During the eighteenth century a community of 'free' miners grew up
on Crown land in the Forest of Dean. Their right to live and work in
this region was neither conferred by the Crown nor by private
employers or landowners; it became, over the years, a customary
right. During the nineteenth century the Crown began to erode
customary rights existing on its land and replace it with forms of
market capitalism such as those which sprang up in the private sector
during this period.

This book examines how this transition was made and how the free
miners responded to the encroachments of market capitalism. It
provides important insights into the way in which the body of custom
altered over time and into the fundamental relations of property,
production and law in a society. The ways in which customs were
transformed and the sorts of adaptations which had to be made in
customs which survived were an index of change in the wider
society.