INDUSTRIES 



property of the king, 1 or of the owner * of the 

 land. This is no place for a dissertation upon the 

 general subject of the origins of English mining 

 law, but it may be stated that while the king 

 unquestionably tried to imitate the continental 

 sovereigns in claiming all metallic mines,* this 

 pretension was never permanently made good, ex- 

 cept for the precious metals, other mines as a rule 

 remaining the property of the ground lord. 4 Under 

 these circumstances the existence, under peculiar 

 mining codes, of several isolated tracts well known 

 to be the seat of the oldest mines in England, 

 seems due, not to any engrafting of Roman law 

 from the continent, but, as the miners themselves 

 declared, to usage time out of mind. 5 



Although certain of the rights of the fiee 

 miners of Dean are alluded to in the verdicts and 

 regards already quoted, we are obliged in order 

 to obtain a connected view of these privileges to 

 have resort to a seventeenth-century transcript * 

 of the code of customary law which regulated 

 the exercise of mining rights within the forest. 

 This purports to be a memorandum 



What the Customes and Franchises hath been that 

 were granted tyrae out of minde and after in tyme of 

 the excellent and redoubted prince King Edward ' 

 unto the miners of the Forrest of Deane and the Castle 

 of St. Bridvilh (' Briavclls ' in Editio Printtpi). 



and is sometimes known as the ' Book of Dennis.' 

 There is unfortunately no evidence to show 

 precisely when these customs were reduced to 

 writing. Probably, however, this occurred before 

 the Reformation, as the use of certain ecclesiastical 

 terms would suggest, and at a time when the ex- 

 tended boundaries 8 of the forest reduced about 

 1 301 had not been forgotten, for these are assumed 

 in this Book of Laws as the area within which the 

 privileges of the free miners operated, and there 

 is no limitation as in later times to the hundred 



1 As in the case of mines royal (Pipe R. of Cumb. 

 Westmld. and Dur. Introd. xxiv-xxvi ; Plowden, 

 Commentaries (ed. 1761), p. 310. 



'As in the coal mines in the north (Galloway, 

 Annals of Coal Mining and the Coal Trade, i, 1 8, 21, 23, 

 24, 27, 37-39 44. S9 6 9. 73 ; Patrick, Early 

 Mining Records of Scotland, Introd. xlv.). 



'Dugdalc, Man. (ed. 1846), ii, 289; Cal. Pat. 

 1283. p. 73. 



4 Plowden, Commentaries (ed. 1761), p. 310. 



' As Sir Charles Dilke, bart., reminds us, the usage 

 of the oath taken ' touching a holly- wand ' may suggest 

 a possible pre- Roman or Celtic origin. 



4 First printed in 1687 from a transcript made in 

 1673, which is now at the Crown Office, Whitemead 

 Park, but again, apparently from another copy, by 

 Mr. Nicholls, Ironmaking in the forest of Dean, 71 

 et seq. 



'i.e., from internal evidence, probably Edw. I. 

 But one fragmentary MS. copy discovered by Mr. 

 Philip Baylis reads Edw. III. 



1 ' Bctweene Chepstowe Bridge and Gloucester 

 Bridge, the halfe deale of Newent, Ross Ash, Mon- 

 mouth's Bridge and soe farr into the Seasoames as the 

 Blast of a home or the voice of a man may bee heard.' 



of St. Briavel's. This summary record of their 

 franchises, together with the regulations embodied 

 in the later orders, seventeen in number, of their 

 mine-court, formed the authoritative standard to 

 which the free miners constantly appealed. 



The first point alluded to in their code of 

 customs is the trespass committed by anyone 

 with ' boat, trowc, pinard, or any other vessel * 

 who passes ' without gree made for the customes 

 due to the king and also to the said miners for 

 the myne (i.e. ore),' the penalty being forfeiture 

 of vessel and cargo. This is worth notice as a 

 possible explanation of the outrages perpetrated 

 by the miners on Tewkesbury traders in the 

 reign of Henry VI already mentioned in the 

 4 Forestry ' article of this volume. 



The most characteristic and peculiar privilege 

 to which the Book of Laws bears witness is that 

 every free miner might with the approval of the 

 king's gaveller ' dig for iron ore I0 or coal where 

 he pleased within the bounds of the forest 

 whether on the royal demesne or on the lands of 

 private persons. 11 In the latter case the lord of 

 the soil as well as the king received a share in 

 the newly-opened mine, as we might, even with- 

 out this evidence, gather from the regards pre- 

 viously cited. In fact the lord was to be 

 considered as the last man of the fellowship, and 

 the gaveller in this case was also bound to mark 

 out a ' convenient way next stretching to the 

 king's highway.' In respect to the king's share 

 it is laid down (in reference apparently to mines 

 on the demesne) that 



At all tymes the king's man shall come into the mine 

 without any costes asking of him and shall bee the 

 third better man of the fellowship in irayntenance 

 and in helping of the myne and of the fellowship. 



The gaveller should call at the works every Tues- 

 day between ' Mattensand Masse ' to receive the 

 king's share one penny 1 * from every miner. The 

 miners again of the district beneath the wood 1 *" 



* i.e. the king's receiver who took the gavel or rent 

 on behalf of the Constable of St. Briavel's, and 

 officially recognized or disallowed any new mine. 



10 Diggings for ochre were also included, at least in 

 the seventeenth century, as appears from Exch. Dep.. 

 27-28 Chas. II. 



" At a later period, if not as early as the reign of 

 Edw. I, gardens, orchards, and curtilages were ex- 

 cepted, according to the evidence of John Williams, 

 deputy gaoler (gaveller) to Sir Baynham Throckmorton. 

 Exch. Dep. Ord. Com. 27-28 Chas. II, Hilary, 

 No. 2i,Glouc. (P.R.O.). 



" ' If so bee that the myner winns three seamcs of 

 myne.' 



'* The division of the forest mining district into 

 ' Above the Wood ' and ' Beneath the Wood ' seem* 

 of considerable antiquity. In the seventeenth cen- 

 tury there was a deputy. gaoler for each district. 

 St. Briavel's, Newland, Staunton, and Bicknor were 

 then 'above the Wood,' and Mitcheldean, Little 

 Dean, Abinghall, Flaxley, and part of the parishes of 

 Awre and the Lea ' beneath the Wood.' Exch. Dcp. 

 ut supra. 



221 



