The act or offense of grubbing up trees and bushes, and thus destroying the thickets or coverts of a forest.
A piece of land cleared of trees and bushes, and fitted for cultivation; a clearing.
To grub up, as trees; to commit an assart upon; as, to assart land or trees.
Land cleared for use in arable farming. (Bennett, Judith M. Women in the Medieval English Countryside, 233) Tract of wasteland cleared or drained to be added to village arable. (Gies, Frances and Joseph. Life in a Medieval Village, 243) A piece of forest or waste, converted into arable by grubbing up the trees and brushwood. (Bennett, H.S. Life on the English Manor: A Study of Peasant Conditions, 1150-1400, 337) To assart was to make a clearing (known as "an assart") on virgin land by rooting out trees and rendering the ground suitable for agriculture. To assartain the royal forest without a licence was a grave offence. Land assarted with licence was subject to annual payments to the exchequer. (Warren, W.L. Henry II, 633)
To clear land, to turn woodland into arable or pastureland; land so cleared assart
An enclosure or field formed by the clearance of woodland.
To turn woodlands into pasture or cropland. To "assart" lands within a forest without a license was a grave offense.
To turn woodlands into pasture or crop land. To assart lands within a forest without licence was a grave offence.
land reclaimed from waste for agriculture [from 'to hoe, or weed'
Given as “Arable land cleared from forest.
to form private farmland out of common land
Land cleared from a forest to make space for buildings or farmland. An abbreviation of berewic in Domesday (see below).