Legal Definitions - dangeria

Dangeria

Historically, dangeria was a specific payment made by tenants living within a lord's forest. This payment granted them permission to plow and sow crops on forest land during the same season that the forest was traditionally used for "pannage"—the practice of feeding livestock, especially pigs, on fallen acorns, nuts, and other forest mast. Essentially, it was a fee to allow agricultural activity to proceed even when it might conflict with or overlap with other established forest uses.

Examples:

• Imagine a medieval farmer, Thomas, who lives on a small holding within the Earl of Warwick's vast forest. Thomas's family is growing, and he needs more land to cultivate oats to feed them. He identifies a fertile clearing deep within the forest that is typically used by the Earl's swineherds during the autumn pannage season. To gain the Earl's approval to clear, plow, and sow this new plot during the autumn, Thomas would pay dangeria, acknowledging the potential interference with the traditional pannage rights.

• Consider a village whose inhabitants hold customary rights to graze their pigs in a specific section of the local baron's forest every autumn. One year, a tenant farmer, Elara, wants to plant a late-season crop of winter wheat in a field adjacent to this section, requiring her to plow and sow her land during the early autumn. Since her agricultural activities would coincide with and potentially disrupt the traditional pannage in the nearby forest, Elara would need to pay dangeria to the baron to secure permission for her plowing and sowing during that specific season.

• A powerful Duke manages his extensive forest lands for multiple purposes: timber production, hunting, and providing pannage for his own pigs and those of his tenants. A tenant family, struggling with poor yields from their existing fields, requests permission to cultivate a small, unused clearing within the forest. The Duke agrees, but because this cultivation would involve plowing and sowing during the traditional autumn pannage season—potentially reducing the available forage for the pigs—he demands a payment of dangeria. This payment compensates the Duke for the potential loss or inconvenience caused by allowing agricultural use to overlap with the established forest right.