Legal Definitions - wood-leave

The term wood-leave refers to a historical legal right or license granted to an individual or entity, allowing them to cut down, remove, and utilize standing timber found on land owned by another party. Essentially, it was a formal permission to harvest trees from someone else's property, often for a specific purpose or duration.

Here are a few examples to illustrate this concept:

• Imagine a medieval village where a local lord owned vast forests. A villager's cottage roof was in disrepair, and they needed timber to fix it. The lord might grant the villager a wood-leave, giving them the specific right to enter a designated section of the lord's forest, cut down a certain number of trees, and take the wood for their personal use in repairing their home. This illustrates the granting of a right to an individual to use timber from another's land.

• Consider a monastery in the 14th century that needed a continuous supply of wood for heating, cooking, and occasional construction projects. A wealthy noble, who owned extensive woodlands adjacent to the monastery's property, could grant the monastic order a long-term wood-leave. This agreement would permit the monks to regularly harvest a specified amount of timber from a particular area of the noble's forest, ensuring their ongoing resource needs were met without owning the land itself.

• In a scenario where a large estate owner wished to clear a portion of their forest for agricultural expansion but lacked the resources or expertise to fell the trees themselves, they might sell a wood-leave to a professional timber merchant. This contract would grant the merchant the exclusive right to enter that specific section of the estate, cut down all the designated trees, and remove the timber for commercial sale within a defined timeframe. The estate owner benefits from the cleared land and payment, while the merchant gains access to valuable timber without purchasing the land.