Forest Laws

   PRESENTED BY THE DOMESDAY BOOK OF DOGS The Forest Laws.   For a nation of so-called dog-lovers Britain has seen some unspeakable cruelty to dogs that borders on the horrific.  Usually enacted in the name of the forest laws that were first introduced by Canute in a witan of 1016, Constitutiones de Foresta, and lasting for over six-hundred years until they finally petered out during the reign of the Stuarts.  There were no similar laws in France but the Norman conquerors of Britain took to Canute’s, quite mild,  forest laws so ardently that they even added to them and introduced seemingly ever more punitive and imaginative punishments on dogs, if not men, who fell afoul of the laws.     The idea behind the forest laws was, amongst other things, to ensure that the dogs of the lower classes were still able to do their work but would be unable to harass the king’s deer.  Various methods of disabling dogs, or expeditation, were practised from hoxing, or hock-sinewing, where tendons of