1145.] CHRONOLOGICAL HISTOHY. 13 



of tlie tithe of whales captured at or brought to 

 Dive *; and in a bull of Pope Eugene III. in 1145, 

 we find again a donation in favour of the church of 

 Coutances, of the tithe of the tongues of whales {- 

 taken at Merry, a gift which was confirmed to this 

 church by an act of Philip, King of France, in 

 1319. Tliough there seems nothing in the words 

 of these acts against the idea, that the v»'hales here 

 spoken of were fished for in the sea, but, on the con- 

 trary, they rather convey a belief, that the Normans, 

 familiarised in the north with these hardy enter- 

 prises, never hesitated the repetition of them in the 

 Channel, with a superiority of means and of courage 

 derived from experience ; yet, as hitherto, there is 

 nothing decisive as to a fishery having been actual- 

 ly carried on by the French, I do not feel myself 

 competent to speak positively to the point. 



* " Decimam Divac, — de balenis et de sale," &c. Gall. Christ. 

 xi. i?istruni. 59. 



f « Apud Merri, decimas Ungnarum cenarinn qua* 



" capiuntur inter Tar et Tarel fluvios, &c. — decima Ugnarum 

 " crflAi'i/jJA'cv.y totius ripparia? maris," &c. Gal. Christ, xi. insir. 

 240.-273. There are two serious errors in the text of tliese 

 two charters. In the first we must read cclarum, instead o^ 

 cenarum ; and, in the second, linguarum, instead of Ugnarum, 

 for establishing the sense, without which they will be unintelli- 

 gible. These charters likewise indicate, that the })eopIe of 

 Normandy were in the habit of eating the tongues of whale«. 



