The lumps of ore were first broken up with hammers or in a mill; the powdered ore was then washed to free it as far as possible from earthy impurities. Sometimes this was done with a 'vanne,' or shovel, the heavy ore remaining at the point of the shovel and the lighter impurities being washed away. An elaborate process was also used, in which the water containing the powdered ore was allowed to run over pieces of turf, the metallic portion sinking and becoming entangled in the fibres. The usual method, however, was by means of troughs or 'buddles.' This washing was not only a necessary preliminary to the smelting, but had an economic importance, as it was at the wash that the ore was divided when a claim was worked by partners, and the tribute or share due to the lord of the soil was apportioned; it was also, towards the end of the medieval period, the only place where the ore might be bought by dealers.[215] To prevent fraud it was therefore enacted that due notice should be given of washes, and no secret buddles should be used.

When we first get any details of tin-working, in 1198, it was usual for the tin to be smelted twice, the first being a rough process performed near the tinfield, but the second, or refining, being only permitted at special places and in the presence of the officers of the stannaries. The tin from the first smelting had to be stamped by the royal officers within two weeks of smelting, a toll being paid to the king at the same time of 2s. 6d. per thousand-weight in Devon, and of 5s. in Cornwall. Moreover, by the regulations of 1198, within thirteen weeks the tin had to be resmelted and again stamped, this time paying a tax of one mark.[216] The double smelting possibly ceased before the end of the thirteenth century. In any case the fiscal arrangement was altered, and in 1302, not long after the stannaries had reverted to the Crown, after being in the hands of the Earls of Cornwall from 1231 to 1300, we find the stampage dues consolidated into a single coinage duty. Under this system of coinage all the tin smelted had to be sent to certain specified towns, those for Cornwall being Bodmin, Liskeard, Lostwithiel, Helston, and Truro; and for Devon, Chagford, Tavistock, Plympton, and Ashburton. Here the tin remained until the two yearly visits of the coinage officials, at Michaelmas and Midsummer, when each block, weighing roughly 200 to 300 lbs., was assayed, weighed, and taxed: it was then stamped and might be sold. To prevent fraud an elaborate system of marking was gradually introduced during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the use of private marks by the owners of the blowing-houses was probably of much earlier origin. The use of these marks was designed not only to protect the merchant, but also to act as a check on smuggling, of which an immense amount undoubtedly went on.[217]

One result of the coinage system, by which tin might not be sold until stamped, and could only be stamped twice a year, was that the smaller tin-workers inevitably fell into the hands of the capitalists. The small independent tinner, with no reserve of capital to draw upon, had almost always to pledge his tin in advance to the adventurers and tin-dealers, and as a result he was often worse off with his theoretical independence than he would have been as a recognised wage-labourer. The wage work system must have been introduced into the stannaries at quite an early period. Even in 1237 there are references to servants who worked the mines for the tinners.[218] In 1342 certain of the wealthier Cornish tinners endeavoured to force their poorer brethren to work for them at a penny a day, when they had been working tin worth 20d. or more daily, and it is said that Abraham the tinner in 1357 was actually employing three hundred persons on his works. Side by side with these hired workmen were the independent tinners, working either separately or, more usually in partnerships; but from the small amounts which many of these tinners presented for coinage, Mr. Lewis has concluded that they may have been only partly dependent upon their mining.[219] There is, however, the complication that the small amounts presented may in part have been due to their having sold their ore to the larger dealers, but it is clear that some of the tinners did also carry on farming.

While the economic position of the smaller tinners must often have been little, if at all, superior to that of ordinary labourers, their political position was remarkable. They constituted a state within a state; the free miner 'paid taxes not as an Englishman, but as a miner. His law was not the law of the realm, but that of his mine. He obeyed the king only when his orders were communicated through the warden of the mines, and even then so long only as he respected the mining law. His courts were the mine courts, his parliament the mine parliament.'[220] The tinner was a free man and could not be subjected to the system of villeinage. He had the right of prospecting anywhere within the two counties, except in churchyards, highways, and gardens, and might 'bound' or stake out a claim by the simple process of cutting shallow holes and making piles of turf at the four corners of his claim, and such claim would be his absolute property provided that he worked it (the exact amount of work necessary to retain a claim varied in different places and at different periods). For his claim he paid to the lord of the land, whether it were the king or a private lord, a certain tribute of ore, usually the tenth or the fifteenth portion. He had, moreover, the right to divert streams, either to obtain water for washing his ore, or to enable him to dig in the bed of the stream, and the important privilege of compelling landowners to sell him fuel for his furnace. Further, he had his own courts, and was under the sole jurisdiction of the warden-officers of the stannaries. Each stannary, of which there were five in Cornwall and four in Devon, had its own court, presided over by a steward, and no tinner might plead or be impleaded outside his court, from which the appeal lay to the warden, or in practice to the vice-warden. How and when these privileges were obtained must remain a matter for speculation, but they can be traced when William de Wrotham was appointed warden in 1198, and were definitely confirmed to the tinners by King John in 1201. By development, apparently, from the two yearly great courts of the stannaries, arose the 'stannary parliaments.' The parliament for Cornwall consisted of twenty-four members, six being nominated by the mayor and council of each of the four towns of Lostwithiel, Launceston, Truro, and Helston; that of Devon contained ninety-six members, twenty-four from each of the stannaries. Those parliaments were summoned, through the lord warden, by the Duke of Cornwall, in whom the supreme control of the stannaries was vested from 1338 onwards, and had power not only to legislate for the stannaries, but to veto any national legislation which infringed their privileges. When the parliaments originated is not known, but they were certainly established before the beginning of the sixteenth century, prior to which date all records of their proceedings are lost.

With all these privileges, to which may be added exemption from ordinary taxation and military service, though the tinners were liable to be taxed separately and enrolled for service under their own officers, it was natural that the exact definition of a tinner should have given rise to much dispute. On the one hand, it was argued that these exemptions and privileges applied only to working tinners actually employed in getting ore; on the other, the tin dealers, blowers, and owners of blowing-houses claimed to be included. Eventually the larger definition was accepted, and, indeed, it was almost entirely from the capitalist section of the industry that the parliaments were elected, from the sixteenth century, if not earlier.

It is rather remarkable that when the stannaries first come into evidence, in the reign of Henry II., the chief centre of production appears to have been Devon rather than Cornwall.[221] So far as can be estimated the output during this reign rose gradually from about 70 tons in 1156 to about 350 in 1171. Richard I., with his constant need of money, reorganised the stannaries in 1198, and at the beginning of John's reign the output was between 400 and 450 tons. The issue of the charter to the stannaries in 1201 does not seem to have had any immediate effect on the industry, but about ten years later there was increased activity, the output rising in 1214 to 600 tons.[222] During the early years of Henry III. the tin revenues were farmed out, and no details are available either for these years, or from the period 1225-1300, during which time the stannaries were in the hands of the Earls of Cornwall. Two things only are clear, that the total output had fallen off, and that Cornwall had now far outstripped Devon. The grant of a charter confirming the privileges of the stannaries in 1305 seems to have marked the beginning of a more prosperous era, and by 1337 the output had reached 700 tons. The Black Death, however, in 1350 put an end to this prosperity, and with the exception of a boom during the reign of Henry IV. tinning did not recover until just at the end of our medieval period. Even at its worst, however, the industry was a source of considerable revenue, the coinage duties[223] never falling below £1000, and amounting in 1337 and 1400 to over £3000, in addition to which there were other smaller payments and perquisites.[224] The royal privileges of pre-emption was also of value to needy kings who frequently availed themselves of it to grant this pre-emption, or virtual monopoly, to wealthy foreign merchants and other money-lenders in return for substantial loans.

Before leaving the subject of the tin mines of Cornwall and Devon, it is perhaps worth while noting that there is virtually no documentary evidence of the working of the copper deposits of Cornwall prior to the late sixteenth century, and it would seem that most of the copper used in medieval England must have been imported.

CHAPTER V
QUARRYING—STONE, MARBLE, ALABASTER, CHALK

Stone-quarrying is an industry to which the references in medieval records are more numerous than enlightening. It would be easy to fill pages with a list of casual references to the working of quarries in all parts of England, and after struggling through the list the reader would know that stone was dug in quite a lot of places at different times, which he might have assumed without the documentary evidence. It is natural that when a castle, an abbey, a church, or other stone building is to be erected the stone, whose cost lies mainly in transport, should be obtained from the nearest possible source. Founders of monasteries frequently made grants either of existing quarries or of the right to dig stone for the monastic buildings, and the discovery of a bed of suitable stone close to the site selected for the Conqueror's votive abbey of Battle was so opportune as to be deemed a miracle.[225] When a monastery was founded in a district where stone could not be found, it was almost essential that its supplies should be drawn if possible from some place from which the stone could be carried by water, and it was no doubt the position of Barnack between the Welland and the Nene that made its quarries so important to the monks of the Fenland.[226] The abbeys of Peterborough, Ramsey, Crowland, Bury St. Edmund and Sawtry all held quarries in Barnack and quarrelled amongst themselves over their respective rights. The monks of Sawtry, for instance, had made a canal for carrying stone to their abbey by way of Wittlesea Mere by permission of the abbey of Ramsey, a permission which they seem to have abused, as in 1192 orders were given to block all their lodes except the main one leading to Sawtry, and they had to promise to put up no buildings except one rest house for the men on their stone barges.[227]

For York Minster[228] stone was brought from the quarries of Thevesdale, Huddleston, and Tadcaster down the Wharfe, and from Stapleton down the Aire into the Ouse, and so up to St. Leonard's wharf, whence it was carried on sleds to the mason's yard. Westminster and London were mainly supplied from Surrey, from the Reigate and Chaldon quarries, and Kent, from the Maidstone district. The tough 'Kentish rag,' which was used by the Romans for the walls of London, was much in demand for the rougher masonry,[229] and in a contract for building a wharf by the Tower in 1389, it was stipulated that the core of the walls should be of 'raggs,' and the facing of 'assheler de Kent.'[230] The Reigate stone, on the other hand, was of superior quality and more suited for fine work, and we find it constantly used for images, carved niches, and window tracery.[231]

The most accessible stone not always being the most suitable for the varying requirements of architecture, it was necessary to find other stone possessing the desired qualities, and certain quarries at an early date acquired renown. Setting aside the famous Norman quarries of Caen, whose stone appears in greater or less quantities in hundreds of buildings and of records, there are a number of English quarries of more than local repute in medieval times. Such were the quarries of Beer in Devonshire, from whose labyrinthine galleries stone was carried to Rochester in 1367,[232] to St. Stephen's Westminster in 1362,[233] and elsewhere. The fine limestone, later known as Bath Stone, was quarried to a large extent at Haslebury in Box in Wiltshire, from which place it was sent in 1221 to the royal palace at Winchester for the columns of the hall and for chimney hoods,[234] Richard Sired receiving 23s. 4d. for cutting 105 blocks of stone in the quarry of Hesalburi.[235] For these same works at Winchester much stone was brought from the Hampshire quarry of Selebourne, and from the better known quarries of the Isle of Wight, while a stone-cutter was sent to procure material from the quarry of Corfe. This latter was no doubt the same as the 'hard stone of Corfe,' bought for Westminster in 1278.[236] With Corfe and Purbeck is associated Portland stone, which attained its greatest fame in the hands of Wren after the Fire of London, but was already appreciated in the fourteenth century, when it was used in Exeter Cathedral and at Westminster.[237] Further east Sussex possessed a number of quarries of local importance,[238] and the quarry of green sandstone at Eastbourne, from which the great Roman walls of Pevensey and the medieval castle within them were alike built, probably provided the '28 stones of Burne, worked for windows of the vault under the chapel' at Shene in 1441.[239] Another Sussex quarry, that of Fairlight, near Hastings, supplied large quantities of stone for Rochester Castle in 1366 and 1367.[240] The list of stone brought in the latter year at Rochester is of interest as showing the various sources from which it was derived.[241] There were bought 55 tons of Beer freestone at prices varying from 9s. to 10s. the ton,[242] 62 tons of Caen stone at 9s., 45 tons of Stapleton freestone[243] at 8s., 44 tons of Reigate stone at 6s., 195 tons of freestone from Fairlight at 3s. 4d., 1850 tons of rag from Maidstone at 40s. the hundred tons, and a large quantity[244] of worked stone from Boughton Mounchelsea.

The Kentish quarries seem to have been especially favoured for the manufacture of the stone balls flung by the royal artillery, in early days by mangonels, balistae, and other forms of catapults, and in later days by guns. Thus in 1342 the sheriff of Kent accounted for £13, 10s. spent on 300 stones dug in the quarry of Folkestone and drawn out of the sea in various places, and afterwards cut and hewn into round balls for the king's machines; one hundred weighing 600 lbs. each, and the same number 500 lbs. and 400 lbs. respectively; and a further £7, 10s. for another 300 stone balls of various weights.[245] It is true that some years earlier, in 1333, similar balls had been obtained in Yorkshire, the sheriff buying 19 damlades[246] and 3 tons of stone in the quarry of Tadcaster, and setting 37 masons to work, the result being 606 stone balls weighing 9 damlades,[247] but casual references point to Kent as the great centre of manufacture. In 1418 as many as 7000 such balls were ordered to be made at Maidstone and elsewhere, and the Maidstone quarries were still turning out stone shot for bombards during the early years of Henry VIII.[248]

So far we have been dealing with what may be called block stone, but there were also in many parts of the country stones that from the ease with which they could be split into thin slabs were suitable for roofing purposes. How early, and to what extent the true slates of Cornwall and Devon were worked it is difficult to say, but in 1296, when certain buildings were put up for the miners at Martinestowe 23,000 'sclattes' were quarried at Birlond, and another 10,000 at 'Hassal.'[249] For the roofing of buildings at Restormel in Cornwall in 1343 slates were employed, 19,500 being bought 'between Golant and Fowey,' at 11d. the thousand, and 85,500 dug in the quarry of Bodmatgan at a cost of 6d. the thousand.[250] So also in 1385, at Lostwithiel, it is probable that the 'tiles,' of which 25,400 were bought 'in the quarry' at 3s. 4d. the thousand were true slates.[251] But besides the real slates, which in their modern uniformity of perfection render so many towns hideous, there were many quarries of stone slates, of which the most famous were at Collyweston in Northants.[252] The Collyweston stone after being exposed to the influence of frost could easily be split into thin slabs,[253] and seem to have been used for roofing purposes as early as the times of the Romans. During the medieval period there are numerous references to these Collyweston slates, and about the end of the fourteenth century they seem to have fetched from 6s. to 8s. the thousand.[254] Other similar quarries of more than local fame were situated round Horsham in Sussex,[255] and Horsham slates continued in demand from early days until the diminished solidity of house construction made a less weighty, and incidentally less picturesque, material requisite for roofing.

The work of quarrying stone counted as unskilled labour, and the rate of pay of quarriers is almost always that of the ordinary labourer. At Martinstow in 1296, men 'breaking stone in the quarry' received 1½d. to 2d. a day, and women, always the cheapest form of labour, 1d. a day for carrying the stones from the quarry.[256] The Windsor accounts for 1368 show quarriers at Bisham (Bustesham) receiving 3½d. a day, and one, no doubt the foreman, 4d., while 65,000 blocks of stone were cut at 'Colingle' at 10s. the thousand, and 3500 at Stoneden at 20s.[257] Those employed upon shaping the rough blocks were naturally paid at a higher rate, and in 1333, while the quarriers at Tadcaster were paid 1s. 4d. a week, the masons employed there in making stone balls earned 2s. 6d., and their foremen 3s. a week.[258] Often, however, the payment was by piece work, and in the case of the stone wrought at Boughton Monchelsea in 1366 for Rochester Castle, we have a list of the rates of payment: 'rough ashlar' worked at 10s. the hundred, 'parpainassheler'—for mullions—cut to pattern 18s. the hundred, newel pieces 12d. each, jambs 3d. the foot, 'scu' or bevelled stones 2d. the foot, voussoirs (vausur) 5d. the foot, and so on.[259] The tools used were of a simple nature; the inventory of tools at Stapleton quarry in 1400[260] shows a number of iron wedges, iron rods, 'gavelokes' or crowbars, iron hammers, 'pulyng axes,'[261] 'brocheaxes' and shovels.

So far we have been dealing with stone as a building material, but there were two varieties of stone worked in England in medieval times whose value was artistic rather than utilitarian. These were marble and alabaster. Purbeck Marble,[262] a dark shell conglomerate capable of receiving a very high polish, came into fashion towards the end of the twelfth century, and continued in great demand for some two hundred years. Not only was it used in 1205 at Chichester Cathedral, but it would seem that some thirty years earlier it was sent to Dublin and to Durham. All the evidence goes to show that the marble was not only quarried at Purbeck, but worked into columns and carved upon the spot, and it is probable that most, if not all, of the scores of marble effigies which still remain in churches, such as the figures of knights in the Temple Church and the tomb of King John at Worcester, were carved by members of the Purbeck school[263] and usually at the quarries, though in some cases it would seem that the carver was called upon to do his work at the place where it was to be used, and under the eye of his patron. But however much we may admire the execution of these Purbeck effigies, we must not hastily assume that they bear any particular resemblance to the persons whom they commemorate; for although the Purbeck carvers were no doubt capable of executing portrait sculpture, a large proportion of their work was undoubtedly conventional. Thus in 1253 we find Henry III. ordering the sheriff of Dorset to cause 'an image of a queen' to be cut in marble and carried to the nunnery of Tarrant Keynston, there to be placed over the tomb of his sister, the late Queen of Scots.[264]

Corfe was the great centre of the Purbeck marble industry. William of Corfe who executed the tomb of 'Henry the King's son,' at Westminster in 1273,[265] was probably William le Blund, brother of Robert le Blund, also called Robert of Corfe, who supplied marble for the Eleanor crosses at Waltham, Northampton, and Lincoln; and one Adam of Corfe settled in London early in the fourteenth century, and died there in 1331. This Adam 'the marbler' seems to have carried out several large contracts, including the paving of St. Paul's, and in 1324 supplied great quantities of marble for the columns of St. Stephen's, Westminster, at 6d. the foot.[266] The same price was paid in 1333 for similar columns bought from Richard Canon,[267] one of a family which for a century and a half played a prominent part as carvers and marble merchants, particularly in connection with Exeter Cathedral.

By the sixteenth century, and probably for some time earlier, the 'Marblers and Stone Cutters of Purbeck' had formed themselves into a company. By their rules the industry was restricted to freemen of the company, and regulations were laid down as to the number of apprentices that might be employed. These apprentices, in turn, could become freemen at the end of seven years upon payment to the court held at Corfe Castle on Shrove Tuesday of 6s. 8d. and the render of a penny loaf and two pots of beer. The wives of freemen were also allowed to join the company on payment of 1s., and in that case might carry on the trade, with the assistance of an apprentice, after their husband's death. At the time, however, that this company was formed, it is probable that the greater part of their business was concerned with building stone, as the marble had gone out of fashion and been largely superseded by alabaster in the fifteenth century for sepulchral monuments.

Alabaster appears to have been dug in the neighbourhood of Tutbury in very early times, some of the Norman mouldings of the west door of Tutbury church being carved in this material.[268] It is in the same neighbourhood, at Hanbury, that the earliest known sepulchral image in alabaster is to be found: this dates from the early years of the fourteenth century, but it was not until the middle of that century that the vogue of alabaster began. From 1360 onwards there exists a magnificent series of alabaster monuments which bear striking testimony to the skill of the medieval English carvers,[269] and it is clear from records and the evidence of such fragments as have survived the triple iconoclasm of Reformers, Puritans, and Churchwardens that these monuments found worthy companions in the statues and carved reredoses scattered throughout the churches of England.[270] One of the finest of these reredoses must have been the 'table of alabaster' bought in 1367 for the high altar of St. George's, Windsor. For this the enormous sum of £200 (more than £3000 of modern money) was paid to Peter Mason of Nottingham, while some idea of its size may be gathered from the fact that it took ten carts, each with eight horses, to bring it from Nottingham to Windsor, the journey occupying seventeen days.[271]

All the evidence points to Nottingham having been the great centre of the industry, the material being brought from the Derbyshire quarries of Chellaston. The stone and the workmanship alike found favour outside this country, and in 1414, when the abbot of Fécamp required alabaster he sent his mason, Alexander de Berneval, to England to procure it; and it was from Thomas Prentis of Chellaston that the stone was bought.[272] The alabaster tomb of John, Duke of Bretagne, which was erected in Nantes Cathedral in 1408, was made in England by Thomas Colyn, Thomas Holewell, and Thomas Poppehowe,[273] but it is not certain that they belonged to Nottingham. Various customs accounts[274] show that carved alabaster figures were often exported to the Continent, and Mr. Hope has shown that a number of carvings still to be seen in the churches of France, and even of Iceland,[275] have the green background, with circular groups of red and white spots, peculiar to the Nottingham school.[276]

Thomas Prentis, who is mentioned above, is found in 1419 in company with Robert Sutton[277] covenanting to carve, paint, and gild the elaborate and beautiful tomb of Ralph Green and his wife, which may still be seen in Lowick Church, Northants, for a sum of £40. An examination of this tomb makes it almost certain that the glorious monuments of the Earl and Countess of Arundel at Arundel, Henry IV. and Queen Joan at Canterbury, and the Earl of Westmoreland and his two wives at Staindrop, were all from the same workshop. During the last twenty years of the fifteenth and the first thirty years of the sixteenth century, we have the names of a number of 'alablastermen' and 'image-makers' in Nottingham,[278] Nicholas Hill in particular being prominent as a manufacturer of the popular St. John the Baptist heads,[279] and during the same period we find a number of 'alblasterers' at York.[280] At Burton-on-Trent, also, where Leland in the sixteenth century mentions 'many marbellers working in alabaster,' the trade was evidently established in 1481, when Robert Bocher and Gilbert Twist were working for a number of religious houses; and it still flourished there in 1581 and 1585, when Richard and Gabriel Royley undertook contracts for elaborate tombs of alabaster,[281] but for all practical purposes the English school of alabaster carvers ceased to exist when the Reformation put an end to the demand for images and carven tables.

The alabaster, or gypsum, when not suitable for carving, was still valuable for conversion into plaster by burning, the finer varieties yielding the so-called Plaster of Paris and the coarser the ordinary builders' plaster. References to the actual burning of plaster seem practically non-existent, but it is noteworthy that one of the places from which Plaster of Paris was obtained for the works at York Minster was Buttercrambe,[282] where there is a large deposit of gypsum which probably furnished the York alabasterers with their material. In the same way Chalk, though to some extent used for masonry, was most in demand for conversion into lime. When building operations of any importance were undertaken, it was usual to build a limekiln on the spot for the burning of the lime required for mortar. In earlier times the kiln seems to have taken the form of a pit, 'lymeputt' or, in Latin, puteus, being the term usually employed, but in 1400 we find a regular kiln (torale) built, 3300 bricks and 33 loads of clay being purchased for the purpose.[283] Where lime was burnt commercially, that is to say for sale and not merely for use on the spot, the kilns would naturally be larger and more permanent, and a sixteenth-century account of the erection of eight such kilns[284] at a place unnamed—probably Calais—shows that each kiln was 20 feet high, with walls 10 feet thick, and an average internal breadth of 10 feet, and cost over £450.

When wood was plentiful it was naturally employed for burning the lime, and a presentment made in 1255 with regard to the forest of Wellington mentions that the king's two limekilns (rees calcis) had devoured 500 oaks between them.[285] But it was soon found that pit coal was the best fuel for the purpose, and it was constantly used from the end of the thirteenth century onwards, as much as 1166 quarters of sea coal being bought in 1278 for the kilns (chauffornia) in connection with the work at the Tower.[286] For the most part, chalk and lime required for work at London or Westminster was brought from Greenwich. Kent has indeed always been one of the great centres of the trade, both home and foreign, and in 1527,[287] to take but one instance, we find six ships from Dutch ports taking out of Sandwich port chalk to the value of £20.[288] In the chalk hills round Chislehurst labyrinthine galleries of great extent bear witness to the flourishing state of chalk-quarrying in this district in former times;[289] smaller quarries of a similar type exist in the 'caverns' at Guildford. Kent, Surrey, and Sussex[290] were indeed busily employed in quarrying chalk during the medieval period, and for long afterwards, down to the present day.

CHAPTER VI
METAL WORKING

The English craftsmen were renowned for their metal work from the days of St. Dunstan downwards. St. Dunstan was the patron of the goldsmiths, his image being one of the chief ornaments of their gild hall in London, and a ring attributed to his workmanship was in the possession of Edward I. in 1280,[291] while his tools, including the identical tongs with which he pulled the devil by the nose, may still be seen at Mayfield. Coming to later times and the less questionable evidence of records, we may probably see in Otto the Goldsmith, whose name occurs in the Domesday Survey of 1086, the progenitor of the family of Fitz-Otho, king's goldsmiths and masters of the Mint from 1100 to 1300.[292] The names of many early goldsmiths[293] have survived, and the beautiful candlestick given to St. Peter's Abbey at Gloucester in 1110, and now in the South Kensington Museum, is evidence of their mastery of the art. The great religious houses were foremost patrons of the craft, many of them, as the Abbey of St. Albans, numbering amongst their inmates artists of great repute. The famous college of Beverley included a goldsmith in its household,[294] but in 1292, when it was determined to erect a new shrine for the relics of St. John of Beverley, the chapter did not entrust the work to their own craftsman, but sent up to London to the establishment of William Faringdon, the greatest goldsmith of that time. The contract between his servant, Roger of Faringdon, and the Chapter of Beverley is still extant.[295] By it the chapter were to provide the necessary silver and gold; Roger was to refine it, if needful, and to supply his own coals, quicksilver, and other materials. The shrine was to be 5 ft. 6 in. long, 1 ft. 6 in. broad, and of proportionate height: the design was to be architectural in style, and the statuettes, the number and size of which were to be at the discretion of the chapter, were to be of cunning and beautiful work, the chapter reserving the right to reject any figure or ornament and cause it to be remade. For his work Roger was to receive the weight in silver of the shrine when completed, before gilding. No very general rule can be laid down as to the proportion between the intrinsic value or weight of metal and the cost of workmanship, but roughly in the case of simple articles of plate the cost of manufacture may be set at approximately half the weight. Thus in the case of the plate presented by the city to the Black Prince on his return from Gascony in 1371[296] we find six chargers, weight £14, 18s. 9d., amounting with the making to £21, 7s. 2d.; twelve 'hanappes,' or handled cups, weight £8, 12s., amounting to £12, 7s. 7d.; and thirty saltcellars, weighing £15, 6s. 2d., amounting to £21, 17s. 8d. The charge for making silver basins and lavers in the same list amounts to about two-thirds of the weight. The rate appears to have remained fairly constant, as in 1416 William Randolf made four dozen chargers and eight dozen dishes of silver for King Henry V. at 30s. the pound.[297]

The demand for silver plate during the later medieval period must have been brisk, for every house of any pretension had its service of plate standing on the cupboard or dresser. Nothing more astonished the Venetian travellers in England in 1500 than this extraordinary profusion and display; they noted that,[298] 'In one single street, named the Strand, are 52 goldsmiths' shops so rich and full of silver vessels, great and small, that in all the shops in Milan, Rome, Venice, and Florence put together I do not think there would be found so many of the magnificence that are to be seen in London. And these vessels are all either saltcellars or drinking-cups or basins to hold water for the hands, for they eat off that fine tin which is little inferior to silver.' Although the home of the goldsmiths is here stated to be the Strand, their chief centre was in Lombard Street and in Cheapside, where, just about the time that this Venetian account was written, Thomas Wood built Goldsmiths' Row with its ten fair houses and fourteen shops and its four-storied front adorned with allusive wild men of the wood riding on monstrous beasts.[299] Even as late as 1637 efforts were made to compel the goldsmiths to remain in Cheapside for the greater adornment of that thoroughfare.[300]

The Venetian reference to the 'fine tin' used for plates and dishes serves to remind us that gold and silversmiths had no monopoly of metal-working. Pewterers, founders, and such specialised trades as bladesmiths and spurriers played an important part in the realm of industry, and if the materials upon which they worked were less valuable in themselves, the finished products were not to be despised even from a purely artistic point of view. The figures of Queen Eleanor of Castile and Henry III., both cast by William Torel, and those of Edward III. and Queen Philippa, by Hawkin of Liége—to name but a few obvious examples—are magnificent examples of the founder's work. Mention may also be made of the tomb of Richard II. and his queen, at which Nicholas Croker and Godfrey Prest, coppersmiths, worked for four years, and for which they received £700.[301] To deal at all fully with all the many branches of metal-working is outside the scope of this book, but two particular branches, the founding of bells and of cannon, are worth treating in considerable detail.

References to Bells[302] during Saxon times are not infrequent, but probably the earliest notice connected with their manufacture is the entry amongst the tenants of Battle Abbey in the late eleventh century of 'Ædric who cast the bells (qui signa fundebat).'[303] It is likely that most early monastic peals were cast in the immediate neighbourhood of the monastery by, or under the supervision, of the brethren. But in the twelfth century, when Ralph Breton gave money to Rochester Cathedral Priory for a bell, in memory of his brother, the sacrist sent a broken bell up to London to be recast.[304] Possibly the craftsman who recast this bell was the Alwold 'campanarius' who was working in London about 1150.[305] Another early bell-founder was Beneit le Seynter, sheriff of London in 1216.[306] Mr. Stahlschmidt is no doubt right in interpreting this founder's name as 'ceinturier' or girdler,[307] for there was at Worcester in the thirteenth century a family whose members bore indifferently the name of 'Ceynturer' and 'Belleyeter.'[308] The demand for bells could hardly have been large enough to enable a craftsman to specialise entirely in that branch, and a bell-maker would always have been primarily a founder, and according as the main portion of his trade lay in casting buckles and other fittings for belts, or pots or bells, he would be known as a girdler, a potter, or a bell-founder.[309]

The medieval English term for a bell-founder was 'bellyeter' (surviving in London as 'Billiter Street,' the former centre of the industry), derived from the Anglo-Saxon geotan, to pour: the word is occasionally found used independently as a verb, the agreement for casting a bell for Stansfield in 1453 stipulating that it should be 'wele and sufficiantly yette and made.'[310] So far as the process itself is concerned,[311] it remained unchanged in its main features until comparatively recent times and a considerable number of records relating to bell-founding have survived and throw a little light upon the details of the art. The first step was the formation of the 'core,' an exact model of the inside of the bell, formed of clay. When this had been hardened by baking, the 'thickness,' corresponding exactly to the projected bell itself, was built up upon the core; finally, over the 'thickness' was built a thick clay 'cope.' Originally, it would seem, it was usual to make the 'thickness' of wax, which, melting upon the application of heat, ran out and left the space between the core and cope vacant for the molten metal to flow into: possibly some of the early uninscribed bells which still exist may have been formed in this fashion, but it seems clear that from the end of the thirteenth century the use of wax was abandoned in England, the 'thickness' being made of loam or earth.[312] The clay cope, moulded over this, was carefully raised by a crane, the 'thickness' destroyed, and the cope readjusted, after any inscription or other decoration had been stamped on its inner surface. In order that the metal might flow directly from the furnace into the mould the latter lay in a pit in front of the furnace. The furnace doors being opened, the metal, consisting of a mixture of copper and tin, flowed into the mould. If the metal was not in a sufficiently fluid state, or if any check occurred the caster would 'lose his labour and expense,' as happened to Henry Michel when he recast the great bell of Croxden Abbey in 1313, and the work would have to be done all over again.[313] But if the work had been properly carried out the completed bell had to be tuned, unless, as was the case at St. Laurence's, Reading, in 1596, 'not so much the tune of the bell was cared for as to have it a loud bell and heard far.'[314]

The tuning was done by grinding, or cutting, down the rim of the bell if the note was too flat, or by reducing its thickness, filing down the inner surface of the sound bow, if the note was too sharp. In order to reduce the amount of tuning required it was necessary to know approximately the relation between size, or weight, and tone, and as early as the reign of Henry III. a monk of Evesham, Walter of Odyngton, devised a system by which each bell was to weigh eight-ninths of the bell next above it in weight.[315] This system, delightfully simple in theory, could not have yielded satisfactory results in practice, and it is probable that most founders had their own systems, based upon experience and practical observation. The question of whether a bell was correctly in tune with the others of the peal was one which naturally led to occasional disputes. When Robert Gildesburgh, brazier, of London, a fifteenth-century bell-founder, cast two bells for Whitchurch in Dorset, the vicar refused to pay for them, as he said they were out of tune. Gildesburgh requested that they should be submitted to the judgment of Adam Buggeberd, rector of South Peret, who accordingly came over and heard them rung, and decided that there was no fault in them.[316] In the case of the bells recast for the church of St. Mary-at-Hill, London, in 1510,[317] we have first an entry of 6½d. paid 'for Reves labour and his brekefast for comyng from Ludgate to Algate to here the iiij bell in tewne'; and then, as apparently the churchwardens were not satisfied with his report, 8d. paid 'for wyne and peres at Skran's howse at Algate for Mr. Jentyll, Mr. Russell, John Althorpe, John Condall and the clarkes of saynt Antonys to go and see whether smythes bell wer tewneabill or not.' Possibly the decision in the case of this fourth bell cast by William Smith was not satisfactory, as the 'great bell' seems to have been entrusted to William Culverden, a contemporary founder, many of whose bells, bearing his rebus of the culver or wood pigeon, still exist.

The bell having been fitted with an iron clapper, swung from a staple inside the crown of the bell by a leathern baudrick, was fastened on to a massive wooden stock furnished at its ends with gudgeons, or iron pivots, to work in the bronze sockets of the frame, and was now ready to be hung in the belfry. But although it was now a finished 'trade article,' there was yet one more process to be undergone before it could summon the faithful to church: it was usual, though apparently by no means universal, for the bells to be blessed. Thus the bells of St. Albans Abbey were consecrated in the middle of the twelfth century by the Bishop of St. Asaph;[318] and a detailed account of the dedication of the great bell called 'Jesus' at Lichfield Cathedral in 1477 has been preserved.[319] In the case of the five bells of St. Michael's, Bishop's Stortford, recast by Reginald Chirche of Bury St. Edmunds in 1489 at a cost of £42, an extra 17s. 6d. was paid 'for their consecration (pro sanctificacione).'[320] That the dedication ceremony included a form analogous to baptism is clearly shown by an entry in the accounts of St. Laurence, Reading, where, in 1508, we find 'paid for hallowing the great bell named Harry 6s. 8d. And over that Sir William Symys Richard Clich and Mistress Smyth being godfather and godmother at the consecracyon of the same bell, and bearing all the costs to the suffragan.'[321]

Of the early centres of the industry London was naturally the most important. Two early bell-founders of this city have already been mentioned, but it is noteworthy, as showing that to a certain extent a man might be 'jack of all trades' even if he was master of one, that several bells were cast for Westminster Abbey by Edward Fitz Odo, the famous goldsmith of Henry III.[322] That monarch, a patron of all the arts, granted 100s. yearly to the Bell-ringers' gild of Westminster for ringing the great bells.[323] Mr. Stahlschmidt has shown that the centre of the bell-founding trade was round Aldgate and in the neighbourhood of St. Andrew Undershaft and St. Botolph-without-Aldgate,[324] while amongst the more prominent early founders were the family of Wimbish at the beginning of the fourteenth century and the Burfords at the end of the same century. Contemporary with these last was William Founder, whose trade stamp, bearing his name and a representation of two birds on a conventionalised tree, occurs on a number of bells and hints at his real surname, which, although it has hitherto eluded historians, was clearly Wodeward. Mr. Stahlschmidt[325] noticed the entry on the Issue Rolls of 1385 recording the purchase of twelve cannon from William the founder, but did not notice that the very next year sixty cannon were bought from William Wodeward,[326] while in 1417 other cannon were provided by William Wodeward, founder.[327]

Amongst the provincial centres we may notice Gloucester, where Hugh Bellyetare occurs about 1270, and John Belyetere in 1346,[328] the latter being presumably the Master John of Gloucester, who with his staff of six men came to Ely in 1342 to cast four bells for Prior Walsingham.[329] A later bell-founder of some eminence at Gloucester was William Henshawe, who was mayor in 1503, 1508, and 1509.[330] Another of the craft who obtained more than local reputation was John de Stafford, mayor of Leicester in 1366 and 1370,[331] who was called in by the chapter of York to cast bells for the Minster in 1371.[332] This is the more remarkable as York was itself a centre of the industry, the most famous of its founders being Richard Tunnoc, who represented the city in Parliament in 1327, and dying in 1330, left behind him as a worthy memorial 'the bell-maker's window' in York Minster.[333] In the central panel of this window Richard Tunnoc himself is shown kneeling before a sainted archbishop; the two other panels show the process of bell-making. In the one the master workman is supervising the flow of the metal into the mould from a furnace, the draught of which is supplied by bellows worked by two young men, the one standing upon them with one foot on each and the other holding the handles. The remaining panel is usually said to represent the moulding of the clay core, but it seems to me more likely to represent the finishing, smoothing, and polishing of the completed bell.[334] Richard Tunnoc is shown seated holding a long crooked instrument (resembling a very large boomerang), and applying it with great care to the surface of the bell, or core, which an assistant is rotating on a primitive lathe consisting of two trestles and a crooked handle. The space round each panel is filled with rows of bells swinging in trefoiled niches.

The number of churches in the larger towns being much greater in medieval times than at the present day, and few of these churches being content with a single bell, most of the chief towns, and in particular those possessing cathedrals or important monasteries, had their resident bell-founders. In the case of Exeter, Bishop Peter de Quivil, about 1285, assured the proper care of the bells of the cathedral by granting a small property in Paignton to Robert le Bellyetere as a retaining fee, Robert and his heirs being bound to make or repair, when necessary, the bells, organs, and clock of the cathedral, the chapter paying all expenses, including the food and drink of the workmen, and these obligations were duly fulfilled for at least three generations, Robert, son of Walter, son of the original Robert, still holding the land on the same terms in 1315.[335] Canterbury was another local centre of the trade, and from Canterbury came the founder who in 1345 cast a couple of bells at Dover, the one weighing 3266 lbs., and the other 1078 lbs., for each of which he was paid at the rate of a halfpenny the pound.[336] In East Anglia there was an important foundry at the monastic town of Bury St. Edmunds, one of the fifteenth-century founders using as his trade mark a shield, which is interesting as bearing on it not only a bell, but also a cannon with a ball issuing from its mouth. Norwich, again, with its seventy churches and its cathedral priory, was a busy centre of the industry. One of the later Norwich founders, Richard Brasier, seems to have been more skilful than straightforward and to have devoted some of his skill to evading his obligations. In 1454 the churchwardens of Stansfield bargained with him to cast a bell for their church, half payment to be made on delivery and the other half at the expiration of a year and a day if the bell proved satisfactory, but if it did not he was to cast a new bell for them; he, however, taking advantage of their being unlearned men caused the latter clause to be omitted from the indenture, and when the bell proved unsatisfactory refused to make a fresh one.[337] A few years later, in 1468, the parishioners of Mildenhall brought an action against him for breach of contract. It had been agreed that the great bell of Mildenhall should be brought by the parishioners to 'the werkhous' of the said Richard Brasier and weighed by them, and that Brasier should then cast from the metal of the old bell a new tenor bell in tune with the others then in the church steeple, and should warrant it, as was customary, for a year and a day, and if it were not satisfactory should at his own expense take it back to Norwich 'to be yoten.' They had duly carried the bell to his workshop, but he had not cast it; in defence his counsel urged that although they had brought it they had not weighed it, and that until they did so he was not bound to cast it. On the other side it was argued that the point was frivolous, that he could have weighed it himself, and that indeed the indenture implied that it was to be weighed and put into the furnace by his men in the presence of the men of Mildenhall.[338] A jury was summoned, but did not appear, and the case was adjourned.

The suppression of the monasteries, followed by the seizure of Church goods, including large numbers of bells, formed the rude termination of the medieval period of the industry, and may be symbolised by the death of William Corvehill, formerly subprior of Wenlock, 'a good bell founder and maker of the frame for bells,' at Wenlock in 1546.[339]

We have seen that a cannon is shown on the shield used as a trade mark by a fifteenth-century Suffolk bell-founder, and the casting of Ordnance may rank with the casting of bells as one of the most interesting and important branches of the founder's craft. Cannon seem to have been introduced into England at the beginning of the reign of Edward III. In 1339 there were in the Guildhall 'six instruments of latten called gonnes and five roleres for the same. Also pellets of lead weighing 4½ cwt. for the same instruments. Also 32 lbs. of powder for the same.'[340] This same year guns are recorded to have been used by the English at the siege of Cambrai, and they were also used at Creçy in 1346. Two large and nine small 'gunnes' of copper were provided for Sheppey Castle in 1365;[341] but whether any of these were of native manufacture may be doubted, though a small gun sent over to Ireland in 1360 is said to have been bought in London,[342] which does not, of course, necessarily imply that it was made there. In 1385, however, the sheriff of Cumberland included in his account of repairs to the Castle of Carlisle 'costs incurred in making three brass cannons which are in the said castle,'[343] and in the same year 'William Founder,' as we saw when considering his work as a bell-founder, provided twelve guns. Next year the same William Wodeward made no less than sixty cannon for Calais.[344] As he was still providing ordnance in 1416,[345] we may probably identify him with 'Master William Gunmaker,' who made several small cannon in 1411, two of them being of iron.[346]