Definition
A fixed period of thirty-one days during which hunting in a royal forest was prohibited by law. The fence month ran from fifteen days before midsummer to fifteen days after midsummer — roughly June 9 through July 9 under the old calendar — and corresponded to the season when female deer were fawning. During this period, entry into the forest for purposes of hunting was unlawful, and the deer were considered under the special protection of the crown. The prohibition applied to all persons regardless of otherwise-held hunting rights or forest privileges.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The month in which female deer are fawning, when hunting is prohibited.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The month in which female deer are fawning, when hunting is prohibited; distinguished from fence time, the breeding time of fish or game generally.
The common and legal definitions are unusually close here, because the legal term never migrated far into general usage. The relevant distinction for researchers is not between common and legal meaning but between the fence month as a fixed calendrical period in forest law (a legal term of art with defined dates and enforcement consequences) and the looser popular sense of any closed season for game. Webster's gesture toward fence time points to a broader concept that the legal term does not share — fence month in forest law is date-specific, not species-general.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
DEFENCE MONTH: An alternative name for the same period. Burrill records both fence month and defence month as designations for the mensis prohibitionis, reflecting that the prohibition was understood simultaneously as a fence (enclosure, protection) and a defence of the deer during their most vulnerable season. The two names are interchangeable in historical forest law sources; neither denotes a distinct legal concept.
FENCE TIME: A related but broader term appearing in common usage and in some later game law contexts, referring generally to the breeding season of fish or game during which taking is restricted. Fence time is not a term of art in royal forest law in the same way fence month is, and the two should not be conflated in archival research.
Why It Matters in Research
Fence month is a term that surfaces almost exclusively in the context of English royal forest law and its commentators. Researchers will encounter it most often in treatises on forest law, in historical accounts of forest administration, and in sources discussing the rights and obligations of forest officers such as verderers and regarders.
The term belongs to a cluster of highly specific forest law vocabulary — including purlieu, regard, vert, venison, and agistment — that requires period-appropriate sources to interpret correctly. Modern legal dictionaries largely omit fence month or treat it as a historical curiosity; researchers working with pre-nineteenth-century English forest records should rely on dedicated forest law treatises and the historical dictionaries.
The calendar dimension is a research trap. The fence month was calculated from midsummer, and the operative dates shifted depending on whether old-style or new-style calendar conventions apply in a given document. A source citing the fence month without specifying the calendar system in use may place the period as much as eleven days off from what a researcher expects.
Fence month also serves as an index of broader forest law enforcement: records of presentments for hunting during the fence month illuminate both the administration of royal forests and the range of persons who exercised or claimed forest rights. The prohibition applied to the forest proper; it did not automatically govern hunting in chases or parks held by private lords, though parallel restrictions often appeared in those contexts by custom or grant.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill defines fence month as the mensis prohibitionis or mensis vetitus — the prohibited or forbidden month — and gives the same thirty-one-day window running fifteen days before and fifteen days after midsummer. He notes that defence month is a synonym, explaining the dual nomenclature without resolving which form was more prevalent in practice. Burrill's entry is brief but reliable on the structural features of the term.
Webster's 1913 confirms the core meaning and adds the fence time comparison, which is useful for distinguishing the two concepts but does not elaborate on the legal enforcement mechanism or the forest law context in which fence month operated.
Neither source addresses the administrative machinery behind the prohibition — the forest courts, the eyres, or the role of forest officers in policing the fence month — which must be supplied from treatise sources. Burrill's Latin equivalents (mensis prohibitionis, mensis vetitus) are valuable for researchers working in Latin forest records, where the English term will not appear.
Jurisdictional Note
Fence month is a term of English royal forest law and has no direct counterpart in American legal history. American game law developed independently through state legislation and does not use this terminology. Researchers encountering fence month in any American legal source are almost certainly dealing with historical quotation, comparative legal history, or error.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Forest Law
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Game Laws