There really is nothing
to tell you about what we have been doing over the past week since
the answer is, quite simply, work a lot and (when we remember) grab
something to eat. Marcia is now well into the book but is still
running well behind her normal schedule and it has become imperative
that she can remain absorbed in that ‘other world’ in which her
characters live. People don’t realise how difficult it is to return
there after an interruption. A telephone call can spell the end of
writing for that day – which, of course, triggers off the one thing
from which all the writers I know (including me) suffer: fear and
despair. There, always lurking, is the gremlin that says, ‘That’s
it. The end. You have used up everything and there is nothing left.
You know that what you are writing is rubbish. Give up while you are
ahead.’
That is not my problem
this week as I am not really writing but spending my time
researching. I am working on Marcia Willett’s Tavistock
and have been looking at the various ways in which the town has
earned a living over the last thousand years. Have I ever mentioned
in a blog that Tavistock was (well, is I suppose but the functions no
longer exist) a Stannary Town – one of four in Devon?
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| The four Stannary area boundaries (Tavistock, Chagford, Ashburton and Plympton) meet here, at Crockern Tor not far from the Two Bridges Hotel. Accordingly it was here that the Stannary Parliament met when summoned by the "Lord Warden of the Stannaries" - a man appointed by the king who held ultimate responsibility of tin mining in both Devon and Cornwall. |
The
name comes from the Latin for tin and the reason that these four
towns were granted a Stannary Charter (by Edward I back in the early
1300’s) was simple: he wanted to ensure he was able to get the
maximum possible tax out of the tin mining industry on Dartmoor.
These charters did two things: they enabled the miners to create
their own laws (which they had been doing for ages anyway but now
these became official) because he wanted to encourage tin production.
After all, the more tin that left the moor the higher the potential
tax take. The charter also decreed that all tin had to pass off the
moor via the appropriate Stannary Town where it would be taxed. It
was a brilliant way of dealing with the matter and functioned well
for nearly four hundred years, only ending when it became
uneconomical to work the remaining deposits of ore.
Since tin mining
itself is not really part of ‘Tavistock – Past and Present’ I
decided that I would deal with tin mining on the moor as a side bar
within that section and settled down to find out all I could about
it. In the old days when I needed to research for some cod history
(for I am not an academic historian and have never claimed to be one)
I have turned to reference libraries and, in particular, the
Westcountry Studies Library in Exeter. That no longer exists and has
become integrated with other resources to form the Devon Archives and Local Studies Service which is wonderful since a good deal more information is now
available on line.
So
it is that instead of searching through drawers of record cards and microfiche film I now spend my time trawling through various
web sites. However, one thing remains exactly the same: I am unable
to stop myself being drawn down all sorts of irresistible by ways
which have little or nothing to do with the subject in hand.
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| All over the moor you will find evidence of tin mining. Often this is no more than the ground having been disturbed in an apparently random way, as here. |
Exactly
that has happened over the last three days. All I wanted was some old
illustration of tin miners at work (a picture being worth a thousand
words). I was at that point where the temptation to give up (after
all, such an illustration is not really vital) when I spotted a name
that meant nothing to me at all: Georgius Agricola. The only Agricola I had heard of was a Roman Emperor but
clearly here was someone else since this one was born in Saxony in 1494.
Intrigued I Googled the name and within minutes I had exactly what I
wanted: some engravings (presumably dated about 1525) which were
contained in books this Agricola had written about mineralogy. Then,
of course, I wanted to know why this man from what is now a part of
Germany had written such books.
He
was a true man of his times: a polymath and quite extraordinary. I
have been unable to find out who his parents were nor anything about
his childhood. However, he comes out of the woodwork in 1514 when he
is studying classics at the University of Leipzig. In 1518 he starts
teaching Latin and Greek in a school in Zwickau – one assumes he
needed the money – but after four years he returned to the
university to study medicine. At that time, Leipzig was at the centre
of the theological debates out of which sprang the Protestant
movement: in July 1519, Martin Luther arrived in the city to take
part in what was known as the Leipziger
Disputation
and the whole university was taking sides; much to the disgust of
Agricola who was a staunch Catholic.
To
get away from this atmosphere he travelled to Bologna in Italy where
he resumed his studies into medicine whilst also studying philosophy
and natural sciences: the polymath was coming out of his shell. After
further studies in Padua and Venice he took a job with a publisher
there: the Aldine Press. Together with another man, John
Clement, he was preparing for publication an edition of a book by
Galen (the Greek physician) which was published in 1525.
It
seems likely that these two men, Agricola and Clement, spent a good
deal of time together outside work. Clement had been secretary to
Thomas More whilst More was writing Utopia.
Was it this book that inspired Agricola to interest himself in the
laws and traditions of tin miners? Probably because interest himself
he certainly did.
In
1526 he was to return to Saxony where he became the town physician in
Joachimstha
– in one of the richest mining districts in Europe. It is suggested
that his main concern at that time was to find medically useful
ingredients in the various ores and metals being mined. In this he
was disappointed but his contact with the mines and the miners became
his passion and the study of mineralogy was to lead to a number of
books on the subject (whilst Agricola was in Venice, he had met the
great Erasmus who wrote the introduction to Bermannus;
sive, de re metallica,
a treatise on mineralogy which came out in 1530). It was to be
followed by many others and Agricola was to become known as ‘the
father of mineralogy’.
So,
after spending time – or wasting time depending on how you look at
these things – finding out more and more about this person, in
reality all I achieved was to find a few engravings of which one (above) will
be used in the book I am working on. Unless, of course, I decide to
devote a bit of space to Georgious Agricola which might or might not
be a good idea.
What
do you think?
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| Sally Gingerbread, Jeanne and Keith Giles's beloved dog, died very recently and it seemed fitting that there should be a photograph here in her memory. I understand they are looking to take on another rescue dog and I am sure you will all join me in hoping that they will soon find another companion. |
