358 



A. D. 1 197. 



monks concerned in the bufinefs, and gave the corn to the poor. [M. 

 Paris, ^.191.] 



The famous maritime laws of Oleron (which is an ifland adjacent to 

 the coaft of France) are ufually afcribed to Richard I, though none of 

 the many writers, who have had occafion to mention them, have been 

 able to find any contemporary authority, or even any antient fatisfac- 

 tory warrant for affixing his name to them *. They confifl of forty- 

 feven fhort regulations for average, falvage, wreck, &c. copied from 

 the antient Rhodian maritime laws, or perhaps more immediately from 

 thofe of Barcelona. 



1 1 98 In the laft year of Richard there occurs an inftance of a land- 

 ed eftate being mortgaged to a Jew for the payment of one hundred 

 marks with intereft (or ufury as the payment for the ufe of money was 

 then called) at the rate of ten per cent annually. [Madox, Formulare 

 Anglic, p. 77.] It may be prefumed that the tranfadion was confidered 

 as legal, the canons againft taking intereft not extending to the Jews, 

 and that ten per cent was below the cuftomary rate of intereft. 



From the earlieft mention I have found of Hull f , it feems to have 

 been a fhipping port for the wool of the neighbouring country, whereof 



* The bed warrant, thai could he found by the 

 keen relVarch of Selden, when writing under royal 

 'authority, was a bundle of papers upon the fove- 

 reignty of the fea, preferved in the Tower, and 

 apparently written in the time of Edward III, 

 the firft king of England who claimed the crown 

 of France ; wherein it is fald, that ' The laws and 

 ' ftatutes were correfted, interpreted, and declar- 

 ' ed, by the lord Richard, formerly king of Eng- 

 ' land, on his return from the Holy land, and 

 • made public in the idand of Oleron.' \_Mare 

 claufum, L. ii, c. 24.] But Selden very foon after 

 obferves, thst fome printed copies of thofe laws 

 date them in 1266; and Camden, without faying 

 a word of Richard, dates them in that year. {Brit- 

 annia, p. 859, ed. 1607.3 As no point in hiftory 

 is better afccrtained, than that Richard never went 

 near Oleron on his return from the Holy lane/, it is 

 poffible, that his order for the regulation of his 

 fleet when at fea, or his renewal of the law of 

 fienry I and Henry H refpefting wrecks, when 

 he was at MclTana in Sicily on his nueiy to the Holy 

 land, \_Hoveden, f. ■3,-jC) b, 386 b] may have been 

 tlie foundation of the belitf that he was tlie author 

 'A the maritime laws of Oleron. 



Cleirac, an advocate of Boutdcaux, in a work, 

 intitlcd Us el coufiumes deln mer, publifhed in 1621, 

 afcribes the laws of Oleron to Eleonora duchefs of 

 Guienne and queen of England, who, he fays, en- 

 arted them in tiic year 1266 on her return from the 

 Holy land, to which (lie had accompanied her huf- 

 hand. It feems, a return from the Holy land mull 

 be conncdlcd with thofe laws. But this author 

 feems to confound Eleonora duchefs of Aquitaine 



(of which Guienne is a part) the queen of Henry II, 

 with Eleonora of Cailile, the wife of Edward 

 prince of England, who, indeed, accompanied her 

 hufband to the Holy land ; but they did not fet 

 out till the year 1269. The fame author, with 

 rather more probability, fuppofes the laws of Oleron 

 were copied from the maritime code of Barcelona. 



There are charters of Otho duke of Aquitaine, 

 of Eleonora duchefs of Aquitaine and queen dow- 

 ager of England, and of John king of England 

 dated in 119S and 1199, and alfo of Henry III 

 king of England dated in 1230, confirming to the 

 men of Oleron their former privileges, and further 

 giving them liberty to fell their wine and fait, to 

 difpofe of their children in marriage, and to make 

 their wills : but not a word of any maritime laws- 

 \^Firdera, y. i, />/>. 105, III, 112, SH-] 



It may be thought that I have beltowed more 

 attention upon thcfe laws than they defeivc. But 

 the commercial importance, which has been afcrib- 

 ed to them, and their fame, whether well or ill 

 founded, feemed to rcijuire fome difcui^lon of their 

 fuppofed connexion ulih England. 



Godolphin has p\ib!ilhed them, ' rendered into 

 ' Engllih out of Garfias, alias Ferrand,' in the ap- 

 pendix to his fiezii of the admiral jurifJif'ion. The 

 conveyance of lavvt;, afcribed to an Englilli king, 

 to Englilh readers by means of a Spanilh writer, 

 i.; one of the llrange circumllance". attending the 

 bws of Oleron. They have alio been publillied 

 by Pofllethwayt and others. 



t The gcncrally-recciv'_-(l belief, that the town 

 of Hull did not cxill till the year 129^), will be 

 noticed under the year 1298. 



