Alterations in the Tenure of Land. 213 



rights to mine and melt the metal wherever tinners had been 

 used to do so before in the moors and in the fees of the lords 

 spiritual and temporal of Devon and Cornwall, were confirmed ; 

 but no limit of area was placed on the industry in the 

 charter of the later reign. Not only were the roj^al demesnes 

 thrown open to the tin workers, but the lands, moors, and 

 wastes of all Cornish lords were at their disposal. The chief 

 custos of the stannaries (a successor, no doubt, of the Earl 

 Warden who, before the union of Cornwall with England, held 

 jurisdiction over the tin miners) presided, either in person or as 

 represented by his bailifiP, over the Stannary Court, which was 

 on all fours with the Court Leet. Under the cloak of his 

 authority the workers might cut firewood on any waste, divert 

 water-courses on any lands, and sell their goods in any markets 

 free of tallages, stallages, tolls, and customs.^ But with regard 

 to the thirteenth-century mining of other minerals, it is disap- 

 pointing to feel that no test case arose as to seignoriah and 

 popular rights over minerals of the common lands and wastes. 

 It is, however, more than probable that such mining operations 

 were for centuries confined to the demesne lands of rich 

 proprietors, whose capital would alone be available to defray 

 the costs of getting this subterranean treasure.^ It would 

 be also interesting to inquire how far the getting of 

 minerals by the tenant for life could be effected without im- 

 peachment for waste. The wording of 20 Ed. I. would seem 

 to imply a more rigid protection of reversionary interests 

 than that provided by the Victorian statutes regarding settled 

 estates. 



No contention, therefore, arose between seignorial and popular 



' Vide Gilbert H. Chilcott's papei', Notes on the Stannaries, in the 

 Incorporated Laiv Society\s Magazine, 1891. 



^ It frequently occurs, — it occurred only the other day on an estate 

 managed by the author,— that the question arose : To wliom belong the 

 minerals on the lands once the commonable ground and waste of the 

 manor, over which the surface rights had long lapsed ? The legal mind 

 refused to go behind the Enclosure Act dealing with the manor in question; 

 but the lord of the manor would probably feel more satisfied if the title 

 of the later freeholder were secured, as it is on the Continent, by the loss 

 of the original seignorial rights after a certain period of disuse. 



