 If you are a commoner, though, what you need above all is the right to access land you can farm, fuel to heat your home, and confidence you won't be displaced, the positive right, in essence, to the means of survival and a dignified life. When we shift our perspective and view this history through the lens of the commoners instead of the barons, we can see that the positive right to forage in the forest was inseparable from the negative right to not be mutilated while doing so.