The Stannary Parliament for the tinners on Dartmoor sat on Crockern Tor till the court was removed to Truro.
To the incursions of the Saxons succeeded those of the Danish freebooters, who ran up the rivers and burnt Tavistock and Lydford in 997, and carried fire and sword through the stannary districts of Devon.
The Cornish tinners had their Stannary Court on Caradon.
But before that it was a seat of the Stannary Court for Cornwall, and here the Dukes of Cornwall had their palace.
In Devon thestannary towns were Tavistock, Ashburton, and Chagford, to which Plympton was added in the reign of Edward III.
By the Charter of 1201, Stannary Courts were set up which held civil and criminal jurisdiction over the Miners or Tinners, as they were called.
The Stannary Courts, we are informed, were utterly corrupt and saturated with the spirit of perjury and injustice.
No laws were to be enacted but by the twenty-four stannators chosen from the four stannary districts; and there was no appeal from the Stannary Court, generally held at Truro, except to the Duke or Sovereign in Council.
By this, except in cases that might affect lands, life, or limb, they were exempt from all jurisdiction but that of the Stannary Courts.
They had plundered the Exchequer Hall, burnt the stannary records, and committed other enormities; but now the yoke of the oppressor was broken.
Ralegh had already started from Plymouth with his wife and Captain King when he met Stukeley, near the old stannary town of Ashburton on the edge of Dartmoor, twenty miles on his way to London.
Accordingly Ralegh asks Secretary Sir Robert Cecil to take the matter from the Star Chamber, where the townsmen of Plymouth had sent it, and to let it be tried, as it was fitting that such a matter should be tried, in the Stannary Courts.
He was head of the Stannary Courts in which justice was legally administered to the tinners; and he would be obliged to see that his substitutes performed their functions properly.
In Browne's day it was used as the stannary prison, and was denounced in an Act of Parliament as 'one of the most heinous, contagious, and detestable places in the realm.
In early days Chagford was one of the four Stannary towns, the others being Ashburton, Tavistock, and Plympton.
Ashburton is one of the old stannary towns, and besides mining, it was known for its trade in woollen goods, especially serges.
Henceforward the Devonshire miners were separated from the Cornish, and held stannary parliaments on the top of Crockern Tor.
It is said that the last parliament was held on this tor in 1749, but for some time before that date the court merely met on the tor, and, after the jurors had been sworn in, adjourned to one of the stannary towns.
Risdon mentions that 'This place is priviledged with many immunities which tinners enjoy; and here is holden one of the courts for Stannary causes.
The metal was streamed, or washed from the beds of the moorland rivers, cast in rough ingots, and carried on pack horses to the Stannary or mintage towns, where it was stamped and taxed.
Here and at Buckfastleigh are the only remains of the once extensive Devon woollen manufactures; and Ashburton was also at one time a Stannary town.
There was a kind of guild or early trade union between the miners of Devon and Cornwall, reminiscent of the time when both belonged to "West Wales"; and a relic of the old jurisdiction is the Stannary Court still meeting at Truro.
It is certain that Lydford ranked high among the Stannary towns, and was a place of consequence.
Its castle, dating from soon after the Conquest, is by no means imposing in its present appearance, but as a Stannary prison it had a terrible reputation.
Still under a cloud in May, 1594, he was not afraid to protest highly to Lord Keeper Egerton against an encroachment by the Star Chamber on his Stannary jurisdiction.
The castle, an uninteresting ruin, occupies a natural mound artificially shaped; it was long the Stannary prison.
Lostwithiel, one of the Stannary towns, was at one time the only coinage town in Cornwall, and traces of the old Mint and Stannary Court could yet be seen.
Truro was one of the Stannary Towns as a matter of course, for according to tradition it was near here that tin was first discovered.
Helston was one of the Stannary Towns, and it was said that vessels could at one time come quite near it.
The meetings at this particular spot of the Devon and Cornwall Stannary men continued until the middle of the eighteenth century.
Tavistock was one of the four Stannary towns in Devonshire, where Stannary Courts were established to deal with all matters relating to tin and the tinners who produced it.
Besides the four Stannary towns in Devon there were originally four in Cornwall, including Liskeard, where all tin mined in their respective districts had to be weighed and stamped.
The church tower at one time contained the Cornish Stannary Records, but in the time of the Civil War they had been removed for greater safety to Lostwithiel, where they were unfortunately destroyed.
By development, apparently, from the two yearly great courts of the stannaries, arose the 'stannary parliaments.
Truro: nomination of members for stannary parliament, 72; tin sent to, for coinage duty, 69.
Stannary Laws and Tavistock Abbey have gone, and nobody could wish for them back; but the Tavy goes on in the same old way.
A good many strange thoughts suggest themselves on fair-days and holidays in and about the Stannary Towns.
The tiny Lyd runs near the Rattle Brook, the bloody little Lyd in which the torturers of the stannary prison cleansed their horrible hands.
It was one of the six stannary towns, and prior to 1832 returned two members to Parliament.
Special Stannary Courts for the administration of justice amongst those connected with the mines are held in the two counties, and are each presided over by a warden and a vice-warden.
Appeals from the Stannary Courts may be made now to the higher courts of England.
Up to 1752 representative assemblies of the miners, called Stannary Parliaments, were held.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "stannary" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
