EARLY HISTORY 51 



able probability, that any other Power acquiesced in an English 

 claim to a specific sovereignty of the sea beyond what appears 

 to have been customary among maritime states at the time. 

 The point of the libel is that Grimbald seized shipping after 

 the alliance was made and took people and goods to France, 

 and was thus said to have usurped the sovereign lordship or 

 jurisdiction of the English king or admiral in "the sea of 

 England." 



An important light is thrown on the nature of the juris- 

 diction exercised by the English admiral by the memorandum 

 of 12 Edward III., in the same roll, the documents in which 

 were collected together at the time it was written, in connec- 

 tion with the consultation of the judges to which it refers. 1 It 

 recites that, among a number of other things, the King's Justi- 

 ciaries were to be consulted as to the appropriate method of 

 revising and continuing the form of proceedings instituted 

 and ordained by Edward I. and his Council for maintaining 

 and preserving the ancient supremacy of the crown in the sea 

 of England and the right of the admiral's office over it, with 

 the view of correcting, interpreting, declaring, and upholding 

 the laws and statutes made formerly by his ancestors, the 

 kings of England, for the maintenance of peace and justice 

 among the people of all nations whatsoever passing through 

 the sea of England, and to take cognisance of all attempts to 

 the contrary in the same, and to punish delinquents and afford 

 redress to the injured ; which laws and statutes, the memor- 

 andum states, were by Richard I., on his return from the Holy 

 Land, corrected, interpreted, and declared, and were published 

 in the Island of Oleron and named in the French language 

 La Loy Oleroun? 



1 Chancery Rolls, Misc., Bdle. 14, n. 15, memb. 4. 



2 " Infrascripti sunt articuli generates super quibus et fines ad quos Justiciarii 

 domini nostri Regis sunt consulend', et dominus noster Rex de eorum consilii> 

 certificand' in Cancellai-' sua in scriptis citra festum, &c. 



" Item ad finem, quod resumatur et coutinuetur ad subditorum prosecu- 

 cionem forma procedendi quondam ordinata et inchoata per avum Domini 

 nostri Regis et ejus consilium ad retinenduin et conservandum antiquam 

 Superioritatem Maris Angliao et jus officii Admirallatus in eodem, quoad 

 corrigendum, interpretandum, declarandum, et conservandum leges et statuta 

 per ejus antecessores Angliae Reges dudum ordinata ad conservandum pacem 

 et Justitiam inter onmes gentes nacionis cujuscunque per Mare Anglue 

 transeuntes, et ad cognoscendum super omnibus in contrarium attemptatia 



