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.
The Devonshire Commons are not to be confused with the Forest of
Dartmoor. They constitute rather the purlieus, and, in general, afford
better pasturage than the forest itself. Neither are they identical
with the commons of the separate vills--the manorial or parochial
commons. The whole of the inhabitants of the county may be regarded as
possessing an interest in the Devonshire Commons, with the exception of
the people of Barnstaple and Totnes, the reason being that those
districts not having been afforested with the rest of the county, the
residents acquired no new privileges when Devonshire was disafforested.
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