The Economics of Owning a Medieval Silver Mine

In this video, we break down the true economics of owning a medieval mine. From the cost of shafts, timber, tools, and drainage to the royalties, jurisdictions, and courts that decided who was actually allowed to dig. But striking a rich seam was only part of the business. Medieval England ran mining almost entirely through claims, not ownership. In Derbyshire, the lord of the field took one-thirteenth of every load of ore you raised, measured out personally before you sold a single pound of it. In Cornwall, Tinners could stake a claim on anyone's land, farmland included, but the crown still held first call on the finished tin and a duty on every hundredweight sold. And in Devon, the crown didn't just tax silver. It ran the mines directly, extracting more than twenty thousand ounces of silver a year at their peak. Using documented stannary charters, the Derbyshire barmote court records, the Forest of Dean's freeminer system, and the crown mines at Bere Ferrers and Combe Martin, we examine how much a working miner could actually earn, what happened when a shaft flooded or a lease changed hands, and why the people who got rich from medieval mining were rarely the ones who ever picked up a shovel. #MedievalHistory #EconomicHistory #MiddleAges #BusinessHistory #HistoryDocumentary