Law. [a. AF. assart, OF. essart:—late L. exartum = *exsartum, pa. pple. (sc. arvum land) of *exsar(r)īre, f. ex out + sar(r)īre to hoe, weed: see prec. The sb. might also have been formed in Fr. directly on the vb. (cf. regarder, regard), whence probably sense 2 arose. See also ESSART, after Fr., used by modern historians.]
1. A piece of forest land converted into arable by grubbing up the trees and brushwood; a clearing in a forest.
1628. Coke, On Litt., 10 a. If an assart bee granted by the King.
1738. Hist. Crt. Excheq., v. 87. The Profit of the County was likewise increased by Arentations of Assarts.
1766. Barrington, Anc. Stat. (1796), 36, note. Assarts are places where the wood has been grubbed up.
2. The action of grubbing up the trees and bushes in a forest, so as to turn it into arable land.
1598. Manwood, Lawes Forest, ix. § 1 (1615), 67/1. An Assart, is the plucking up of those woods by the rootes that are thickets or couerts of the Forest, to make the same a plaine or arrable land.
a. 1625. Cope, in Gutch, Coll. Cur., I. 123. Lately revived by your Majesty’s Commission of Assarts.
1880. J. Williams, Rights of Common, 231. No person having lands within a forest could plough up any part of his lands which had not been ploughed up before, and to do so was considered a grievous offence and was called an assart.
3. attrib.
1670. [see next].
1863. J. R. Wise, New Forest, iv. 43. James I. granted no less than twenty assart lands.
