Rather than hoping for the emergence of some new ‘party of the left,’ EMMA DENT COAD sees a broad alliance of local parties and community groups as a way of reviving democratic progressive politics
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When Henry III had to bow to public opinion
It's hard to think of any single piece of legislation enacted on this island since November 1217 that was more radical in spirit or in practice than the Forest Charter, writes MAT COWARD
MOMENTOUS: (L to R) Henry III of England by David Cole, 1694; The Charter of the Forest, 1225 reissue, held by the British Library
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THE word “forest” was brought to England by the Normans, and it didn’t have much to do with trees.
A forest was an area of mixed land — fields, scrub, woods, marsh, heath — in which only the king, or those he licensed, were allowed to hunt. The establishment of forests was an attack on the ancient freedoms of the high and the livelihoods of the low which led to centuries of class conflict.
As the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle put it, William the Conqueror “set apart a vast deer preserve, and imposed laws concerning it. The rich complained, and the poor lamented, but he was too relentless to care, though all might hate him.”
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