royal forests, where the king hunted, writes CHRIS KOENIG

Anyone concerned about the debates over the environment and the freedom to roam should perhaps spare a thought for the medieval inhabitants of Oxfordshire. From the Norman Conquest until the end of the 14th century, about a third of England was covered by Royal Forest, that is land set aside for the king's hunting pleasures, where special forest law pertained and where only the king and his aristocratic cronies could hunt.

Oxfordshire was typical, with Shotover Forest, stretching from the escarpment of Shotover Hill right down to Oxford's Magdalen Bridge in the east, and Wychwood Forest, with the royal palace and park of Woodstock (now Blenheim) at its core, in the west.

It seems that William the Conquerer and his son William II, famously killed in a hunting accident, had much more concern about the animals living in the forests than about the common people living there.

Horrible punishments including death and mutilation were regularly handed down by the forest courts for anyone with the temerity to interfere with the king's game or to harm his trees without permission. Blinding, for example, was a common punishment for killing a hare.

In short, what a person could or could not do in the royal forests, or where they could or could not roam, was severely controlled. But the land and game was probably better preserved than it ever had been before or has been since.

Royal Forest as a form of land management was introduced from the continent by William I, but the term forest did not have its modern connotations. It simply meant grassland, woodland, heath or wetland that was capable of supporting deer and game.

The eminent jurist Sir William Blackstone (1733-80), who was the recorder of Wallingford and an Oxford University professor and the author of the seminal textbook Commentaries, made a detailed study of forest law and its courts.

Inhabitants of such land could manage it and subsist off it in strictly circumscribed ways. For example, common people could graze domestic animals there, in carefully managed areas, or grow vegetables (usually using the strip farming method), and trees were carefully pollarded, thus preserving the trees themselves as well as providing fuel and building materials.

The lovely, gnarled old Shotover oak in Shotover Country Park, the remains of the old royal forest now managed by Oxford City Council, is an example of such a pollarded tree. It was until recently thought to have been about 250 years old but is now thought to be more than 400. Experts say that pollarding long ago probably prolonged its life.

Shotover Forest, which once extended to 15 square miles in size, ceased to be a royal forest in 1660. Its history provides an insight into English land management over the centuries.

Kings soon realised, for instance, that their forests were a wonderful source of revenue. They charged their forest subjects for pannage (feeding pigs on acorns) and agistment (grazing) and drew money from fines imposed in the forest courts (swainmotes).

Unfortunately, Shotover Forest suffered mismanagement during Cromwell's Commonwealth when Sir Timothy Tyrrell was Keeper of Shotover. There was already not all that much to mismanage since Charles I had cut down many of the oaks to use to defend his royalist capital of Oxford during the civil war.

It is ironic that it was his efforts at imposing his ancient rights which had largely contributed to the unrest that caused the war.

I, for one, am simply grateful that Shotover Country Park is still there for all the Queen's subjects to enjoy!