Polwhele doesn’t give a lot of information here: the chapters are perhaps meant to be read in the context of equivalents from the previous era. This feels like a weak chapter. Time to drop this Polwhele guy and find something a bit more detailed.

Agriculture

A lot of “in kind” rent is paid: money rents being known but rare.

Animals

The Cornish sheep are an ancient breed, and their wool is so coarse that it is sold as “Cornish hair”. Legally, Cornish people are not required to pay the fees associated with the export of wool, because whatever is coming off their sheep isn’t proper wool.  They claim wool combs were invented in Cornwall. Perhaps they sold them mostly as fleeces?

Cornwall has a native breed of cow, small and black, and dairying was known in period. Goats were used as a forage animals. Small Cornish horses lived semi-wild in the area, apparently. I’m not sure how feasible that is.

Crops

Wheat is the main crop, although barley is also raised in certain areas. Apparently sea sand was used to marl the land for tillage. I’m not sure what the point of that could have been, but there are documents supporting it. Garlick, as Polwhele calls it, turns up in a lot of documents as being grown in kitchen gardens.

Vineyards were known before the Normans arrived, although they improved faming practices considerably. Polwhele notes that wine was cheap to import from Europe, and so there was little incentive to make it in Cornwall. The Normans also bought in orchards, but Polwhele notes that cider making was Saxon in origin, and so there must have been orchards for apples.

Polwhele reports, with some incredulity, that according to Hals, the Cornish have had potatoes since the time of the Normans. In the real world this can’t be true, but it might be true in Mythic Europe. This begs the question: how can this be true?

In https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015049821831;view=1up;seq=45 it is notd that Richard of the Romans imported wheat into Cornwall.  He had his own ships and merchants, both for imports and exports.

Mining

Under John, tin mining in Cornwall made negligble profit, but in the time of Richard, King of the Romans, its value was immense. The Muslim invasion of Spain had stopped tin from being purchased there, and it had yet to be discovered in Germany, so Richard essentially had a monopoly on it.

It part, it may be because although streaming continued, shaft mining became prevalent, leading to increased extraction. There were shaft mines in ancient times: tools have been found made of wood and horn. (Faeries?) The shafts here don’t seem much more than 10 or so meters. I’ve heard some shafts go under the sea, but the dating of that is odd and Polwehele doesn’t mention it at all.

He says he’ll give the method of smelting tin in a “future period”, so presumably its in the next volume.  Fie on you, Polwhele.

Page 66 of https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015049821831;view=1up;seq=45 gives an accounting of how Richard made money from the stanneries. Basically he had a right to first purchase, and his son at least managed to sell for seven marks tin he’d bought for three.

Manufacture

Little data here: wool, tin, pewter, porcelain,  Polwhele mentions that stealite was available at the Lizard.

Trade

Documents were scarce, in Polwhele’s time, giving details of period harbors. He mentions Saltash had various privileges from the castle of Tremarton.  Fawey was significant. Truro had the ancient privilege of controlling all of Falmouth harbor, although there is no document for this until 1682, and it might have been inherited from the town of Tregony. There were also ports at Heleton, St Ives, Padstow and Bude. There was a port on Mont Saint Michael called Ruminella. Scilly was, folkloristically, a port for the tin trade with Saracens in ancient times.

The main exports are tin and fish. In Roman times there was a lot of alluvial gold and iron, as well.

The biggest market was at Launceston, which took the market from St Stephen’s town just after the conquest, and in the time of King John paid a fee to be allowed to move their market from Sunday to Thursday. Most other markets in Cornwall are on Saturdays, near churches. There are many weekly markets, with annual fairs.

The fair at Mazarion is the fair for Saint Michael’s Mont. They had a tithing barn there, apparently. The right ot hold it was given by Richard of the Romans.

There was a mint in Exeter. At various times eavery nobleman could have his own, but by the game period that had settled back down.

Notes on the Cornish:

Rounding out the volume: Saxon writers note that the Cornish are generous and brave. They are also long-lived and strong. They are less ostentatious than the Normans, and don’t have the Saxon love of war. The Cornish have indelicate manners. The nobles hunt, and cock fight. The lower classes hurl and wrestle.

Payton’s Cornwall Notes

These notes come from Philip Payton’s “Cornwall”. I need them for covenant income sources, character backgrounds, and material bonuses for enchanted objects.

Stone

Granite and slate are the core building materials. There are a heap of others: https://www.bgs.ac.uk/downloads/start.cfm?id=2017

Metals

The metals found in Cornwall:

• Copper and Tin are found everywhere. Some of he copper has an interesting arborescent (“plant like”) growth.
• Silver-lead is found in the centre and east of Cornwall.
• Gold is found in tiny nuggets. The largest noted in my source material was 6mm long.
• Iron is found in commercial quantities in at least two sites
• Pitchblende (uranium) is found in at least two sites
• Manganese is found on Bodmin Moor
• Wolfram is found on Goss Moor
• Antimony is found in one site on the north coast.

Minerals

• Cassiterite is the main mineral from which tin is smelted. Its a tin oxide. Sometimes it forms large, tetrahedral crystals, which are translucent when small, and opaque when thicker. These are called “tin diamonds”. Cassiterite is about 78% tin.
• Cerussite is a carbonate of lead that creates fragile, white needles.
• Chalcopyrite, also called “blistered copper” is a sulphide of copper that looks bubbly.  It’s the main mineral from which copper is smelted. Some chalcopyrite is 30.5% iron and 34.5% copper, and is deep in the ground, which makes it hard to economically mine. Magi would have an easier time, because smelting fuel is free.
• Chalcocite is a mineral that’s about 79% copper, but it is usually found below the water table, which makes it hard ot mine.
• Galena is a sulphide of lead which is soft and silver.
• Kaolinite (china clay) is found in many sites in the north of Cornwall. It’s caused by granite decaying. This happens as it soaks up water and is warmed by the mild radioactivity decay in granite. Can magi make this happen faster? I presume so.
• Olivenite is a green mineral that’s an arsenate of copper.
• Topaz is found in certain places.

Cornwall has a lot of other minerals, from single mines. In my notes, 15% of all recognised minerals are found in Cornwall. It’s an older book, but the point is that if you want to make a realia collection of minerals, Cornwall’s a great place.

Lunulae were found in Cornwall. For a faerie?

Roman sites: runs from Exeter. Camel Estuary, Carvossa and Carloggas were significant Roman sites. Only a few Roman milestones: not really on the road network.

Industries

• Robert of Mortain built Launceston and Tremarton. Launceston is the only walled town in Cornwall.
• Truro was an illegal (“adulterine”) castle built during the Stephen and Matilda thing.
• Lostwithiel is the capital of Cornwall in Richard of Cornwall’s son’s time. Check date of transisition from Launceston.
• Stannary Goal in Lydford?
  Cornish manors don’t follow the English pattern. No demense manors as such. No strip agriculture. Lots of tenants.
  • Free/villein/cottar is English. In Cornwall you have free, conventionary and villein. The most common is conventionary, where the person has a seven year lease. Free people owe some basic dues. Villeins are rare, and increasingly rare as time goes on. Villeins are tied to land, but the Cornish rules don’t like that and prefer people to go to free.
• Little harbours: Fowey, Looe, Penryn, Tregony, Saltmarsh.
• Richard gave borough charters to Bossiney, Tintagel, Camelford, West Looe, Bodmin, Launceston, Liskeard, Lostwithiel.
• Tax on smelted tin from late C11th. 1201 Charter of the Stanneries. 4 areas.
• In 1200, 93% of Cornwall speaks Cornish.

15th century industries to expand

Shipping, shipbuilding, fishing, quarrying, textile manufacturing, tin mining, tin streaming, agriculture (pasturing, wheat, oats, rye, barley