WARREN, is a franchise or place privileged by prescription or grant from the king, for the keeping of beasts and fowls of the warren; which are hares and coneyes, partridges, pheasants, and some odd quails, woodcocks, and water-fowl, &c. These being feræ naturæ, every one had a natural right to kill as he could: but upon the introduction of the forest laws at the Norman conquest, these animals being looked upon as royal game, and the sole property of our savage monarchs, this franchise of free-warren was invented to protect them, by giving the grantee a sole and exclusive power of killing such game, so far as his warren extended, on condition of his preventing other persons. A man therefore that has the franchise of warren, is in reality no more than a royal game-keeper: but no man, not even a lord of a manor, could by common law justify sporting on another's soil, or even on his own, unless he had the liberty of free warren. This franchise is almost fallen into disrepute since the new statutes for preserving the game; the name being now chiefly preferred in grounds that are set apart for breeding hares and rabbits. There are many instances of keen sportsmen in ancient times, who have sold their estates, and reserved the free-warren, or right of killing game, to themselves: by which means it comes to pass that a man and his heirs have sometimes free-warren over another's ground.
A warren may lie open; and there is no necessity of inclosing it as there is of a park. If any person offend in a free-warren, he is punishable by the common law, and by statute 21 Edw. III. And if any one enter wrongfully into any warren, and chase, take, or kill, any coney without the consent of the owner, he shall forfeit treble damages, and suffer three months imprisonment, &c. by 22 and 23 Car. II. c. 25. When coneyes are on the soil of the party, he hath a property in them by reason of the possession, and action lies for killing them; but if they run out of the warren and eat up a neighbour's corn, the owner of the land may kill them, and no action will lie.