540 



THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



also allotted a wide limit to the maritime rights of the prince 

 of the adjoining territory ; but he reduced the space from one 

 hundred to sixty miles, a distance which was supposed to be 

 equal to one day's journey from the coast. 1 The boundaries 

 assigned by these jurists, or sometimes the equivalent of one 

 or two days' voyage from the coast, were very generally ac- 

 cepted by civilians later, although frequently with qualification, 

 more particularly as to the nature of the rights to be exercised. 2 

 Bartolus confined the rights of the prince to jurisdiction and 

 the appropriation of islands, and since the distance prescribed 

 included the space within which navigation in those times was 

 almost entirely restricted, it is probable that the primary idea 

 was the maintenance of order and the suppression of piracy. 

 The underlying principle was the range of navigation from the 

 coast or from a port, just as later it was the range of guns. 



Baldus seems to have gone a step further than Bartolus by 

 including sovereignty (potestas) as well as jurisdiction (juris- 

 dictio) among the rights of the neighbouring prince, and he 

 declared that the proximal sea pertained to the territory of 

 the adjoining state, which, as in the case of Venice, had power 

 to impose taxes for the use of it. 3 Much the same opinion was 

 expressed by Bodin, a French lawyer who wrote about the 

 middle of the sixteenth century. When speaking of the taxes 

 or tolls that might be imposed by a state, he said that though 

 the sea was incapable of appropriation, it was in a measure 

 accepted that for a distance of sixty miles from the shore the 

 prince of the adjoining country could impose law on those who 

 approached the coast, and that it had been so adjudged in the 

 case of the Duke of Savoy. 4 Gentilis, writing at the beginning 

 of the next century, stated that it was laid down by the 

 civilians that not only jurisdiction, but dominion, pertained to 



1 Commentaria ad Institutiones, Pandectas et Codicem, iii. 79. Venice, 1577. 



2 Bodinus, De Repvblica, lib. i. c. x. 170, Frankfort, 1591 ; Pacius, De Dominio 

 Maria Hodriotici Disceptotio, c. i., Leyden, 1619 ; Welwood, De Dominio Maris, 

 c. i. p. 5, 1615 ; Dee, General and Rare Memorials, p. 21, 1577 ; Gryphiander, 

 De Instilis Tractatus, c. xiv., 1623 ; Gentilis, Advocatio ffispanica, c. viii. de 

 marina territorio tuendo, 1613 ; Gothofredus, DC Imperio Maris, 1637. 



3 " Mare dicitur esse de territorio illius civitatis cui magis appropinquat et ideo 

 Veneti quia domini sunt maris Adriatici possunt imponere navigantibus vectigalia, 

 et adversus contra facientus poenam adjicere." 



4 Loc. cit. 



