View source for Purlieu

{{Short description|Outlying parts of a place or district}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Italic title|reason=.}}
'''Purlieu''' is a term used for the outlying parts of a [[Location (geography)|place]] or district. It was a term of the old [[Royal Forest|Forest law]], and meant, as defined by [[John Manwood]], ''Treatise of the Lawes of the Forest'' (1598, 4th ed. 1717),{{blockquote|a certain territory of ground adjoining unto the forest [which] was once forest-land and afterwards disafforested by the perambulations made for the severing of the new forests from the old}} 
The owner of freelands in the purlieu to the yearly value of forty shillings was known as a '''purlieu-man''' or '''purley-man'''. The benefits of disafforestation accrued only to the owner of the lands. There seems no doubt that ''purlieu'' or ''purley'' represents the Anglo-[[French language|French]] ''pourallé lieu'' (old French {{lang|fro|pouraler}}, {{lang|fro|puraler}}, to go through [[Latin]] {{lang|la|perambulare}}), a legal term meaning properly a [[Beating the bounds|perambulation to determine the boundaries]] of a manor, parish, or similar region.

The word survives in placenames. Examples include [[Dibden Purlieu]] in [[Hampshire]], on the border of the [[New Forest]], and [[Bedford Purlieus National Nature Reserve|Bedford Purlieus]], once part of [[Rockingham Forest]]; also as [[Purley, London|Purley]], in London, and [[Purley on Thames]], in Berkshire. It also survives in the surname, [[Purley (name)|Purley]].

==References==
*{{EB1911|wstitle=Purlieu|volume=22|page=665}}

== Bibliography ==
*[[Rackham, Oliver]] (1976) ''Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape.'' (London: J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd.) {{ISBN|0-460-04183-5}}.

==External links==
{{Wiktionary|purlieu}}

[[Category:French words and phrases]]
[[Category:French legal terminology]]
[[Category:English forest law]]