Over his private forests the king naturally exercised all the rights of absolute ownership; and as his _ban_ ultimately implies this, at least in theory, it becomes difficult to distinguish those which he dealt with as _dominus fundi_, from those in which he acted _iure regali_. That he reserved the vert and venison in some of them, and _preserved_ with a strictness worthy of more enlightened ages, is clear from the severe provisions of Cnut’s Constitutiones de Foresta[148]. According to this important document, the forest law was as follows. In every county there were to be four thanes, whose business it was, under the title of Head-foresters, _primarii forestae_, to hold plea of all offences touching the forest, and having the _ban_ or power of punishing for such offences. Under them were sixteen lesser thanes, but gentlemen, whose business it was to look after the vert and venison; and these had nothing to do with the process in the forest court. To each of the sixteen were assigned two yeomen, who were to keep watch at night over the vert and venison, and do the necessary menial services: but they were freemen, and even employment in the forest gave freedom. All the expenses of these officers were defrayed by the king, and he further supplied the outfit of the several classes: to the head-foresters, yearly, two horses, one saddled, a sword, five lances, a spear, a shield and two hundred shillings of silver: to the second class, one horse, one lance, one shield and sixty shillings: to the yeomen, a lance, a cross-bow and fifteen shillings. All these persons were quit and free of all summonses, county-courts, and military dues: but the two secondary classes owed suit and surface to the court of the _primarii_ (Swánmót), which held plea and gave judgment in their suits: in those of the _primarii_ themselves, the king was sole judge. The court of the Forest was to be held four times a year, and was empowered to administer the triple ordeal, and generally to exercise such a jurisdiction as belonged only to the higher and royal courts. The persons of the head-foresters were guarded by severe penalties; violence offered to them was punished in a free man with loss of liberty, in a serf with loss of the hand; and a second offence entailed the penalty of death. ----- Footnote 148: See these in Thorpe, i. 426. -----