estovers

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Related to estovers: turbary

estovers

(ɛˈstəʊvəz)

pl n

(Law) law a right allowed by law to tenants of land to cut timber, esp for fuel and repairs

[C15: from Anglo-French, plural of estover, n use of Old French estovoir to be necessary, from Latin est opus there is need]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

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References in periodicals archive ?

They were used to regulate common rights, like estovers (the right to gather kindling) and turbary (the right to cut peat), and responsibilities, like the obligation to maintain drains and sea walls.

The micro-politics of water management in early modern England: Regulation and representation in Commissions of Sewers

Assart of the forest, rights of agistment, rights of pannage, estovers of fire, house, cart or hedge, rush, fern, gorze and sedge rights, rights to searwood, to windfalls, to dotards, rights of lops and tops--in all, the overlapping vocabulary of natural and social relations recall a forgotten world, easily romanticized by those first criticizing the simplicities of meum et tuum.

Karl Marx, the theft of wood, and working-class composition: a contribution to the current debate

(12) Rejuvenating long-held common rights of estovers (collecting wood for fuel), piscary (fishing rights) and grazing may seem distant to modern life, but some of these could well become of pressing practical use once more.

Waking the green giant: how can we nurture a stronger sense of connection to our environment and local spaces?

These included the right to have one's livestock pasture and partake of the "common of herbage" for a specified time in the forest (agistment), the right to have one's pigs access acorns and beech mast (pannage), and the right to wood for fuel, repairs, and other necessities (estovers).