"It is not sufficient for anyone who avows distress to say that he avows the taking, &c., for that he found the beasts in his chace of such a place, or in the common of such a place, where he had no right of common; for it may be that neither party had a right of common; and thus it is not sufficient but he must say that he found them in his several pasture, or must say some other thing that touches himself and gives him a right to impound what he found. For no man can avow a distress in a common pasture save the lord of the soil of the common pasture. For if any of the commoners were to make avowry for beasts taken in the common pasture it would then follow that if the Inquest were to pass against the plaintiff, he who avowed the taking in the common pasture would have the return of the beasts and the amends, and not the lord of the pasture, and that would be improper. But this does not hold good where the King is the lord of the common pasture, and several persons holding of him in socage have common, because in that case anyone having common may avow a good distress. The reason is because the King will not be a party in such case or distrein anyone." In mediaeval country life, then, commons might be either manorial or forestal. Bishop Stubbs in his "Constitutional History" affirms that "neither the hundreds of England nor the shires appear ever to have had common lands." As regards hundreds, on the enclosure of a common, allotments were made to several townships of Knaresborough, and Stubbs himself allows that "it seems a fair instance of common lands of a hundred." Similarly, there is in the hundred of Coleness in Suffolk a pasture common to all the inhabitants. But in each instance we have probably to distinguish between use and ownership; and the same distinction applies to counties, otherwise the case of the Devonshire Commons might seem to refute the dictum.