He was a close relative, probably a nephew, of Sir Roger Manwood, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer in the reign of Elizabeth.
It was revised, enlarged, and published by Thomas Wight and Bonham Norton in 1598 as A Treatise and Discourse of the Lawes of the Forrest.
Manwood's book remained a standard reference on forest law through the mid-1900s.
[2] As such it is quoted approvingly by Sir William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England.
It has also been pointed out that these institutions had in his time largely fallen into desuetude, and his descriptions may be partly artificial and fanciful.