1
Silver mining and the English Crown: direct management and leasing of the Devon
mines.1
Abstract
What marks out silver mining in England and Wales2 is the organisational change which took
place in the 13th and 14th centuries. The industry effected a transition from small scale
operations, in the hands of independent miners, to relatively large scale, centrally managed,
capital intensive mining. On the other hand, lead mining was to remain locked in its early
medieval form well into the 17th century.
The catalyst for change in the silver industry was the exercise of Crown prerogative over
silver-bearing ores in the mid 13th century and the direct management of the Devon mines in
the period 1292 to circa 1350.
This paper will give an overall view of the ownership of mineral rights in post-Conquest
England and Wales, the circumstances which led to the exercise of a Crown prerogative, and
to the direct management of the Devon mines. Organisation of the Devon mines, sources of
finance and production will be considered along with the technologies employed in both ore
extraction and processing. The financial, technological and administrative factors which
might have influenced the reasoning behind a move to direct management are examined.
It will be shown that the Crown's withdrawal from direct management, against the
background of dramatic demographic decline, and the introduction of a system of leases
prepared the ground for entrepreneurial capital which was to dominate large scale mining in
the early modern period.
Introduction
The principal sources of the silver mined in England and Wales during the medieval period
were the lead ores galena (lead sulphide) and cerussite (lead carbonate) along with the more
complex tetrahedrites, sometimes associated with localised copper mineralisation. Those
lead ores are found across the Carboniferous limestone uplands but only carried sufficient
silver to justify refining in those shallow deposits benefiting from secondary enrichment
which were relatively unaffected by glaciation or where the level of silver had been enhanced
by localised geological conditions affecting mineralisation. Thus mining for silver in the
Carboniferous rocks was confined to Mendip, north-east Wales, and to a lesser extent the
Peak District of Derbyshire and south-east Wales, with the largest output coming from
Tynedale and Weardale in the northern Pennines.
1
A version of this paper was first presented at the International Mining History Congress held at the University
of Guanajuato, Mexico, in 1998 and has been amended in the light of subsequent research. On 10 March 2006 it
formed the core of a presentation to the Institute of Historical Research Late Medieval Seminar at the University
of London
2
Wales, for the purposes of this paper, refers to those parts of the principality occupied or controlled by the
English Crown.
2
Silver bearing lead ores were also worked in the older rocks, primarily in the south-west of
England - the counties of Devon and Cornwall - where they were deeper seated deposits
unaffected by glaciation. Ore deposits in the Carboniferous rocks were the first to be worked,
from at least the Roman occupation through the early medieval period, and by the 11th
century were established lead / silver mining fields. Those in Devon and Cornwall do not
appear to have received serious attention until the 13th century.
Silver mining prior to the 13th century
With his conquest of England in 1066 William of Normandy inherited in the established lead
/ silver mining fields, as with tin in the Stannaries and possibly iron in the Forest of Dean, a
system of regulation based on custom. That system of regulation, codified in some fields
during the 13th century as customary law, allowed free access for individual or groups of
miners to work the ore deposits in return for a portion of the produce.
Prior to the 13th century the ownership of mineral rights, including silver-bearing ores, was
linked to lordship of the land under which they were found. Fundamentally, that lay with the
Crown but in the two centuries following the Conquest lordship of large areas of England,
and those parts of Wales under English control, was granted to others with no specific
reservation of the mineral rights. The English Crown did, however, retain lordship over the
active silver producing areas - notably the liberty of Tynedale - with two exceptions, the
bishopric of Durham and the bishop of Wells' manor of Wells in Somerset. These were
granted with rights to all minerals including silver.3
The Mine of Carlisle
Value of the farm and rise in debts
350
3000
300
2500
250
£
2000
200
1500
150
1000
100
500
50
0
£
1138
1148
Lead
1158
1168
1178
Farm
1188
1198
1208
0
Debt
Figure 1 4
3
Page, W. (ed.), A History of Durham, (London, 1907), ii, p. 348; Gough, J. W., Mines of Mendip, (1930;
revised edition Newton Abbot, 1967), pp. 50-55; The National Archives (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO),
Ancient Correspondence, SC1/48/177
4
Based on data extracted from transcripts of the Pipe Rolls (TNA: PRO, E372) published by the Pipe Roll
Society (PNS).
3
Organisation of mining in the established lead/silver mining fields was governed by custom
which gave control of the means of production to the miners. Control of the produce,
however, was in the hands of the mineral lord through his right of pre-emption. This ensured
a ready supply of silver for the mints and lead for construction work. In the second part of the
12th century the Tynedale mines - accounted for in the Pipe Rolls as 'the mine of Carlisle'
after their administrative centre – may have produced a total of up to 900,000 ounces (c.
26.25 tonnes) of silver.5 An earlier peak is masked by the lack of records during the Scottish
occupation of Cumberland, 1135-54, but may have been equally productive. It was during
that period that the bishop of Durham is recorded as receiving 164Kg of silver from his
Weardale mines in one year.6
Silver production from the northern Pennine was short-lived. By the end of the third quarter
of the 12th century the mines were predominantly lead producers. The decline in silver
production being marked by a rapid rise in the debts of the farmer of the 'mine of Carlisle', a
rise in the amount of lead taken under pre-emption (Figure 1 above) and the minimal
amounts of silver accounted for whilst Durham was in the hands of the Crown during
vacancies in the see.7 Even lead production was eclipsed by increase output from mines in
the Yorkshire Pennines.
The demise of the northern Pennine silver mines ushered in a period of over a hundred years
during which England was without a reliable home source of newly mined silver. Small
amounts of silver mined in north-east Wales were probably in the hands of the princes of
Gwynedd and minted at Rhuddlan.8
The Crown’s right of prerogative over silver-bearing ores.
In the 1260s a potential source of precious metals was discovered in North Devon but this lay
under land outside of Crown lordship. The Crown's answer was to invoke a right of
prerogative - claiming the silver bearing ores 'of our royal liberty'.9 A landowner's right to
ores of base metals, free of silver, were confirmed shortly after but thereafter the rights to
silver-bearing ores were vested in the Crown, with the continued exceptions of Durham and
the manor of Wells, until removed under the Mines Royal Acts of 1689 and 1693.10 The
Crown chose not to press its claim to silver-bearing ores within the established lead mining
fields, governed by customary law, which lay outside the Crown lordships. The one attempt
For an assessment of north Pennine silver production, see Claughton, P. ‘Production and economic impact:
Northern Pennine (English) silver in the 12th century, Proceedings of the 6th International Mining History
Congress, (Akabira, Japan, 2003), pp. 146-149; or at http://www.people.exeter.ac.uk/pfclaugh/mhinf/claugh.doc
6
Dialogi Laurentii Dunelmensis monachi ac Prioris, ed. J. Raine, Surtees Society Vol. 70 (1880).
7
Pipe Rolls, PNS NS7, p. 261; NS28, p. 38
8
Hoare, R. C. Giralsus Cambrensis, the itinerary through Wales, (1976), p. 129. Besly, E. ‘Short Cross and
other medieval coin from Llanfaes, Anglesey’, The British Numismatic Journal, 65 (1995), 53-55
9
'ad dignitatem regalium nostrorum.' (PRO Cal. Close R., Hen. III, vol. 12, p. 187) In this the English Crown
appears to have followed the path taken by continental rulers in interpreting Roman Law as vesting the right to
precious minerals in the state - see Nef, J. U. ‘Mining and metallurgy in medieval civilisation’ , in M. M. Postan
and E. Rich (eds.), The Cambridge economic history of Europe, Vol II, (Cambridge, 1952), p. 442-3.
10
PRO Cal. Close R., Ed. I, vol. II, p. 199. The Acts of 1689 and 1693 (1 William & Mary, c. 30, and 5 William
& Mary, c. 6) removed the Crown’s right to base ores containing precious metals, but retained a right of preemption over any precious metals that might be extracted from those ores. Precious metals found in their native
form, e.g. free gold, continued to be owned by the Crown.
5
4
in 1525 on Mendip met with opposition and was abandoned. The only legal challenge to the
status of silver-bearing ores, in 1568, although decided in favour of regalian rights to ores
containing even small amounts of precious metals, did not result in any fresh intervention in
base metal mining, other than copper, by the English Crown.11
Direct management of the Devon mines
The attempt to work silver-bearing ores in the 1260s came to nothing but once viable deposits
had been identified in Devon, at Bere Ferrers (Birland) and Combe Martin, the Crown was
swift to apply its prerogative and establish control of the workings. In 1292 the mines, 60
miles apart on the south and north coasts of Devon respectively, were opened up under a
centralised management. A ‘keeper’ was appointed, responsible directly to the Exchequer for
the operation of the mines with his actions monitored by a ‘controller’ who reported
independently to the Exchequer.
A work force was assembled in Devon comprised of skilled miners and smelters from the
established lead mining fields,12 many of whom were pressed into service, supplemented by
locally hired labour and, later, tinners from the nearby Stannaries. Refiners were brought in
from the Mint. All were Crown servants, supervised by Crown officers and remunerated
through a mixed system of day wages and piecework. (See Figure 2 below) Only the miners
on ore extraction, and some deadwork, had any element of self-management and that was
restricted to their organisation at the work face.
Miners in Crown service were granted certain privileges - notably an exemption from
taxation, both local and national, and the right to trial before the keeper of the mines - but
these were not allowed to become established as custom. An ordinance under which the
mines were operated specified prompt payment of miners wages and the maintenance of
services - smithing, carriage and measurement of ore - allowing the miners to extract and
process their ore without hindrance. However the ordinance also allowed the keeper the
flexibility to maximise production - “if the keepers see that they can amend this ordinance in
any of the articles above said let them do it to the best of their knowledge and power. And
that from month to month they certify the Treasurer and the Barons of the Exchequer of the
state of the mines and of what they shall have done”.13
The workings were initially shallow but soon beyond the limits of continuous drainage using
hand methods - hemp ropes and leather buckets. Free drainage to surface by means of adits
11
A report on the judgement given by the Court of Exchequer, in Hilary Term, 10 Eliz. I, in a Case ... between
the Queen and the Earl of Northumberland, .... touching a Mine of Copper containing Gold or Silver, claimed by
the Queen, in the lands of the said Earl. See Plowden, E. The commentaries, (1588, reprinted London, 1816) I,
pp. 310-340. In practice the position was interpreted as 'where the Oar digged from any Mine doth yield
according to the Rules of Art so much Gold or Silver, as that the value thereof exceed the charges of Refining,
and loss of the baser Metal in which it is contained, and from whence it is extracted, then it is called rich Oar or
a Mine Royal;' See Pettus, Sir J. Fodinae Regales, (London, 1670), p. 9. Copper was routinely included in
grants of Royal mines throughout the late medieval period but when challenged in 1568 the Crown relied on its
association with silver to defend its right of prerogative on its ores.
12
Miners were pressed and recruited from the Derbyshire Peak District, North-east Wales and Mendip.
13
British Library (BL) Add 24770 f 207
5
was introduced at Bere Ferrers by 1297-8 and within a year or two was allowing the mines to
be worked without break through the winter months.14
Employment Structure Devon silver-lead mines
in the 14th century
Keeper
Controller
Supervisor
Day wages
Smelters
bolers
furnacemen
bellows
-blowers
Refiners
Carpenters
Smiths
Blackwork
-washers
Woodcutters
Piece work
Production
- Paid by the
load of ore
(dressed)
Deadwork
- Paid by the
fathom or
the task (more
commonly the
latter)
(all paid weekly
but only for
days worked)
Carriage *
Forester
Material
-buyer
Charcoal
-burning
Rope making
(both on a
regular weekly
wage, plus
expenses for
the latter)
- of ore and
timber
* Occasionally on
day wages
Figure 2
Smelting of the silver-bearing ores was initially carried out using only simple wind-blown
bole hearths but that method was found wanting as it was only capable of reducing the larger
‘bing’ ore and left appreciable amounts of lead and silver in the residues. There ensued a
period of experimentation with smelting methods, including the ‘hutt’, a form of liquation,
culminating in the bole / furnace complex (Figure 3 below). This served the lead-silver
14
TNA: PRO, Ancient Correspondence SC1/48/81. See Recueil de lettres Anglo-Francaises , ed. F. J.
Tanquerey, (Paris, 1916), pp. 72-76 for Anglo-Norman text.
6
industry until the mid 15th century and the introduction of an integrated smelting / refining
complex, referred to as the ‘fynyngmyll’, using a water powered furnace process.15
Devon mines - ore processing after 1296
Cerussite
Galena
Dressing1
'bing' ore
small ore
BOLE
FURNACE
?
HUTT etc.
?
FURNACE
Slag residues - 'blackwork'
Crushing 1
Blackwork
FURNACE
fertile lead
Slag
2
fertile lead
Refinery (cupellation)
litharge
Furnace
(reviver)
Sterile
Lead
Silver
Notes
1. Including the separation of waste matter by washing.
2. Later recovered and reprocessed.
Figure 3
The Combe Martin mines were abandoned in 1296 but those at Beer Ferrers continued in
production until the Black Death. Output peaked at 23228 ozs of silver in 1297 and again at
21516 ozs in 1306.16 With prospect of good returns in 1299 the mines were granted to Italian
bankers, the Friscobaldi, as security for a loan but, in their short tenure, they paid little regard
to maintenance or development work and left the mines in a poor state.
15
For this and other techniques used in silver mining and smelting, see Claughton, P. F., Silver Mining in
England and Wales, unpublished PhD thesis, (Exeter, 2003).
16
Production figures and costs are drawn from TNA: PRO Exchequer Accounts E101; for full references see
Claughton, Silver Mining.
7
The mines were back under direct management in 1300 but it was four years before repairs
were effected and there was renewed production.17 Thomas de Swanseye, formerly controller
during the Friscobaldi’s tenure, held the office of keeper during this period of reconstruction.
Whilst there is no evidence that he had previous experience of mining operations, he proved
an astute manager, aware of providing an unencumbered environment in which miners
engaged in ore production could maximise their output. (Figure 4 below) Consequently, once
the mines were again in production, there was continued investment in capital works to
improve free drainage and reduce the reliance on labour to haul water from the workings.
Silver production and deadwork costs, Bere Ferrers, 1301-1317
(Exchequer Accounts).
£2,000.00
£1,800.00
£1,600.00
£1,400.00
£1,200.00
Deadwork costs
£1,000.00
Silver production
£800.00
£600.00
£400.00
£200.00
13
17
13
15
13
13
13
11
13
09
13
07
13
05
13
03
13
01
£0.00
Figure 4
Finance for this development work came from the Exchequer. Money was either diverted
from locally collected taxation or provided as cash from the London mint. On occasion,
when the Exchequer was slow to forward coin to the mines, funds were generated by local
sales of sterile lead.
In the 1320s the workings at Bere Ferrers still had potentially rich reserves but deeper
working was again troubled by water. As adits had been driven at the deepest possible level
on the line of the productive workings, deeper free drainage could only be achieved by
driving new deeper adits as crosscuts from further down the valleys intersecting the vein.
This entailed increased capital expenditure the outcome of which, in terms of increased
output, has yet to be identified but the mines were to remain in work for a further two
decades.
When the Black Death hit the South-West of England in 1348/9 the mines had been working
at a low but sustained level of production for the previous five years. With the onset of the
plague, and no doubt affected by the loss of the keeper and a reduced labour force, they were
then confined to the reworking of slag residues and underground working was abandoned.
17
Over £1000 was expended on unproductive work (deadwork) to ensure that reserves of ore were accessible for
the next decade (TNA: PRO Exchequer Accounts, E101/260/19 and E101/260/22).
8
The move to fixed term leasing.
With recurring visitations of plague and dramatic demographic decline in the latter half of the
14th century affecting mining as much as any other industrial activity, the Crown saw a rapid
fall in its income from silver mining. When mining resumed, at Combe Martin, in the 1360s
it was on a smaller scale. Direct management was discontinued with the mines being held on
lease from the Crown and although the lessees, still referred to as the ‘keepers’ of the mines,
were allowed to continue the practice of impressing labour it was at a much reduced level.18
Over the next few decades a form of Crown lease was developed to include all those elements
found in modern mineral leases - royalty, dead-rent, fixed terminal date - and the right of preemption. The latter clause ensuring that silver continued to be accounted for at the Exchequer
and directed to the mint in London.
The mines were usually granted on a county basis. The scale of which and the deep seated
nature of the deposits in the South-West of England, and later in Wales, meant that only those
entrepreneurs with sufficient capital could hope to succeed.
Lessees over the century and a half to 1500 were largely Crown servants of some standing
who saw the mines as means to enhance the fees of office which in themselves were a
supplement to a falling income from land holding. Investment in the Bere Ferrers mines in
particular was directed to the ongoing problems of draining the deep workings, culminating in
the introduction of innovative labour-saving technology by Sir John Fogge in 1480.19 In that
respect Fogge, and earlier lessees, displayed many of the characteristics which were to be
associated with the entrepreneurs of the 18th / 19th century Industrial Revolution. By the
latter part of the 16th century such lessees and their associates, for example Bevis Bulmer,
cannot be differentiated from their modern counterparts; taking the risks, introducing capital,
innovative techniques, organisation and leadership.20
The factors behind direct management.
To understand the reasoning behind the move to direct management we must examine the
factors - economic, technological and administrative - which might have influenced the
Crown’s decision making.
The move to direct management came at a time of increased pressure on royal finances, with
the inflationary effects of both population growth and increased money supply impacting on
18
Reworking of the Combe Martin mines had been attempted under lease from the Crown in the 1320s but, after
a rapid turnover of lessees, witnesses at an enquiry testified ‘that a great part of the product of the mine is
submerged and they will be overcome by an immense abundance of water and the workmen are worried, and in
this matter also they say that many veins of the same mine are totally barren.’ (TNA: PRO Chancery:
Inquisitions ad quod damnum, C143/192)
19
See Claughton, P. ‘Silver-Lead - A restricted resource; technological choice in the Devon mines’, in T. D.
Ford and L. Willies (eds.) Mining before Powder, Bull. PDMHS, 12, 3, (1994), 54-59. Claughton, P. ‘The
Lumburn Leat - evidence for new pumping technology at Bere Ferrers in the 15th century’, in P. Newman (ed.)
The Archaeology of Mining and Metallurgy in South-West Britain, Mining History: Bull. PDMHS, 13, 2,
(1996), 35-40.
20
Payne, P L. British Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth Century, (London, 1974), pp. 13-16
9
the Crown as much as anyone. Ability to fund government from its own receipts was tested
with supply led inflation, c. 1180 to early 13th century, and by the last quarter of that century
the additional demands of Edward I’s martial policies outstripped the available resources.
Crown finances outside the ‘ordinary revenues’, i.e. those from the royal demesne, the farm
of the counties and boroughs, profits of the justice and the issues of ecclesiastical estates
during vacancies, were in the gift of Parliament. Possible increases from the ordinary
revenues were limited. The demesne itself was diminishing as the Crown used it for
patronage, increases elsewhere ran the risk of alienating the population in general, and the
only other real prospect for an increase in royal income was through taxation. (Bolton 1985,
pp. 323-6) One-of grants from taxation had been made as early as the reign of John but in
1275, three years into Edward’s reign, Parliament had granted the first regular external
income - the right of customs duty on wool, wool fells and leather - and that was more or less
immediately pledged as security for a loan with Italian bankers.
The profits from silver mining had the attraction of being, like the ordinary revenues, outside
the control of Parliament. But, unlike the ordinary revenues, mining had the prospect of
increased profits without any social backlash.
Whilst there are parallels with central Europe in the exercise of Crown prerogative over silver
they cannot be extended to the organisation of mining.21 Central European mining expansion
in the 13th / 14th centuries presented administrative problems not found in the south-west of
England. It was a ‘frontier’ environment with poor communications, working ore deposits in
mountainous uncultivated areas. Self regulation by the miners was favoured, as it had been in
the northern Pennines of England in the 12th century, with the state taking its portion at a
distance in the form of a royalty. The Devon mines, on the other hand, were in areas with
established lowland agricultural communities and associated infrastructure, benefiting from
well used routes of communication by land and sea. Control over mining could be exercised
through regular contact between the keeper, controller and officers of the Exchequer.
It has been a general assumption on the part of commentators, like Miller, that central control
was required to muster the resources for deep mining and it certainly became the accepted
form of organisation for the silver-lead industry through to the modern period.22 Yet the
central control instigated with the direct management of the Devon mines predates any
evidence for deep mining by a number of years. There is nothing to suggest that the Crown
envisaged working any deeper than was the practice in other mining fields at that date.
The miners employed, from the established lead mining fields, brought with them the
methods used there. Only after five years operation was adit drainage introduced and then it
was the tinners from the nearby Stannaries that were employed in its implementation. Those
tinners were certainly not familiar with deep mining but were capable of adapting the
techniques used in draining their shallow, wet stream workings.
21
It was not until the 17th century that any of the Central European states took on the direct management of
silver mines – see for example Bartels, C. ‘The Development of the Turm-Rosenhof Mine, 1540-1820, Clauthal,
Upper Harz’, in Stuart J. Fleming and Helen R. Schenck (eds.), History of Technology: The Role of Metals,
MASCA Research Papers in Science and Archaeology, Vol. 6, (Philadelphia, 1989), pp. 46-64.
22
Miller, E. (ed.) The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. III (1348-1500), (Cambridge, 1991), p. 739
10
Similarly with smelting, workers were recruited from the lead mining fields and brought with
them the techniques that were employed there - based around the simple, wind-blown ‘bole’
hearth. It was only after those techniques were found wanting that a period of
experimentation was embarked upon, leading to the bole / furnace complex capable of
treating all the ore mined.
All were relatively simple, low cost processes - well within capabilities of the independent
miners of the lead fields. Refining on the other hand was a capital intensive process
involving the erection of a water powered mill in 1292 but, as there had previously been a
Crown involvement in the process, it alone is unlikely to have influenced the move to direct
management.
Justification for central control of mining might be found in the need to muster the sizeable
work force - over 300 men - required at the mines but at the peak of medieval population
growth there was no real shortage of labour. In the established lead mining fields there
existed a body of full-time miners, with little or no ties to the land, who might be motivated
to move to new centres of production but the Crown chose to press the bulk of them into
service in the Devon mines. However, there was a precedent for this in Edward’s castle
building programme in Wales commenced with the first campaign against the Welsh in 1277
and continued during and after the campaigns of 1282-3 and 1294-5. Masons, carpenters and
other skill labour was then impressed in virtually every English county and mustered at
Chester.23
The idea of central control over workers was not alien to royal administration, it had been a
feature of minting - on which the English Crown had held a firm grip since before the
Conquest - and was used to good effect in the castle building programme of the last quarter of
the 13th century. Each construction site was under the control of a ‘clerk of works’ who
accounted for the deployment of labour and the expenditure on materials. He was obliged to
keep detailed accounts and submit these to the Exchequer at regular intervals. Flexibility of
management as allowed to the keeper of the Devon mines was also in evidence in the castle
building programme, where no two castles were the same in purpose or design. As with the
Devon mines his activity was monitored by a controller who in turn submitted a ‘counter roll’
used to verify the clerks account. The method of accounting reflecting what was becoming
standard throughout medieval estates both lay and ecclesiastical.
The role of the ‘controller’ in the administration of Crown finances predates the direct
management of the Devon mines and the castle building programme. Supervision of local
‘collectors’ of customs duty was formulated in the grant of customs in 1275 but, although a
controller was appointed briefly in 1294-98, it was not made a permanent feature until the
reign of Edward III in the early 14th century.24
It could be argued that the ‘private sector’ - the independent ‘free’ miner working and
governed by custom - was too inflexible to expand into new areas of production. Miners
from the established fields, governed by custom within restricted boundaries, would be
unwilling to open up new deposits in, for example, the South-West of England as those
Taylor, A J. The King’s Works in Wales, (London, 1974), fig. 25
Baker, R. L. The English Customs Service, 1307-1343, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,
New series, vol. 51, Pt. 6, (Philadelphia, 1961), p. 4 and 10.
23
24
11
customs would be ineffective leaving them to negotiate with individual land/mineral owners.
The Crown could have enabled the transfer of custom to new mining fields but was probably
loathed to do so when, without efficient local administration, it placed the potential for profit
in the miner’s hands. Of the £7500 due to the Crown, as a farm of income from the Tynedale
mines during the second half of the 12th century, over a third remained unpaid due to the
inability of county officers in Carlisle to monitor the activity of the individuals involved. (See
Figure 1)
The steady flow of silver into the Exchequer in the late 1290s and through the first quarter of
the 14th century justified the Crown’s action. Even in lean years it was loathed to return
silver mining - the Bere Ferrers mines in particular - to private hands on the grounds that
there was potential for increased production.25
Conclusions
The Crown’s action in the direct management of the Devon mines was prompted by the desire
to maximise its income from silver mining. An administrative system, already tested on the
programme of royal castle building, was employed to ensure continued control of resources
whilst allowing the flexibility required to improve production.
Although there is no evidence that the Crown opened up the Devon mines with deep working
in mind, by its willingness to provide the capital necessary to develop the mines it set the
pattern for the application of capital intensive techniques in the industry
By late 14th century the technological problems of deep working were exacerbated by the
rapid demographic decline during the plague years. Whilst the financial demands of royal
government remained as high as those a century earlier, the administrative problems of
marshalling the resources, material and human, required for deep mining influenced the move
to a policy of leasing the mines to private individuals.
In choosing to farm out the mines in a form accessible only to men of substance, the Crown
ensured control over its income from silver. It also laid the foundation for an entrepreneurial
system which was to dominate non-ferrous metal mining into the modern period.
Peter Claughton, University of Exeter, UK 26
E-mail: P.F.Claughton@exeter.ac.uk
16 March 2006
TNA: PRO, King’s Remembrancer Memoranda Rolls E159/91, f.110
Hon. University Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Science; Research Fellow, School of Geography,
Archaeology and Earth Resources.
25
26