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
