Catalogue description MINES

Tin: mines and coinage

All tin produced in Devon and Cornwall was subject to a duty of forty shillings per thousand weight (1,000 Ibs) before it could be sold. The record of this tax comprises the coinage rolls, which survive in E 101 in imperfect sequence from the reign of Edward I to that of Charles I. The rolls are records of the Stannary courts. Devonshire returns mostly appear on a single roll; coinage rolls for Cornwall in general are for particular Stannary courts. They provide lists recording the names of the tinners and other owners of tin, weight of tin, and amount of coinage paid. By 1305 payment of the dues had become dissociated from the smelting process, and focused rather on the point of weighing and public sale; and in practice the dues seem frequently to have been paid by the purchaser rather than the producer. The coinage dues were assessed and paid at the several coinage towns appointed in Devon and Cornwall.

In the early fourteenth century the accounts in E 101 suggest an irregular pattern of coinages, but for much of middle ages and beyond stampage of the tin, part of that process, took place only twice a year, at Midsummer and Michaelmas; the sessions were increased to four in the seventeenth century. The blocks of tin, each of which carried a mark of ownership, were stored in the coinage halls in the appointed towns; E 101/273/15 is an account of repairs to coinage halls at Helston and Truro, and other such accounts may be found in E 306. At the coinages, tin was weighed and assayed, and stamped with the Duchy arms if of marketable quality. Tin which was hopelessly corrupt was set aside for remelting. The weight determined the amount of the coinage duty due. The coinage records give some guide to fluctuations in levels of production of tin, although other uncoined tin might be the subject of illicit commerce and smuggling. The series list includes a cross reference to two books containing summary accounts for coinage of tin, Elizabeth I-James I, now among the records of the Augmentations Office, E 3/15/353,354.

Accounts of keepers of individual mines include receipts, both from sales and in money received from the Exchequer; expenses associated with mining, refining, and carriage, and the actual produce of the mine. Expenses included labour, and are detailed week by week. Similar accounts may also be found in the series of ministers' accounts, SC 6. Accounts for individual stannaries include rents, coinage duty, and expenses. Most accounts for mines and stannaries in E 101, and in the enrolment of those accounts on the Pipe and Foreign Account Rolls, are for Devon. In 1231 the county of Cornwall, including the stannaries, had been granted by Henry III to his brother, Richard, and they returned to the Crown only on the death without heirs of his son, Edmund, in 1300. The earldom was revived by Edward II for Piers Gaveston in 1307, and by Edward III for his brother, John of Eltham, in 1328, although he was not granted the Cornish lands until 1331. The estates returned to the Crown on John's death in 1336. On 17 March 1337 the king's eldest son, Edward, was created duke of Cornwall, and the revenues and privileges formerly belonging to the earldom formed the core of his endowment as duke. The stannaries were included in the newly created Duchy, and the warden of the stannaries ceased to have responsibility for accounting for the profits of taxation, the duty passing to the receiver of the duchy.

Payments peculiar to stannary accounts include 'tribulage' or 'shovel money', a capitation tax collected from labouring tinners in certain Cornish stannaries; black rent, levied in Devon on every digger of tin ore between c 1243 and c 1301; and white rent, similarly levied in Devon on those tinners who brought the ore to the smelter and received the finished product. Toll tin was the king or duke's share of tin won on royal land outside the recognised stannaries. E 306/12 includes a collection of precedents made by or for an official of the Duchy in 1615, which contains some extracts and explanations of these and other terms. Records of the sixteenth and seventeenth century refer to pre-emption of tin, an ancient right dating from the twelfth century, and again asserted under the charters of 1305 (of which an early sixteenth century copy of the Devon charter is preserved as E 101/260/29). The pre-emption was the king's right to purchase tin in preference to and before all other buyers. Occasionally under Elizabeth, and more particularly under the early Stuarts, this could be transformed to become the tin monopoly, producing a certain revenue for the Crown; although farming of the right was a practice known from at least the fourteenth century in settlement of the Crown's debts.

Gold, silver and lead

All gold mines, and gold found in the soil (treasure trove) were the property of the Crown.

Theoretically, too, silver mines were part of the regalia; in practice, however, mines outside the royal demesne appear to have been worked in a compromise which allowed the Crown a share of the refined product. In England the silver mines comprised mines of argentiferous, or silver-bearing, lead. Crown mines included those of Birland or Beer Alston and Combe Martin, in Devon, and the lead-silver mines of Alston Moor in Cumberland. Cumberland also had copper mines, for which there are accounts in E 101 for the reign of Elizabeth I. The mines were either managed directly by the Crown or farmed; and the accounts for the mines, and for the refining of lead, included much detail concerning both the manner in which they were worked and the materials and processes involved. Ingots of silver were sent up to the mint, whereas the lead was often sold locally because of the cost of transport.