136 THK INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



trolling all matters pertaining to the harbor, docks and to 

 vessels in port; and the other, known as the Laws of Wis- 

 buy, governing rights on the high seas. To these statutes 

 merchants and sailors submitted by general custom and 

 consent, 1 and they submit to them still, for they are im- 

 bedded in modern codes of marine law. Whether the 

 famous laws of Oleron, supposed to have been framed by 

 Queen Elinor, who died in 1202, or Richard L, who died 

 in 1199, preceded or followed the Wisbuy laws, which 

 they closely resemble, is a mooted point ; but apparently 

 the latter are the older. 2 



It is certain that, early in the I3th century, the Wisbuy 

 laws were commonly observed in the eastern ports of the 

 Baltic, which, of course, could not have been the case had 

 these statutes not come into existence, as some suppose, 

 until after the rebuilding of the walls of the city in 1288. 

 Furthermore, recent research has made it plain that the 

 Wisbuy code was a composite structure built up gradually 

 over a long period, during which not only additions but 

 omissions were made; many features, at one time in full 

 force and regarded as wise and proper, becoming obsolete 

 or out of harmony with changed customs or more mode- 

 rate notions of wrongs and remedies. 3 The code as it ap- 

 pears to-day is extremely brief, 4 and thus bears on its face 

 the evidence that it is probably merely a residuum, and 

 by no means inclusive of all the precepts which at various 

 times formed parts of it. 



1 Olans Magnus, cit. sup., says : "The laws for sea affairs and the de- 

 cisions of all controversies severally, far and wide, as far as the pillars of 

 Hercules and the utmost Scythian Sea, are fetched from thence, and are 

 observed ; being given, that all things may be done in a due tranquillity 

 that may be fit and agreeing to peaceable commerce." 



2 Beckmann: Hist, of Inventions, London, 1817, i., 387. Parsons: 

 Treatise on Maritime Law, Boston, 1859, 10, inclines to the opposite view. 



8 The Black Book of the Admiralty, London, 1876. (Monumenta Juri- 

 dica.) Introduction. 



4 Ibid. Also Appendix to Peter's Admiralty Reports. 



