Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/444

 to the contrary. "And any participators of the said wreck, whether bishops, prelates, or clerks, shall be deposed and deprived of their benefices respectively." If they were laymen, they incurred the penalties previously recited.

Whatever opinion may be entertained of the barbarous character of the punishments enforced by these laws, it is undeniable that they are framed in a spirit of wisdom and justice towards the ship-owner. The lawless spirit of piracy, prevailing along the coasts in the time of Richard I., rendered it absolutely necessary, if a merchant navy was desirable, to protect the ships and the mariners, as well as the goods in them, by the stern authority of the civil law. The experience that Richard had acquired in sea affairs during his voyage to the Holy Land, made him sensible of the necessity of introducing into England the most salutary maritime regulations in force abroad. Accordingly the above code, of which we have furnished only a brief abstract, was established by him, or shortly after his death, to afford protection to those persons and interests, on which he saw clearly the commercial prosperity of England in great measure depended.

At a later period, the merchants of Wisby framed their laws on the Rôles d'Oleron, which became, in fact, during the succeeding century and subsequently, the authoritative rule for deciding all maritime controversies not only in the Hanse Towns,