INDUSTRIES 



the charters had left the powers of the stannary 

 courts. In practice stannary law covered five 

 subjects ; first, all rights and interests justly 

 acquired under stannary law and custom, in the 

 absolute usufruct of underground soil for the 

 purpose of mining, and also a qualified usufruct 

 of streams whose natural course might run with- 

 in the surface limits of these rights, or whose use 

 might be essential for mining operations, and, 

 conversely, the prevention of injustice by the 

 usurpations of such rights in violation of stannary 

 law ; secondly, the securing to the lords of the 

 soil their due proportion of toll tin ; thirdly, 

 the regulation of all dealings between miners 

 and blowers or smelters ; fourthly, the enforce- 

 ment of the assay and the coinage ; fifthly, the 

 power of adjudicating upon all matters in dispute 

 between persons concerned in mining operations 

 as regards tin, so as to entitle them to the 

 character and privileges of tinners, or between 

 such persons and any others not so concerned. 



In these matters concerning tinners' rights 

 two questions at once arose. The first con- 

 cerned the definition of the word ' tinner.' Did 

 it, as the stannaries claimed, include not only 

 the manual labourers, but their employers, the 

 holders of shares in mines, the dealers in tin and 

 in ore, and all the artisan classes connected with 

 tin mining ? Or was it, as insisted on by their 

 opponents, 1 to comprise only the working miners, 

 and so long only as they remained at work ? 



The evidence is not a model of consistency. 

 Our earliest, namely De Wrotham's letter of 

 1198, 2 says nothing, of course, with regard to 

 a stannary court, but it includes among those 

 classes whose customs are to be respected all 

 diggers of tin, buyers of black tin, first smelters, 

 and merchants of tin of the first smelting. The 

 charter of 1201 3 addresses its privileges to 'all 

 tinners so long as they are at work.' The 

 charter of 1305* repeats this qualification, and 

 then, apparently, adds another, confining its scope 

 to the miners on the king's demesne lands. The 

 ambiguities of phrasing with which this latter 

 instrument abounds, and which were caught up 

 by the stannary officials in support of their 

 aggressive campaign against competing jurisdic- 

 tions, gave rise to many complaints similar to 

 those already cited, which in 1376 culminated 

 in the two petitions introduced into Parliament 

 by the people of Devon and Cornwall, 6 which 

 with their answers form a landmark in the con- 

 stitutional history of the stannaries. It was 

 protested, first, that the tinners, even off the 



1 Cf. Par/. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 343, 344. 



' Black Book of Exch. No. 10. 



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



* Chart. R. 33 Edw. I, m. 40. In Devon the 

 existence of the tax known as ' white rent,' levied 

 upon the owners of white tin, whether miners or not, 

 seems to show that the term ' tinner ' was there inter- 

 preted broadly. (Pipe R. 20 Edw. I, Devon.) 



5 Par/. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 343, 344. 



royal domains, claimed stannary privileges, and 

 that not only labourers but their masters enjoyed 

 the freedom of the mines ; that the stannary 

 courts were taking cognizance of pleas between 

 tinner and foreigner arising elsewhere than in the 

 former's place of work ; that the warden allowed 

 tinners imprisoned at Lostwithiel for felony to 

 run at large ; and that he seized into the stan- 

 nary gaol villeins whom their masters were 

 about to imprison for arrears of accounts, and 

 treated them so well that they refused to return 

 to their lords. 



The exposition allowed on these points by 

 Parliament and the king was in some details 

 evasive, and in others clear. To the inquiry as 

 to whether, in other than in the king's domains, 

 the tinners were free, the king contented himself 

 with pointing out that the charter of 1305 per- 

 mitted the digging of tin in the lands of all 

 parties. For other complaints, he appointed a 

 commission of inquiry, whose findings, if ever 

 made, were suppressed. 6 He promised that 

 pleas arising between tinners and foreigners and 

 outside places where mining was actually carried 

 on should not be taken to the stannary courts, 

 and finally he defined the word ' tinner ' to com- 

 prise only manual labourers in the tin works, and 

 for so long only as they remained at work. This 

 exposition, confirmed by Richard II a few years 

 later, 7 remained unchanged in principle for over 

 a century. 8 



We may pass rapidly over the wording of 

 the Charter of Pardon of Henry VII, 9 the 

 finding of his successor's commission in I524, 10 

 the deductions to be drawn from two of the 

 latter's statutes, 11 the case of Boscawen against 

 Chaplin, 12 the declarations of the stannary con- 

 vocation in 1588, 13 the three successive attempts 

 made in 1608," i6a7, 15 and 1632" to decide 

 the question with the aid of the judges, the 

 resolutions passed by the convocations of IO24 17 

 and i636, 18 the attempt of the Long Parliament 

 to settle matters, once and for all, by a reversion 

 to the exposition made in 1376," and later 

 promulgations on the same head by the stannary 



196. 



Coke, Institutes (ed. 1644), bk. iv, 932. 



Harl MS. 6380, fol. 99. Add. MS. 6713, fol. 



8 Cf. Stat. 1 6 Chas. I, c. 15, preamble. 



9 Pat. 23 Hen. VII, pt. vii, m. 29-31. 



10 Ratified by the Convocation of the Stannaries of 

 Cornwall, 16 Hen. VIII, c. I. 



11 Stat. 23 Hen. VIII, c. 8 ; 27 Hen. VIII, c. 23. 

 11 Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 9. 



13 Convoc. Cornw. 30 Eliz. c. 7, 8. 



14 Close 6 Jas. I, p. 5. 



15 Geo. Harrison, Report on the Laws and Jurisdiction 

 of the Stannaries, App. K. 



16 From a manuscript volume in the Duchy of 

 Cornwall Office. 



17 Convoc. Cornw. 22 Jas. I, c. 12. 



18 Ibid. 12 Chas. I, c. 2, 5. 

 "Stat. 1 6 Chas. I, c. 15. 



529 



6 7 



