INDUSTRIES upon sales sent the price of tin far above its former level, and the labourer's wages rose accordingly ; but with the Restoration the coinage was reimposed, and matters fell into their old ways, the century ending in a long depression among the mining classes of Cornwall, during which thousands of miners were driven to semi- starvation. 1 At the expiration of the last pre- emption in 1717, the dealers again closed in, 3 and the situation in 1 8 1 1 is described by Carew's editor as no better than two centuries before. 3 The task of tracing these various institutions back into the Middle Ages is one which the absence of all stannery account rolls renders ex- tremely difficult. Of the most primitive type of miner, the working adventurer, we again find traces in 1510.* The further back we go the more likely are we to find these small stream works carried on by associations of labourers. Scattered references in mediaeval records point to such an organization. Henry Nanfan et socit su't complain to the Black Prince that they are molested in their tin work at Lamorna Moor. 6 Entries in a coinage roll of 1305 show certain quantities of tin accounted for by Ben Rynwald and his associates. 6 As late as 1495 so little did the custom of the stanneries contemplate the possession of tin bounds by any but working tinners, that Prince Arthur's ordinances provided that 'no persone, neyther persones, having pos- session of lands and tenements above the yerely value of jio,ornoone other totheyr use,beowners of eny tynwork or parcell of any tynwork, with the exception of persons claming by inheritance or possessed of tyn works in their own freeholds.' 7 But the tinner was probably not dependent wholly upon his mine. An analysis of several of the coinage accounts result in figures of no small interest. Thus in Cornwall in 1300 we find that nineteen men presented tin in amounts of less than a thousand-weight ; fifty-five, from one to three thousand ; twenty-nine, from three to seven ; thirteen, from seven to twelve ; eleven, from thirteen to seventeen ; and, finally, seven 1 The Tinners' Grievance. Yarranton, England?! Improvement, pt. ii, 149. "Lansd. MS. 1215, fol. 230. 3 Carew, Survey of Cornwall (ed. 1811), 50, . Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, fol. 293. 4 Add. MS. 6713, fol. 251. 6 White Book of Cornwall, cited by Smirke, Vice v. Thomas, App. 26. 6 P. R. O. Exch. K. R. Accts. bdle. 261, No. I. 'Add. MS. 6713, fols. 101-104. The laws of other free miners abound with passages which show that this type was the prevailing one in the Middle Ages. Thus one of the Mendip laws provided that whoever should 'throw the axe,' in any 'groof or gribb ' should be one of the eldest partners {Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornw. vi, 331). It is a curious fact that in the Tasmanian tin districts to-day a system of co-operative ' streaming ' is prevalent (' Tin Fields of Tasmania, ' by John MufFord, Proc. Mining last. Cornw. i, No 5, pt. 161-162). men who present amounts varying from thirty- three to 294 thousand-weight. 8 The same might be repeated for almost any year. Even as late as 1524 432 tinners presented less than a thousand-weight each, amounts which in many cases must have been supplemented from the earnings of by-occupations. 8 Many of the tinners were doubtless small farmers or fishermen. _ John Aunger, the blower, was, as we know, a husbandman as well ; 10 and in later years, when the mines were said to be decaying, a constant subject for complaint was that the tinners were leaving the stannaries and turning to husbandry. 11 During the Common- wealth, on the other hand, we find the process reversed, and artisans and clerks forsaking their callings to become tinners. 12 Another point which seems indubitable is the fact that at an early stage in history we meet with tin works of considerable extent run upon capitalistic lines. Just how far this tendency had gone by the fourteenth century we are unable to say, but it should be remembered that one of the chief complaints which the two shires continu- ally made was that not only the stannary work- men but their masters were claiming the fran- chises of the mines. 13 Of Abraham the tinner we are told that he owned six large stream works, where he employed over three hundred workmen. The Statute of Labourers was, as we know, enforced in the mines, 14 and in 1342 occurs the case of Michael Trenewyth, and others, large tin producers, 16 who ' usurped works, and compelled stannary men to labour there for a penny a day, whereas before they worked above twenty pence worth of tin each day, with the result that the tinners have all left their mines.' 16 Yet, side by side with the entries of miners' associations and of large tin producers, appear on the coinage rolls the names of persons who could not have worked the mines with their own hands, and who could not all have been pur- chasers of ore, and the smallness of whose ac- counts shows that they could not have been small entrepreneurs. We find, for example, that ' P. R. O. Exch. K. R. Accts. bdle. 260, Nos. 20, 2 1. 9 Ibid. bdle. 271, Nos. 9, 12. w Cal. of Pat. 1426, 1 08. "Lansd. MS. 86, fol. 67 ; 19, fol. 99. 11 The Tinners' Grievance. 13 Par/. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 343-344. P. R. O. Lay Subs. R. bdle. 95, No. 12. Smirke, Vice v. TAontas,App. 13, citing Annales Monaiterii Burtonienses, 290 (1237). Hired labourers were common enough in the Mendip mines in the fifteenth century to be subject to special regulations. (' Certain Peculiarities in the old Mining Law of Mendip,' by C. Lemon, Trans. Rt>y Geol. Soc. Cornto. vi, 327-333). 14 P. R. O. Ct. R. bdle. 156, No. 27 ; bdle. 161, No. 8 1. 15 P. R. O. Exch. K. R. Accts. bdle. 262, No 26. 16 Pat. 1 6 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 559
