Segers-Glocke, Christiane [Hrsg.]; Niedersächsisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege [Hrsg.]; Institut für Denkmalpflege [Hrsg.]; Balck, Friedrich [Bearb.]: Arbeitshefte zur Denkmalpflege in Niedersachsen: Aspects of mining and smelting in the Upper Harz Mountains (up to the 13th/14th century) - in the early times of a developing European culture and economy (St. Katharinen: Scripta Mercaturae Verl., Heft 22.2000)

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provided by the mining law from the middle of the 14th century, which contains
several regulations on the production of silver and lead (FRÖLICH 1953, 25 sqq.).
A document from the year 1300 shows how serious the council was about the
enforcement of its quality assurance regulations. Knight Volkmar of Goslar
certified a statement of the shareholder of a smelter (Hüttengewerke) Burchard
Ehrhaftig and his son to the council of Goslar regarding the smelting and testing
of the copper slags stored at the smelter Ossenwech and of slags belonging to
Burchard Ehrhaftig. The copper produced there had quite clearly not been tested
in accordance with the rules before it had been sold. The council had therefore
prohibited further supplies of copper ore to the smelter. The two shareholders of
the smelter (Hüttengewerken) protested against these measures because the
operation of the smelter could not be maintained without a continued supply of
copper ore27.
The measures of the city and the „six men“, the leading council of the
association of the montani et silvani, were not a great success. Already on the 9th
of January 1295 King Adolf of Nassau demanded prompt and punctual payment
of the tax called „Schlagschatz“ which was levied on the slagggenhutten, and to
pay the accrued debts. The king appointed the court judge in Saxony
(Landrichter) to mediate in this matter28.
In the year 1311 a list was drawn up of all the smelters of the Harz and its
foreland who were obliged to pay the Schlagschatz but had not paid it to the
imperial sheriff at Goslar. A total of 38 operating smelters are named in this
document29. A property inventory drawn up for provost Hermann of the Neuwerk
monastery only four decades later shows that by 1355 few smelters remained in
operation30.
In opposition to the steady decline of mining and smelting activities around
Goslar in the first half of the 14th century an increasing amount of information
documents the long distance trade in Goslar copper31. In August of 1314 the
council of Goslar approached the council of Hamburg with the request to inter-
cede on behalf of several burghers of Goslar whose property, consisting of larger

27 Bode 1893-1922, Vol. 2, 571 Nr. 596.
28 Bode 1893-1922, Vol. 2, 480-481 Nr. 480.
29 Bode 1893-1922, Vol. 3, 181-183 Nr. 265.
30 Bode 1893-1922, Vol. 4, 398-402 Nr. 526, ibid. esp. 401.
31 Comp, summary by Beddies 1996, 95.