Introduction The landscape of silver mining across Europe in the pre-industrial period has many common elements despite the differing strengths of the mineral resources on which it was based, the variable economic structures which defined its exploitation and the disparate nature of the research resources available for its interpretation today. Silver was a major factor in the development of the European economies, essential in sustaining the growth of commercialisation from the 9th century onwards which demanded the continued, and increasing, circulation of silver coin (Spufford 1988).