 The medievalist Richard Britnell has highlighted how "on this issue feelings ran sufficiently high for large numbers of burgesses to take the law into their own hands; pasture riots are more in evidence than any other form of civil disturbance" in Essex at this time.Britnell also notes, though, that it is unlikely that anyone held rights to common pasture on the Lexden estate.FitzWalter petitioned the king that about a hundred Colchester men had, in the course of their trespass, "broke [FitzWalter's] park at Lexden, hunted therein, felled his trees, fished in his stews, carried away the trees and fish as well as deer from the park and assaulted his servant John Osekyn there, whereby he lost his service for a great time".