EARLY HISTORY OF WHALING 61 



when the latter approached the shore, towing the 

 body to the land to extract the oil. Later they 

 fitted out rowing boats and killed the whale on the 

 open sea. Fischer 1 says the whaling was at its 

 apogee in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as 

 indicated by the number of documents relating to it. 

 Up to this time it was entirely free. According to 

 the judgments of Oleron, the fishermen of Cape 

 Breton (near Bayonne), Plech, Biarritz, Guetary, 

 Saint Jean de Luz, and of the Labourd country 

 were exempt from all dues. They gave to the 

 church the whales' tongues, but this was a voluntary 

 gift. The first attempt to interfere with these 

 fishermen was by the kings of England, who, as 

 Dukes of Guyenne, usurped the seignorial rights. 



In 1197 King John gave Vital de Biole and his 

 heirs and successors the sum of fifty angevin livres, 

 to be levied on the first two whales captured annually 

 at Biarritz, in exchange for the rent of the fishery at 

 Guernsey. 



An act of the Abbey of Honce in 1261 announced 

 that permission was granted to pay a tithe on the 

 whales landed at Bayonne. This tithe was a con- 

 version of the previous free gift of whales' tongues. 

 In 1257 William Lavielle gave to the bishop and 

 chapter of Bayonne a tithe of the whales captured 

 on the ocean by the people of Biarritz, and this was 

 apparently paid until 1498. Although there is 



1 " Ce*tacees du sud-ouest de la France," P. Fischer. Actes 

 de la Societe Linneenne de Bordeaux, Vol. xxxiv., 1881, 

 Bordeaux. 



