INDUSTRIES 



the warden of the stannaries to the justiciar, by 

 means of which we may deduce the previous 

 position of both mines and miners. In 1156 

 the production of tin was small, and for the 

 most part confined to western Devon. From 

 1156 to 1 1 60 the tax on output, 30^. per 

 thousand-weight in Devon and 5*. in Cornwall, 1 

 was farmed by the sheriff of Devon for an 

 annual sum of 16 13*. \d.? revealing a pro- 

 duction of about 133 thousand-weight of tin. 3 

 During the succeeding decades the farm was 

 raised to keep pace with the increasing output, 

 which, if we retain our previous criterion of 

 estimate, rose to 183 thousands in 1163,* 533 in 

 1 1 69," and 640 in nyi. 6 The miners them- 

 selves were, as yet, not far removed in social 

 status from the villeins, being probably subject 

 to the same customary payments and services, 

 owing suit to the manor and hundred courts, 

 and probably varying their underground pursuits 

 with that of farming. Around the industry, 

 however, had already grown a customary law, 

 and of this the provision which more than any 

 other tended to elevate the tinner above the 

 ordinary labourer was the so-called right of 

 bounding 7 or of freely searching for tin where- 

 ever it might be found regardless of landlord. 

 Had it been otherwise, and the mine been the 

 perquisite of the owner of the soil, probably 

 nothing could have saved the stannaries from a 

 regime of semi-slavery such as disgraced the 

 Durham coal mines, 8 and lasted in Scotland 

 until 1799.' As it was, any man who would 

 might own a freehold tin mine by the simple 

 process of 'staking out a claim.' 



The government of the stannaries had been 

 confined chiefly to the collection of the annual 

 tax ; but in 1198 the tin mines of both countries 

 were placed under the supervision of a warden 

 (De Wrotham) appointed by the king. De 

 Wrotham's innovations had still to do with the 

 question of taxation. He convened juries of 

 miners from the two shiremoots, 10 and by their 

 aid rectified the weights for the official measure- 

 ment of tin slabs on occasion of the collection of 

 the tax. He imposed a further tax of a mark 

 per thousand-weight, and for the collection and 



' Black Book of Exchequer, No. I o. 



* Pipe R. 2-6 Hen II, Devon. 



5 The thousand-weight of l,zoolb. 



4 Pipe R. 9 Hen II, Devon. 



5 Ibid. 1 5 Hen. II, Devon. 



6 Ibid. 17 Hen. II, Devon. 



7 For the rules governing bounding in later 

 years see Pearce, Laws and Customs of the Stannaries, 

 passim ; The Laws of the Stannary of Devon, (ed. 



1575)- 



8 Dur. Cursitores Rec. 23 Hatfield, No. 3 1, m. \d, ; 



29 Hatfield, No. 31, m. 5 d. ; Galloway, Annals of 

 Coal Mining and the Coal Trade, 269. 



9 Patrick, Early Mining Records of Scotland, xlviii, Ixv. 

 10 This proves the non-existence, as yet, of stannary 



courts. 



safe-keeping of both instituted a bureaucracy of 

 collectors and check-clerks, together with a code 

 of regulations calculated to bring all tin under 

 the view of the king's servants. The produc- 

 tion had now risen to 900 thousand-weight, 11 

 which, under the new system, yielded the king 

 a revenue far greater than all Cornwall, the mines 

 excepted. 12 



The supply of metal, however, in the year 1200 

 had fallen to 800 thousand-weight, 13 and it may 

 have been to sustain the industry which brought 

 him such profit that John in 1201 issued their 

 first charter to the stannaries. 14 Its provisions 

 were brief, but important. It confirmed the 

 ancient privileges of bounding, and of fuel and 

 water, and, most important of all, removed the 

 tinners from all pleas of serfs. Over them no 

 magistrate had jurisdiction save their warden, 

 who alone, or through his officers, might summon 

 them from work for civil and criminal matters. 

 This charter was followed after a few years by 

 a decided increase in production ; the supply of 

 tin, which from 1201 to I2O9 15 had fallen to 

 600 thousand-weight per annum, touching 800 in 

 121 1, 16 1,000 in I2I2, 17 and two years later the 

 record yield of 1,200 thousand-weight, or about 

 600 long tons. 18 But the disastrous effects of the 

 new charter upon the manorial lords, offering as it 

 did complete freedom to any villein who would 

 turn miner, brought about its practical revocation 

 at the instance of the barons. Devon had been 

 disafforested in i2O4, 19 and in 1215 John restored 

 to the men of Cornwall the liberties which they 

 had enjoyed under Henry II, promising that no 

 one should lose the services of his men, whether 

 or no they dug tin. 20 In the following reign, 

 however, the charter was solemnly confirmed to 

 the miners, 21 and, inasmuch as, even before, we 

 find the tinners of Devonshire in possession of a 

 court, 22 it is a question whether, after all, the 

 provisions of the stannaries' charter were ever in 

 practice wholly abrogated. 



The thirteenth century has left little evidence 

 as to the administration of the stannaries, for the 

 reason that, beginning with 1215, the king 

 resumed the practice of farming them for a lump 



11 Chanc. R. I John, Cornw. 



" Pipe R. 2 John, Cornw. 



13 Ibid. 



"Chart. R. 36 Hen. Ill, m. 18. 



15 Pipe R. 8-9 John, Cornw. 



16 Ibid. 13 John, Cornw. 



17 Ibid. 14 John, Cornw. 



18 Ibid. 1 6 John, Cornw. 



19 Chart. R. 5 John. 



80 Chart. R. 1 6 John, m. 2. The process had been 

 partially inaugurated in Cornwall in 1 204 (Chart. R. 

 5 John, m. 9). 



21 Chart. R. 36 Hen. Ill, m. 18. 



22 Pipe R. 27 Hen. Ill, Devon. Apparently, how- 

 ever, the tinners of Dartmoor at least were not 

 wholly emancipated in 1250. See Lysons, Magna 

 Britannia, vi, p. cclxxx, citing Pat. 35 Hen. III. 



525 



