The offences against the forest-law were various and of very different degrees: the _ferae forestae_ were not nearly so sacred as the _ferae regales_, and as for the _vert_, it was of so little regard that the law hardly contemplated it, always excepting the breaking the king’s chace. To hunt a beast of the forest (_fera forestae_), either voluntarily or intentionally, till it panted, was punished in a free man by a fine of ten shillings: in one of a lower grade[149], by a fine of twenty: in a serf, by a flogging. But if it were a royal beast (_fera regalis_) which the English call a stag, the punishments were to be respectively, one and two years servitude, and for the serf, outlawry. If they killed it, the free man was to lose _scutum libertatis_[150], the next man his liberty, and the serf his life. Bishops, abbots and barons were not to be vexed with prosecutions for hunting, except they killed stags: in that case they were liable to such penalty as the king willed. Besides the beasts of the forest, the roebuck, hare and rabbit were protected by fines. Wolves and foxes were neither beasts of the forest nor chace, and might be killed with impunity, but not within the bounds of the forest, as that would be a breaking of the chace; nor was the boar considered a beast of venery. No one was to cut brushwood without permission of the _primarius_, under a penalty; and he that felled a tree which supplied food for the beasts, was to pay a fine of twenty shillings over and above that for breaking the chace. Every free man might have his own vert and venison on his own lands, but without a chace; and no man of the middle class (_mediocris_) was to keep greyhounds. A gentleman (_liberalis_[151]) might, but he must first have the knee-sinew cut in presence of the head-forester, if he lived within ten miles of the forest: if his dogs came within that distance, he was to be fined a shilling a mile: if the dog entered the precincts of the forest, his master was to pay ten shillings. Other kinds of dogs, not considered dangerous, might be kept without mutilation; but if they became mad and by the negligence of their masters went wandering about, heavy fines were incurred. If found within the bounds of the forest, the fine was two hundred shillings: if such a rabid dog bit a beast of the forest, the fine rose to twelve hundred: but if a royal beast was bitten, the crime was of the deepest dye. ----- Footnote 149: _Illiberalis_; perhaps a freedman, or a free man not a landowner. The distinctions here are _liber_, _illiberalis_, _servus_. Footnote 150: This must denote _gentry_, something more than mere freedom. Footnote 151: The _mediocris_ is defined as twýhynde, the _liberalis_ as twelfhynde. § 33, 34. -----