28 FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN 



Achilles. If, however, one hits another on the head he is 

 to defray the doctor's bill, and pay his victim's wages until 

 the date of recovery. Another proviso alludes to the practice 

 of fishing by means of torches, for it forbids fishermen to 

 display lights at sea lest they should deceive other vessels. 

 About the eleventh century, when respect for the laws of 

 Rhodes had in a measure worn out, and civilisation had 

 gravitated towards the West, another island supplied the 

 laws of mariners and fishermen to Europe ; and no incon- 

 siderable tribute to the maritime influence of France 

 during the Middle Ages is testified by the wide prevalence 

 of the laws forming the code of one of her islands. From 

 Oleron off Saintonge in Aquitain, between the Isle De Re 

 and the river Charente, proceeded a code of laws recog- 

 nised by the wide circle of the Hanseatic towns, though 

 not published until the year 1536. 



As for the credit of the work, the French, and espe- 

 cially those of Aquitain, assume it to themselves, alleging 

 that Queen Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitain (the wife of 

 Henry II. of England, and mother to Richard I.), having 

 returned from the Holy Land, made the first draft of 

 these laws, and called them Roole d'Oleron, by the name 

 of this her beloved island. To which laws, says she, her 

 son King Richard, having likewise returned from his expe- 

 dition to the Holy Land, made some additions still under 

 the same title. These assertions are backed by the argu- 

 ments, that the laws were written in the old French, after 

 the Gascon dialect, and not in English ; that they were 

 made particularly for Bordeaux voyagers, for the landing 

 of wines, and other commodities in that place, and for trans- 

 port and unloading at St. Malo, Caen, and Rouen, seaport 

 towns of France ; and lastly that there is not so much as 

 any mention made of the Thames, England or Ireland. 



