These by-laws had been “enacted and establysshed by the hole body of the Stayniery in the high court of Crockerntorr” on 11 September. This court was composed of the Duchy officials for Devon with twenty-four jurors from each of the four Stannary towns in Devon; and it held its sittings in the open air on Crockerntor, a Dartmoor hill about midway between the towns, say, nine miles from Tavistock, ten from Chagford, ten from Ashburton, and thirteen from Plympton. And besides this high court (magna curia) there was a court in each of these four towns for its own quarter of the Stannaries. In his _Survey of Devon_ Risdon says of Chagford, “This place is priviledged with many immunities which tinners enjoy, and here is holden one of the courts for Stannery causes”; and he mentions a catastrophe that happened in his time. The court-house stood on pillars; and on 6 March 1618 these pillars gave way at a crowded sitting of the court, the building ‘rent in sunder’ and the walls fell in, killing ten people and injuring many more.
The old courts and their jurisdiction sank slowly into insignificance as the amount of tin grew less. Mine after mine was given up, and very little tin is raised in Devon now--it can be got more easily by mining in Nevada. But all round Dartmoor there are remains of the old works, showing what a scene of industry it must have been. There was a blowing house near here: it was in Lustleigh parish and was known as Caseleigh blowing house. Caseleigh mine was for micaceous iron, which has only little bunches of tin ore in it; but tin may have been brought from the Peck Pits a couple of miles away.
A small Venetian coin was dug up at Lustleigh in the spring of 1922 in a garden about fifty yards west of the church tower; and this may be connected with the trade in tin. It is a silver ‘soldino’ of Leonardo Loredano, whose features are well known in England from Bellini’s portrait of him in the National Gallery. He was Doge from 1501 to 1521, and the moneyer’s initials (P.C. for Piero Cocco) show that the coin was struck between the summer of 1501 and the summer of 1502. At that period a squadron of armed gallies made a voyage from Venice to England almost every year; and they brought merchandise for sale here, and took back other merchandise, including tin. Their usual port was Southampton; but in Sanuto’s Diary, 9 March 1504, there is a note of their going to Falmouth, and they probably went to other ports as well. The coin may have come over in the gallies, and then found its way to Lustleigh in the course of trade.