Agricultural History Review, Volume 65 Part 2 (2017), pp. 167–193

A reappraisal of the evidence for hays in medieval England questions current explanations of their nature and function and concludes that they were not always associated with hunting. At the time of the Domesday survey some were used to hold or capture deer, but in earlier centuries others were associated with livestock. Traditional rights of common pasture in some manorial hays in the twelfth and subsequent centuries suggest that these hays originated in the early medieval period as enclosures for livestock and were not necessarily wooded. It is likely that changes in the nature and purpose of hays took place in the context of agricultural, demographic, economic, social and political developments. The many smaller hays that appear in late medieval records, notably in the north west and south west of England, were also associated with livestock, and some were arguably created during the expansion of settlement and agriculture during that period. 

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