A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



its original nucleus. Five tracts of stanniferous 

 wastrel, with their adjunct vales, supplied the 

 ancient stream works of Cornwall. The moor 

 between Launceston and Bodmin, in which the 

 Fowey River has its source, gave rise to the 

 northern stannary of Foweymore. Hensborough 

 Beacon with the tin grounds of Roche, Luxulian, 

 and St. Austell formed that of Blackmore. A 

 smaller district on the north coast, including St. 

 Agnes and Cligga, and extending inland to 

 Truro, constituted the stannary of Tywarnhail. 

 The stannaries of Penwith and Kerrier included 

 two great tracts of waste, of which one lies north 

 of Helston in Kerrier, and the other between 

 Lelant and Land's End. 



In each district was established a court, pre- 

 sided over by a steward, as the warden's repre- 

 sentative. In Devon, where analogous divisions 

 had taken place, already by 1243 we ^ nt ^ l ^ e 

 stannary courts recorded in the Pipe Rolls. 1 

 Cornwall, by the year I297, 2 contained the 

 stannaries of Blackmore, Penwith and Kerrier, 

 and Tywarnhail, each with its court; but of 

 Foweymore we have no trace until I342. 3 



Gradually, also, arose a code, partly from pre- 

 scription and partly no doubt from enactment 

 by early stannary parliaments, the object of 

 which was to make it dangerous for either tinner 

 or foreigner to infringe the judicial liberties of 

 the mines. It is unfortunate that we have not 

 the records of the first stannary convocations, with 

 which to trace the gradual steps by which the 

 screw tightened. As it is, we must depend upon 

 the law as defined by the convocations held from 

 the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. 4 No 

 tinner, so it reads, might appear at an assize, 6 or 

 might sue, or allow himself to be sued, in any 

 foreign court (any court outside the stannaries), save 

 for pleas of life, limb, or land, under penalty of a 

 heavy fine. 6 No case determinable in the stannary 

 court might be tried elsewhere, violations of this 

 rule being punishable whether or no the offender 

 were a tinner. 7 Warrants and writs issued 

 against the tinners from foreign courts were not 

 allowed, and officers attempting to serve them 

 were liable to arrest. In this category came 



1 Pipe R. 27 Hen. Ill, Devon. 

 1 Exch. K. R. Bailiffs' Accts. of Edmund of Corn- 

 wall, 2425 Edw. I. 



3 Receiver's R. 26 Edw. III. 



4 In the earliest existing court roll of the stannaries 

 (P.R.O. Ct. R. bdle. 156, No. 26) we find instances 

 of men charged with impleading tinners in a foreign 

 court. 



5 Add. MS. 6713, fol. 191. 



6 Convoc. Cornw. 22 Jas. I, c. 7. Cf. Compleat 

 Mineral Laws of Derbyshire, pt. i, art. 13, 18, 37; 

 pt. 2, art. 40. Thomas Houghton, The Compleat 

 Miner, 14, art. 31; pt. ii, art. 21. 'Certain Peculiari- 

 ties in the Old Mining Laws of Mendip,' by C. 

 Lemon, Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornw. vi, 330. 



7 Pearce, Laws and Customs of the Stannaries, p. xx. 

 A similar provision held in the Forest of Dean. 

 Houghton, The Compleat Miner, pt. ii, art. 2 1 . 



warrants issued by any justice of the peace, 8 

 writs of cercionary from the royal courts, 9 and 

 writs of replevin from any one but the warden, 

 and all attempts to remove suits from the stan- 

 nary courts once they had there begun. Writs 

 of prohibition, habeas corpus, and corpus cum 

 causa, were allowed where the plea was one of 

 land, life, or member, 10 but no litigant might 

 procure these writs under any other circum- 

 stances. The use of royal writs of subpoena to 

 sue a tinner out of the stannaries for matters 

 there determinable was equally forbidden, and 

 the writ itself might be broken with impunity. 11 

 No appeals were permitted from stannary judge- 

 ments to foreign courts, either by writs of error 

 or of certiorari. 12 Save in the few cases where a 

 tinner might legally be tried in a foreign court, 15 

 in which event the jury was composed half of 

 tinners, 13 the latter were immune from jury 

 service save in their own tribunals. 14 A host of 

 prosecutions recorded in mediaeval stannary 

 court rolls for violations of the above regulations 

 not only confirm our views as to their antiquity, 

 but prove conclusively that they were in no 

 sense dead letters. 15 



From almost the first the stannary courts were 

 obliged to contend for the maintenance of their 

 prerogatives with the non-mining part of the 

 population, partly by reason of conflicts of juris- 

 diction, and partly because of the miners' disre- 

 gard in their operations for ordinary rights of 

 property. Thus in 1309 we find the sheriff 

 of Cornwall mobbed by the Blackmore tinners, 

 on his attempting to levy upon their chattels. 16 

 A few years later we see the tinners of Devon 

 charged before the king with having intimidated 

 the bailiffs of the hundred moots, and of having 

 made arbitrary use of the stannary writ. 17 Matters, 

 however, did not come to a head until 1376, 

 when two long petitions from the people of 

 Cornwall and Devon were answered in the Good 

 Parliament. 18 But before examining their con- 

 tents, a slight retrospect is essential for a clear 

 view of the constitutional questions involved. 



One reason for these disputes seems to have 

 been the lack of precise definition with which 



8 Add. MS. 6713, fol. 112. Helston Court, 

 12 Hen. VIII. 



9 Ibid. fols. 1 29, 1 30. 



10 Convoc. Cornw. 12 Chas. I, c. 30. 



11 Add. MS. 6713, fol. 127 (Penwith and Kerrier 

 Customs). 



" Convoc. Cornw. 12 Chas. I, c. 30. 



13 Chart. R. 33 Edw. I, m. 40. 



14 Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 43. 



15 P.R.O. Ct. R. bdle. 159, No. I; bdle. 156, 

 No. 26, etc. 



16 Pat. 3 Edw. II, m. 43 d. 



"Pat. 12 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 15, sched. Cf. also 

 Close, 7 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. gd. ; Pat. 8 Edw. II, 

 pt. ii, m. 2 d. ; Par/. R. (Rec. Com.), i, 1 90, 297, 312, 



382. 



18 Par/. R. (Rec. Com.), 11, 343, 344. 



528 



