hagg

1) Of Old Norse origin; a word for a place where trees were felled, a clearing.

In the earliest references the precise meaning is usually in doubt: 1315 'for escapes in the Hagge he is amerced 8d', Rastrick

1488 I wylle that my sone Robert have resnabylle ways when he wylle sell ony hages at Ernclyfe, Ingleby Arncliffe. It acquired different shades of meaning regionally but came to be used in coppice management for a portion of a wood marked out for felling. In a monastic survey of c.1540, High Wood in Hampole near Doncaster had 18 coppices called haggs, viz 1 of the age of 18 years another of the age of 17 years and so in succession from year to year: the wood contained 120 acres and an eighteen-year coppice cycle was operated. There was an overlap in meaning with ‘fall’, ‘spring’ and ‘copy’: in 1524, for example, woodland in Thorpe Underwood was leased to Francis Man, who had the right to make an annual copye ande hagge of the said woodes and spryngies in fagottes. In 1534, Henry Babthorpe bequeathed his lands to his sons who were not to take profit from them nor sell them, but might have suche hagges and falles as have been yearlie accustomed to be felled, kidded and solde : the words faggot and kid had much the same meaning and both could be used for fuel. In 1577-8, the names of the Fawles & Hagges in Settrington included one springe called the Bushell Hagge. From the late Middle Ages it was a common element in minor place-names: 1540 iiij hagges or sprynges within ... the outwoddes of Selby wherof one ys called Sparke Hagg

1645 with the herbage of twoe springe woodes thereunto adjoining upon the south and west sides of one wood called the Hagge, Honley. It occurs also in an unusual by-name: 1237 in foviam essarti quod fuit Johannis de Wodehag, Flaxley.

dates 1237 1315 1488 1524 1534 1540 1577-1578

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