Page:VCH Cornwall 1.djvu/629

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