The Charta de foresta is a charter that re-established for free men rights of access to the royal forest that had been eroded by King William the Conqueror and his heirs.
Forest to the Normans meant an enclosed area where the monarch had exclusive rights to animals of the chase and the greenery on which they fed. It did not consist only of trees, but included large areas of commons such as heathland, grassland and wetlands, productive of food, grazing and other resources. Lands became more and more restricted as King Richard and King John designated greater and greater areas as royal forest. At its widest extent, royal forest covered about one-third of the land of southern England. Thus it became an increasing hardship on the common people to try to farm, forage, and otherwise use the land they lived on.
The first chapter of the charter protected common pasture in the forest for all those "accustomed to it", and chapter nine provided for "every man to agist his wood in the forest as he wishes". It added "Henceforth every freeman, in his wood or on his land that he has in the forest, may with impunity make a mill, fish-preserve, pond, marl-pit, ditch, or arable in cultivated land outside coverts, provided that no injury is thereby given to any neighbour."
