Definition
A Latin legal term from old English law meaning to disafforest — that is, to remove land from the legal status of royal forest, thereby stripping away the forest laws and special royal jurisdiction that applied to it and restoring the land to ordinary common or private use. The term appears primarily in medieval English legal texts concerning the governance and limitation of the royal forest system.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this term in historical sources are working within a narrow but important slice of English constitutional and property history. The term is inseparable from the broader struggle between the Crown and subjects over the extent of royal forest law — a conflict that culminated in the Forest Charter of 1217 (Carta de Foresta), which accompanied Magna Carta as a companion document and directly addressed the over-expansion of royal forest jurisdiction. The passage quoted in Burrill derives from Magna Carta itself (the version issued under King John, chapter 47), making this term a marker of constitutional significance, not merely a technical property descriptor.
A key research trap: forest law operated as a jurisdiction entirely parallel to the common law, with its own courts, officers, and offenses. When land was "afforested," it did not simply become wooded — it became subject to a distinct legal regime protecting the king's game and venison. Disafforestation (deafforestare) therefore had legal consequences far beyond land use: it returned the land's inhabitants to the ordinary operation of common law rights. Researchers using this term as an entry point should be alert to the distinction between the physical forest and the legal forest, which were not coextensive.
The term will not appear in modern legal sources. Its corpus relevance is confined to medieval English law, Forest Charter scholarship, Magna Carta commentary, and histories of royal prerogative and property rights. Researchers connecting Crown forest rights to later enclosure history or common rights discourse will find deafforestare as an early pivot point in that lineage.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the sole dictionary treatment identified for this term and handles it concisely and accurately. Burrill quotes directly from Magna Carta (Johan. c. 47), which is the primary source of the term's legal significance and the appropriate anchor for any treatment of it. The quotation — "Omnes forestæ quæ aforestatæ sunt tempore nostro, statim deafforestentur" — translates as "All forests which have been afforested in our time shall be forthwith disafforested," and captures the term in its most consequential historical deployment.
Burrill does not elaborate on the broader forest law framework or the constitutional stakes of the Forest Charter, which limits the entry's utility for researchers who need context rather than mere translation. No other historical dictionary in the present source set treats this term. Researchers requiring deeper treatment should consult specialized scholarship on English forest law and the Carta de Foresta rather than relying on dictionary sources alone.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to medieval English law and has no recognized counterpart in American, Scottish, or other common law traditions. It is historically bounded and carries no continuing operative legal meaning in any modern jurisdiction.