[526] Domesday Book.
[527] Peter Langtoft says that Richard’s own ship was called the “Trenche-le-mer,” a good name for a swift sailing vessel; and the name of Trenchemer occurs frequently in subsequent records, even as late as Henry V., as that of commanders of ships.
[528] Geoffry de Vinisauf, ap. Gale, Script. Hist. Anglic., vol. ii.
[529] These numbers are given from Richard of Devizes (p. 17), who appears to be the only writer who gives details of the fleet at Messina. The number given subsequently, during the passage of Richard to the Holy Land, by Vinisauf and others, is considerably larger, and probably comprehends vessels of all descriptions.—Sir H. Nicolas’s “Hist. Roy. Navy,” vol. i. p. 77, &c.
[530] Buss, Bussa, Buscia, or Burcia, and Dromon, or Dromond, seem to have been used indifferently for large vessels. As the specific name given to the large ship belonging to Saladin which Richard I. captured, it has been supposed that the word Dromond is of Arabic origin.—Spelman in voc. Dromunda.
[531] The whole of these and of the more ancient maritime laws have been recently edited (A.D. 1828-1847) by a learned French lawyer, M. Pardessus. According to his researches, it appears most probable that these documents belong to the ancient French code, called the “Rôles ou Jugemens d’Oleron.” It is impossible to determine now who first compiled them, hence they have been claimed for different nations and tribes; Selden, Coke, Prynne, Godolphin, and others, deemed them of English origin, and due to Richard I., but there is no evidence that he ever went to Oleron. M. Pardessus has shown from the authority of MSS. at Oxford and in the British Museum, and from their coincidence with a very early translation into Spanish, that the first twenty-six articles are the most genuine. The others he considers to be later additions, as, indeed, their intrinsic evidence tends to show. The place of the departure of the ships being generally Bordeaux suggests that they were originally embodied for the coasting trade of the west of France.—Pardessus’ “Collection de lois Maritimes,” Paris, 4to, 1828-47. Sir Harris Nicolas, quoting from Brompton, Hoveden, and others, states that Richard drew up at Chinon, on his way to Marseilles, what he calls “the earliest articles of war.” (“Hist. Roy. Navy,” pp. 89-91.) Still more recently (1871) Sir Travers Twiss, in his edition of “The Black Book of the Admiralty,” has examined very fully the real or supposed claims of Richard to be the author or the editor of the “Rôles d’Oleron.” In doing so he quotes a memorandum of 12 Edw. III. (A.D. 1284), stating that these laws (i.e., the ten last articles of the Rôles) “were by the Lord Richard, formerly king of England, on his return from the Holy Land, corrected, interpreted, and declared, and were published in the island of Oleron, and were named in the French tongue (Gallica lingua) ‘La Ley Olyroun.’”—Introd. pp. lvii.-lviii.
[532] We need not point out that the order of precedency differs nowadays. The supercargoes in after years claimed priority in everything except in that which related to the navigation of the vessel.
[533] Some of the following rules are noted in the “Ordinances made by King Richard to be observed among sea-faring men.” See [Appendix No. 2]. No. 2, 628.
[534] This is the fourteenth article in Pardessus, p. 333. His article thirteen relates to charter-parties to different places between Bourdeaux and Yarmouth.
[535] The old Gascony phrase was Oster la touaille, which signifies denying him the table-cloths or victuals for three meals, by which was understood one day and a half.