PEWTER AND THE EEVIVAL OF ITS USE. 695 



to the melting- pot to be remolded. All the aneient pewter utensils 

 and vessels which have come down to ns, are, therefore, those only 

 which could not readily receive damage. 



As Viollet-le-Duc points out, pewter in mediawal days was the 

 material in universal use for the tables and sideboards of the middle 

 and upper classes, silver plate appearing only in the royal palaces 

 and in the dwellings of the highest nobles, and then probably in very 

 limited quantities at the upper table on the dais. The peasant and 

 the artisan, it will be remembered, used dishes and platters of wood, 

 or, as it was called, "• treen," from whence we are told comes our word 

 " trencher." 



THE PEWTERERS' CRAFT IN ENGLAND. 



The manufacture of pewter, therefore, during long centuries was 

 a most important industry, the quantity produced was enormous, 

 and from the eighth century, when the mines of Spain, the only 

 others which appear to have been of importance, had ceased to be 

 available in consequence of the Moorish conquest, down to the dis- 

 covery and working of the tin mines at Perak, our own country 

 possessed a practical monopoly of the metal, for the tin derived from 

 Bohemian mines discovered in the thirteenth century was compara- 

 tively small in quantity. I Avould suggest, therefore, that the major 

 portion of the pewter made in Europe from the days of Roman civili- 

 zation down to the latter part of the last century, was made from 

 English tin; that is to say, down to the time when the general use 

 of peAvter was supplanted by the introduction of earthenware and 

 glass; just as in the same way pewter itself had previously sup- 

 planted the general use of wooden ware. Assuming, then, the patri- 

 otic postulate that Great Britain so long held a practical monopoly 

 in the supply of tin to the world's markets to be correct, I purpose 

 referring in detail to the tin and pewter industries mainly, in this 

 country only, and the more particularly as they seem to be sufficiently 

 typical of the like industries elsewhere. 



Mr. Welch tells us that by far the larger portion of the tin pro- 

 duced in England Avas absorbed betw^een the Pewterers' Company of 

 London and members of the same craft throughout the country. 

 Bapst says that Bruges was the principal mart for British tin on the 

 continent, and that it was supplied thence to the whole of the north 

 and west of Europe. The tin mines are still called " stannaries " 

 (from stannum, the Latin word for tin), and were at a very early 

 period granted privileges and placed under regulations by the Crown. 

 According to Camden, King John, wdio was Earl of Cornwall before; 

 his accession to the throne, gave the earldom, with its privileges, to 

 his second son, Richard, who derived from the stannaries in royalty 

 and fines an annual income of 200 marks, equal to about £20,000 of 



