Assart (pronounced ess-sart)
(1) In English law, as an intransitive verb, the act of grubbing up trees or bushes to convert forest into arable land; variant is the less common essart.
(2) In English law, as a noun, a piece of land cleared.
Pre 1000: From the Middle French essarter, from the Old French essart, from the Late Latin exartum, assumed from the Vulgar Latin exsartum, neuter of exsartus, past participle of exsarire
(to weed out), the construct being ex
(out) + sarire (to hoe, weed). It was akin to the Old High German sarf (sharp), the Latin sarpere (to prune), the Ancient Greek harpagē (hook, rake) and the Sanskrit sṛṇī (sickle).
Land clearance
To assart is to clear forested lands agricultural or other purposes; in English land law, it was illegal to assart any part of a royal forest without permission and, once approval was granted, the parcel of land assarted was described as “an assart” (except in northern England where the common law term was “a riding”). In medieval England, clearances happened usually on common land which was then put to private use, “assart rents” were those paid to the Crown for the land assarted.
Assarting has been practiced since the last days
of the hunter-gatherer societies towards the end of the pre-historic era,
usually to increase the production of food to feed rising populations. The thousand-year trend, in most parts of the
world settled or colonised by Europeans, has been that assartment has tended to
increase the acreage of cleared land suitable for agriculture and reduce the
size of forests. However, one aberration
happened during the fourteenth century when the Black Death pandemic radically depopulated
the countryside and many assarted areas reverted to woodland.
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