A HISTORY OF CORNWALL John the mercer presents five hundredweight ; l Henry, earl of Devon, one hundredweight ; 2 John, earl of Cornwall, ninety-four thousand- weight ; 3 Thomas the goldsmith, four thousand- weight ; 4 while Richard the smith, Thomas the pewterer, 6 John Trenagoff the clerk, 5 Michael the skinner, 6 John vicar of Bodmin, 5 Ralph rector of the church of St. Ladoce, Johanna the widow of Ralf Barson, 7 Ralph the chapman, 8 John the merchant, 8 and Alfred the prior of Mt. St. Michael's, 10 all figure in the lists. It may be stated with confidence that most of these people were simply members of mediaeval cost-book companies, such as those to which the Black Prince referred when, after the Plague, he for- bade the tinners to withdraw from the mines either the labour or the expense that had usually been bestowed. As to the wage system, whether the workmen were paid by the piece, day, or tribute system, it is not for us to say. Probably several methods were employed. One of the complaints against Trenewyth was that he gave his men but a penny a day, while it would seem from the state- ment of John Thomas, a small mine owner early in the fifteenth century, 11 that he paid his men by the piece, or by the tribute method. In endeavouring to trace back the contract system of tin purchases, so prevalent in the days of Elizabeth, it will be necessary to bear in mind, first, that the great factor making for the system, namely, the prohibition of sales except at the coinages, was in force as early as we have definite knowledge; 12 secondly, that already in 1198 a distinct class differentiation existed, including diggers, smelters, ore buyers, and tin dealers. Our earliest authority has hitherto been Beare, whose account dates back to 1586. But in 1553 the system was employed, as we learn by an 1 P. R. O. Exch. K. R. Accts. bdle. 265, No. 25 (1463). 2 Ibid. bdle. 271, No. 13 (1524). 3 Ibid. bdle. 262, No. 26 (1333). 4 Ibid. bdle. 265, No. 20 (1456). 5 Ibid. No. 12 (1432). 6 Ibid. bdle. 261, No. 6. 7 Ibid. bdle. 262, No. 29 (1333). 8 Ibid. bdle. 263, No. I (1334). 9 Ibid. bdle. 262, No. 21 (1331). 10 Ibid. bdle. 261, No. I (1305). 11 Chancery Proc. in the Reign of Elizabeth, i, p. xiii. In the accounts for the king's silver mines in Devon, all sorts of payments appear side by side. The miners were paid by the day, and occasionally by the piece, with also special payments for special jobs. As we might expect in a mine of that sort, no trace of tribute appears, but tut work was not uncommon. The hands not actually engaged in excavation were usually paid by the day or by the piece, and many of the miners seem to have turned their hands to all sorts of surface work as well (P. R. O. Exch. K. R. Accts. bdle. 260, No. 3 ; bdle. 266, No. 25). u Before 1198 (Black Book of Exchequer, No. 10). inspection of the papers relating to the Broke- house preemption. 13 Still earlier we have in 1492 a proclamation from Henry VII, appoint- ing Southampton the staple for tin, and decree- ing two extra coinages ' because the poor tinners have not been able to keep their tin for a good price, when there are only two.' 14 In 1405 com- plaint was made in Parliament of the ' merchants with ready money who go about Cornwall, and, taking advantage of the poor tinners, buy their tin cheap, and so keep down the price.' 16 In 1347, on occasion of the grant of the preemption to Tideman of Limberg, the ' merchants of England ' petitioned that the patent be revoked. They had, in the past, been used to purchase Cornish tin, but now no one can buy except the patentee. 16 In 1315, in the tinners' petition against the exactions of Antonio of Pisa, 17 they mention the fact that, before his patent, they sold their tin to merchants coming to Cornwall in exchange for wines, cloths, and wares. In 1304 the merchant buyers of Cornish tin petitioned the king that they might have two days in which to pay their coinage duties. 18 But why should they pay coinage duties rather than the tinners themselves ? Evidently because, at this time, as in the sixteenth century and later, the tinners pledged their metal in advance to the dealers, and, on getting the vouchers for their tin from the coinage officers, delivered them to their mer- chant creditors, who then, as later, discharged the dues, and claimed the tin. 19 In the absence of data to the contrary, the evidence presented, although meagre, points to no important change in stannary economy from the Middle Ages down to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There was still the cost- book system, still the non-working shareholder, and still the working adventurer, who, together with the employes in the larger works, was depressed by the coinage, with the forced sales which it engendered. The preceding pages, with some exceptions, have been devoted to a description of the mines as they existed until within the last century. " S. P. Dom. Mary, iv, 5. "Pat. 7 Hen. VII, pt. i. 15 Parl. R. (Rec. Com.), v, 334^. 16 Ibid, ii, 1 80, 188. "Ibid, i, 308. "Ibid, i, 163*. 19 There is plenty of evidence in support of the view that the relations of the tinners with the dealers were but typical of conditions throughout the mining districts of England in the Middle Ages. A provision of the Derbyshire customs confirmed in 1288 is to the effect that the barmaster is not to prevent the pay- ' ment of debts by any miner to any man who has given him money beforehand for his ore (Add. MS. 6682, fol. 65, 69 ; Pike, Britain's Metal Mines, 31). In the Forest of Dean, an attempt was made to keep down the evil by the provision that no free miners could become smiths (who were the purchasers of the ore) and still retain their mining privileges (Houghton, The Comfleat Miner, pt. ii, art. 33). 560
