A royal forest is an area of land with different meanings in England, Wales and Scotland. The term "forest" in the ordinary modern understanding refers to an area of wooded land; however, the original medieval sense was closer to the modern idea of a "preserve" — i.e. land legally set aside for specific purposes such as royal hunting — with less emphasis on its composition. There are also differing and contextual interpretations in Continental Europe derived from the Carolingian and Merovingian legal systems.