Cities and towns -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- History, Local; Great Britain -- Social conditions; Villages -- Great Britain
2. As years rolled on, the =manors= became more valuable, and new
manors were formed. In the earlier days the manor and the =parish=
meant much the same thing; but in course of time, though the boundaries
of the parish did not alter much, the number of manors increased in
some parishes from one to two or three, or even more.
3. In many cases the mode of life on these manors went on unchanged for
centuries, the tenants of these different manors going to the original
=parish church=, and the parish priest ministering to the people in all
the manors in his parish. In other cases daughter churches, or =chapels
of ease=, were built in the newer manors, and provision was made
for the support of a priest to minister to them. These have in some
instances been erected in the course of time into separate parishes;
but many remained as parts of the mother parish, though they might be
several miles away from the parish church.
4. All through the Norman times there was a tendency to make new
manors, and this gave rise to so many difficulties that the practice
was stopped in the time of King Edward I.
5. In all parts of England to-day we have =parks=, belonging to big
mansions; and our big towns and cities have their =parks= too, which
are usually recreation-grounds for the people. A park in Norman and in
Early English times was very different in appearance from our parks,
whether in town or country. Just as the king had his great forests for
hunting wild beasts, so in the later Norman times the great lords were
anxious to enclose pieces of waste and forest land for the same purpose.
6. As we have seen, there were in early times vast tracts of wild,
uncultivated, unenclosed land, partly wooded and partly heath lands,
between the manors, which belonged to the king. The king alone could
give leave to make a park. In the reign of King Henry III especially we
find many such parks were "empaled". Of course the nobles had to give
something to the king for this privilege.
7. Many of the old parks in England, now celebrated for their fine
timber and beautiful scenery, date back to this period; but they were
at first much wilder, and the trees then were neither so many nor so
fine as they are now. The deer in them to-day just serve to remind us
of the "wild beasts" with which they were stocked.
8. The laws for preserving the wild beasts and the game in these
parks and forests and chases were very strict, harsh, and severe.
Many of these new parks took away from the villeins, who lived in the
neighbourhood, certain rights and privileges which their forefathers
had had "time out of mind".
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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