Assart

is land within a manor recently cleared and brought under. Typically assarting is the principal method of “colonization” within a feudal fief. Under most land law, it is illegal to assart any part of a royal forest without permission. This is the greatest that can be committed in a forest, being more than a waste: for whereas waste of the forest involves  trees and shrubs, this vegetation can grow again; assarting involves completely rooting up all trees &mdash; the total  of the forested area.

The term “assart” is also used for a parcel of land assarted. Assart rents are those paid to the crown for the forest lands assarted. The word origin is from the word essarter meaning to remove or grub out woodland. In northern Hârn this is referred to as ‘ridding’.

The process
The land cleared is usually common land but after assarting the space often becomes privately used. The process takes several forms. Usually it is done by one farmer who has out a clearing from the woodland, leaving a hedged field. However, sometimes groups of individuals or even entire villages do the work and the results are divided into strips and shared among tenant farmers. Monastic communities, particularly the ans, sometimes assart, as well as local lords. The cleared land often leaves behind an assart hedge, which often contains a high number of woodland trees such as small leafed lime or wild service and contains trees that rarely colonize planted hedges, such as hazel. Examples are in, where there is a difference in the hedges in the west and the east of the county, at in northern  where the modern hedges still follow the boundaries of an ancient forest, and at  in  where there is an unusually long hedge made up of coppiced lime trees that is the remnant of a seventh-century woodland clearance.

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