CHAP. CV.

coryla'cea:. que'rcus.

1747

economy of our Saxon ancestors, gave particular directions relating to thefattening of swine in woods, since then called pannage, or pawnage. (Mart.Mill.) The same king made injuring or destroying trees penal; and thosewho did so clandestinely were fined thirty shillings, the very sound of theaxe being sufficient conviction ; and the man who felled a tree under whoseshadow thirty hogs could stand incurred a double penalty, and was mulctedto sixty shillings. ( Hunter’s Evelyn.) In a succeeding century, Elfhelmusreserves the pannage of two hundred hogs for his lady, in part of her dower;and mast is particularly mentioned, about the middle of the eleventh century,in a donation of Edward the Confessor. It appears from the Domesday Book,that, in William the Conqueror’s time, oaks were still esteemed principallyfor the food they afforded to swine; for the value of the woods, in severalcounties, is estimated by the number of hogs they would fatten. The surveyis taken so accurately, that in some places woods are mentioned of a singlehog. (Mart. Mill.) The rights of pannage were greatly encroached on bythe Norman princes, in their zeal for extending forests for the chase; and thiswas one of the grievances which King John was obliged to redress in thecharter of the liberties of the forest. (Chron. Sax.)

The number of oak forests which formerly existed in Britain is proved bythe many names still borne by British towns, which are evidently derivedfrom the word oak. “ For one Ash-ford, Beech-hill, Elm-hurst, or Poplar,”Burnet remarks, “ we find a host of oaks, Oakleys, Actons, Acklands, Akenhams, Acringtons, and so forth. The Saxon ac, aec, aac, and the later ok,okes, oak, have been most curiously and variously corrupted. Thus we findac, aec, degenerating into ak, ack, aike, ack, acks, whence ax, exe; often, also,aspirated into hac, hace, and hacks. In like manner, we trace oak, oke, ok,oc, ock, oeck, ocke, oks, ocks,ockes, running into oax,ox, oxes, for ox, oxs, withtheir farther corruptions, auck, uck, huck, hoke, and wok. As an exampleof this last extreme, the town Oakingham, or Ockingham, is at this daycalled and spelt indifferently Oakingham, Okingham, or Wokingham; andOaksey or Oxessey are two common ways of writing the name of oneidentical place. Oakham, Okeham, Ockham, and Wockham, Hokenorton onthe river Oke, Woking in Surrey, Wacton in Herefordshire and Norfolk, Okeyor Wokey in Somersetshire, Oakefield or Wokefield in Berkshire, and Oldor Wold in Northamptonshire, with the provincial Whom or Whoam, areother similar corruptions.” (Amcen. Quer., fol. 11.)

The history of the use of the British oak in building, carpentry, and fornaval purposes, is necessarily coeval with that of the civilisation of the Britishislands. The timber found in the oldest buildings is uniformly of oak. Pro-fessor Burnet possessed a piece of oak from King John’s Palace at Eltham,perfectly sound, fine, and strong, which can be traced back upwards of 500years. The doors of the inner chapels of Westminster Abbey are said to becoeval with the original building; and if by this is meant Sibert’s Abbey ofWestminster, which was founded in 611, they must be more.than 1200 yearsold. The shrine of Edward the Confessor, which must be nearly 800 yearsold, since Edward died in 1066, is also of oak. One of the oaken corona-tion chairs in Westminster Abbey has been in its present situation about 540years. “ In the eastern end of the ancient Chapel of St. Stephen, in the Castleof Winchester, now termed the County Hall, is Arthur’s round table, the chiefcuriosity of the place. It bears the figure of that Prince, so famous in the oldromances, and the names of several of his knights, Sir Tristram, Sir Gawaine,Sir Gerath, &c. Paulus Jovius, who wrote between 200 and 300 years ago,relates that this table was shown by Henry VIII. to his illustrious visiterthe Emperor Charles V., as the actual oaken table made and placed thereby the renowned British Prince, Arthur, who lived in the early part of thesixth century; that is, about 1030 years ago. Hence the poet Draytonsings, —

‘And so great Arthur’s seat ould Winchester prefers,Whose ould round table yet she vaunteth to be hers.’

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