OLE'RON, LAWS OF. Tho Laws, or constitutions, or judgments of Oleron, are a capitulary of ancient marine custom, written in old French, and bearing the name of Oleron for several centuries, because tradition points to the island so called as the place of their original promulgation. An ancient copy of these laws is to be found in the ' Black Book ' of the Admiralty, the original of which is supposed to be in the Bodleian Library ; but they are not there called the Laws of Olcron, nor is there any reference In the laws themselves, or in the book which contains them, to their origin or history. They are not unfrequently appended to ancient editions of the Coutumier ' of Normandy under the title of ' Lee Jugemena do la Mer ' in Cleirac's edition of the ' Ua ct Coutumee do Is Nor' they are given, without any description of the book or place from whence they are taken, under the name of Rook des Jugemens d'Oleron.' They are generally referred to by French writers on maritime law as Jugemens d'Oleron: The collies of these laws however published by Cleirac, and those appended to the Contumder do Normandie; differ materially from each other, and also from that in the' Black Book' of tho Admiralty, though many of the article, are almost verbally the same in all. They relate to the rights and duties of ahip-owucra and mariners, maritime contracts, port and custom laws, and losses at sea; but are chiefly re markable at the present day from the circumstance that they were for several centuries adopted by all the nations of Europe as the founda tion of their maritime laws.
It has been generally stated by English law writers that the laws of Oleron were compiled by Richard I. in the island of O)cron, on his return from the Holy Land. This statement, which is given by Coke, Selden, Hale, Prynne, Blackstone, Reeve, and several English writers on maritime law, furnishes a curious innance of the readiness with which historical errors are propagated when one writer makes his asser tions respecting facts from the statements of another without thought or examination. There is scarcely any fact in history more entirely 'settled, and few more notorious, than that Richard I., In returniug from the Holy Land, was shipwrecked in the Adriatic, near Venice, and immediately taken by Leopold, duke of Austria, and detained a prisoner in Germany (' Faxlers; vol. h., p. 70); and there in good evidence
that at the expiration of his captivity he returned home through Flanders, without touching upon his French dominions. (lloveden.) It is equally clear, from the account of Wooden and other chroniclers, that on Lis way to the East ho travelled by land through France, and embarked at Marseille for Sicily. There is therefore not the slightest foundation for the statement which haa been referred to ; and indeed the only evidence that they were the work of Richard at all is found in what Sir Edward Coke calls a " notable " record in the Tower (4 144), which record is also mentioned by Selden in his' Marc Clausuw' (lib. ii., cap. 24). The part of this record however in which these laws are noticed' is dated in the reign of Edward Ill., and con sequently 150 year% after Richard's time ; and the document appears hardly to deserve the name of a record, being merely a roll, consisting of detached membranes, relating to maritime affairs of different reigns, miscellaneously thrown together, and without any formal data or description, or anything to give them the authority of a judicial act. (Luders's ' Inquiry into the Origin of the LAWS of Oleron.') This docu ment contains the following p e, from which the story, ascribing this piece of legislation to Richard L has sprung :—" Quc3r}Uideua loges of statute per Domintun Ilicanhon quondam Regent Angle% in reditu nuo do Terri Sancta, corrects juerent. interpretata, declarata, et in insult Oleos publicata, ct nominate. in Gallica linguet La Ley °loom's." On the other hand, there are atroug reasons for attributing to those ordinances a later date than the reign of Richard I., the principal of which are :-1. that they are written in the French language); whereas in the reign of Richard I. all laws of royal ordinance,Inth in the king's French doluinionn and In England, were written and promulgated in Latin ; 2, that if they had been promulgated in Englaud before the time of Bruton, Britton, and Pieta, they must have been mentioned by those authors ; and 9, that the original historians of the reign of Richard 1. (though sufficiently ready to record his merits) never men tion this part of his legislation.