In message <001c01c67f79$117cf4d0$0401a8c0@mikenew>, Mike Gill
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>There were undoubtedly contacts between the mining fields, and the
>simplistic notion that Derbyshire miners "spread the word" was once so
>seductive that it blinded mining historians to the obvious for many
>years. The picture in Yorkshire (and other counties too - no doubt) was
>much more complex and since the late 1980s it has been increasingly
>accepted that customary mining law (and lore) was widespread during and
>immediately after the mediæval period.
>
>The idea that miners from anywhere could arrive and simply convince
>powerful men like the Lords Bolton, Lords Wharton or the Earls of
>Cumberland to accept an alien system for regulating their mining fields
>is truly fanciful. In fact, it appears that these men "inherited" the
>customary laws with liberated monastic lands and then they either
>tolerated the laws or suppressed them.
>
>The interesting things, to me at least, are:-
>
>Why did the 'Derbyshire' system of soughing companies never catch on
>elsewhere. There were a few levels/soughs/adits in the Yorkshire Dales
>in the 17th and early 18th centuries, but all seem to have been driven
>to drain 'single owner' (which might have been a partnership) mines as
>opposed to a number of mines which paid composition to the soughers.
Mike, I would think that it is tied in with the separation between the
mineral ownership, i.e. the Crown, and the smelters. Your mineral owners
in the Dales seemed to have controlled their mining fields in a far
tighter manner than happened in the Peak. They controlled the smelting
and marketing, and I suspect this stifled the involvement of mining
capitalists in financing soughs. In most of the Peak the mineral owners,
apart from extracting their percentages, had a much more hands-off
attitude, and were content to allow smelters, merchants and others, to
run their own shows. I think that the barmoot system also tended to
increase this separation.
>
>If Yvonne Luke's model for pre-Conquest mining is sound, what system of
>ownership and working was used before customary law.
>
What's the reference for this?
>
>Mike Gill
>
>
Cheers, Dave
>
--
David Williams
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