Editing Ashdown Forest (section)

==Toponymy==
Ashdown Forest does not seem to have existed as a distinct entity before the [[Norman Conquest]] of 1066, nor is it mentioned in the [[Domesday Book]] of 1086. The area that was to become known as Ashdown Forest was merely an unidentified part of the Forest of Pevensel, a Norman creation within the [[Rape (county subdivision)|Rape]] of [[Pevensey]] that had been carved out of a much larger area of woodland, the [[Weald]], which itself was a part of the prehistoric forest cover of the British landmass, the [[British wildwood]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://south-coast-central.co.uk/wildwood.htm|title=An Introduction To Britain's Lost Wildwood|website=South-coast-central.co.uk|access-date=16 December 2017}}</ref> The first recorded reference to Ashdown Forest by name is in the period 1100–1130, when [[Henry I of England|Henry I]] confirmed the right of monks to use a road across the forest of "Essessdone", a right which the monks claimed to have held since the Conquest.

"Ashdown Forest" consists of words from two different languages. The first word, ''Ashdown'', is of Anglo-Saxon origin. It is probably derived from the personal name of an individual or people called ''Æsca'', combined with ''dūn'', Old English for hill or down, hence ''Æsca's dūn''—the hill of Æsca.<ref>A. Mawer & F.M. Stenton, ''The Place Names of Sussex'' (1929), '''1''',1, 2.</ref> It has no connection with [[ash tree]]s, which have never been common given the soil conditions.

The second word, ''forest'', is a term here used by the Normans to denote land that was subject to [[Royal forest|forest law]], a harsh and much resented supplement to the [[common law]] that was designed to protect, for the king's benefit, the beasts of the chase, such as deer and wild boar, and the vegetation (the ''vert'') that provided them with food and cover. Forest law prescribed severe penalties, particularly in the 11th and 12th centuries, for those who transgressed, and for a time it governed large parts of the English countryside, including entire counties such as Surrey and Essex. However, while forest land was legally set aside by the crown for hunting and protected its sovereign right to all wild animals, commoners were still able to exercise—within strict limits—many of their traditional or customary rights, for example, to pasture their swine in the woods or collect wind-blown branches and trees. Thus, in the 13th century, the commoners of Ashdown were recorded as grazing large numbers of swine and cattle on the forest alongside the many deer that were kept for aristocratic sport and the provision of [[venison]].<ref>'Forest' is derived from the term 'forestis', which first appeared in the early Middle Ages in deeds of donation of the Merovingian and Frankish kings and is thought to refer to wilderness that had not been cultivated and which had no clear owner; such wilderness lay beyond land that was cultivated and settled and which did have a clear owner. The majority view of scholars about the origin of the concept of "forestis" is that it is derived from the Latin ''foris'' or ''foras'', which means "outside", "outside it" and "outside the settlement". Forest law introduced by the Normans came to govern for a time almost one-third of England, before being rolled back in the 13th century. Unlike the case on the European continent, it also applied to areas that did have a clear owner. See Vera (2000), pp.103-108 and Langton and Jones (2008).</ref>

Note that ''forest'' does not have the modern meaning of "heavily wooded". Medieval hunting forests like Ashdown consisted of a mixture of heath, woodland and other habitats in which a variety of game could flourish, and where deer in particular could find both open pasture for browsing and woodland thickets for protective cover.