Page:VCH Cornwall 1.djvu/630

 A HISTORY OF CORNWALL sum, 1 thus removing them from the subjects embraced by the Pipe Rolls and similar state documents. From 1225 to 1300 Cornwall, with its stannaries, was under the earls Richard and Edmund, 2 whose ordinances and regulations, if any, have completely disappeared. It is necessary to emphasize this point, in view of the statement so frequently seen in the older histories of Cornwall, that the two earls gave the tinners charters of privilege which in 1305 were merely confirmed by the king. 3 No evi- dence exists to verify this assertion, and there is almost positive proof of its falsity, to say nothing of the fact that, possessing as we do the earlier stannary documents, it is well-nigh incredible that we should find no trace at all of a charter, which, if issued, must have been of vast import- ance ; the reason for the charter of 1305 be- comes clear enough when we examine the peti- tion of the Cornish tinners in 1304, namely that they have their charter of liberties not con- jointly with the men of Devon, 'juxta con- firmationis Regis Henrici.' 4 This can refer only to the confirmation in 1252 of John's charter, 5 and the fact that the latter is here referred to as the great charter of the tinners is evidence that no grants of importance were made in the intervening period. The administration of the stannaries probably varied little all this while from the system instituted in 1198. A few minor changes took place in the fiscal bureaucracy, while the appoint- ment of a warden was sometimes accompanied by that of one or more ' clerk-wardens ' 6 who in all likelihood performed the warden's work, while he himself, often as well the farmer of the stannaries, remained in London. 7 The issue of the charter of 1305, at which date the Cornish stannaries were partially separated in administration from those of Devon, 8 marks an important step in stannary government, not merely because it contained new features, but because, with one addition, it remained from 1 Pat. I Hen. Ill, m. 5 ; 4 Hen. Ill, pt. i, m. I ; 5 Hen. Ill, m. 4, 6, 8 ; 8 Hen. Ill, m. 1 1 ; 19 Hen. Ill, m. 1 6 ; 37 Hen. Ill, m. 1 8 ; Close, I Hen. Ill, m. 23 ; 5 Hen. Ill, m. 8 ; 6 Hen. Ill, m. 3 ; 8 Hen. Ill, m. 14 ; 9 Hen. Ill, m. 4 ; IO Hen. Ill, m. 27. Fine, 5 Hen. Ill, m. 7 ; 6 Hen. Ill, m. 2. Cal. Orig. R. (Rec. Com.), 38 Hen. Ill, r. 3 ; 32 Edw. I, r. 7. 1 Close, 9 Hen. Ill, m. 7, 9. Chart. R. 1 5 Hen. Ill, m. 4. 3 Carew, Surv. of Conw. (ed. 1811), 17. De la Beche, Geology of Cornw. Devon and West Somers. 526. 4 Parl. R. (Rec. Com.), i, 164. 5 Chart. R. 36 Hen. Ill, m. 18. 6 Chanc. R. 3 John, Cornw. Pipe R. 1 1 John, Cornw. ' Pat. 9 John, m. 1 6. 8 Chart. R. 33 Edw. I, m. 40, 41. Duplicate charters were issued to the two stannary counties, and save for both being subject to the warden, they remained separate from that day onward. that day till less than a century ago the consti- tution of the tinners. To analyse it briefly, it confirmed the customary rights of bounding, freed the tinners from ordinary taxation, confirmed the already existent practices of tin coinage and pre-emption, and attempted rather unsuccessfully to give precision to the jurisdiction of the warden and his lieutenants. This charter almost completing as it does the list of the tinners' privileges, a slight digression may here be made to describe them more fully. Bounding has been referred to as the basis of the superior status of the free miner 9 ; but this liberty was qualified by restrictions. A limita- tion existed as to the kinds of lands which might be invaded, and, secondly, the owner of the soil was entitled to compensation. Cornish law, after excluding highways, houses, and church- yards from devastation, allowed any man to dig for tin in all wastrel, 10 and in enclosed lands, if the latter were of the duchy manors, or had been anciently bounded and assured for wastrel. 11 Anywhere else the owner's consent was requisite. The bounds were tracts of land enjoyed by their possessors in respect to tin only, and the ceremony of taking up a claim 12 was the digging of a small pit, and the making of a small pile of turf at each of the corners of the plot. 13 This had to be repeated each year, else the bounds were said to have lapsed. 14 The laws of the stannaries contain no provision regulating the amount of land which might be included in a pair of bounds, and a possible outcome of this omission is seen by the fact that in 1786 all Dartmoor, comprising 5,000 acres, was taken by a single bounder. 18 Nor has there ever been any definition of the work necessary to hold the bounds, with the possible exception of one which made toll tin obligatory at the end of the third year, 16 else the land reverted to its lord. The tak- ing up of new bounds, as well as the renewing of old ones, had, after 1495 at least, 17 to be reported at the nearest stannary court, where, having 9 The right of bounding was universal in all free mining communities. Cf. Houghton, The Comfleat Miner, pt. iii, art. I. 10 Terris vastis et moris in the charter of 1305 is obviously ' wastrel lands and moorlands.' 11 Convoc. 1 2 Chas. I, c. 4. Cf. also Compleat Mineral Laws ofDerb. pt. i, art. 12. 12 In Derbyshire the prospector applied for his claim to the barmaster, who delivered him two ' meers." Compleat Mineral Laws ofDerb. pt. iii, art. i. 13 Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 27. 14 The law, however, still allowed the old occupant to retain his shaft, provided it be not extended laterally (Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 30). As the custom of bounding survives largely in modern mining law, I have set down only the more salient features. 15 'The History of the Custom of Tin Bounding,' by E. Smirke, English's Mining Almanack, i, 156. 16 Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 30. 17 Smirke, Vice v. Thomas, 101. Add. MS. 6713, fol. 101104. 526