Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/549

 and even to be branded on the forehead as rogues and outcasts. The same ordinance ordained, that "any person who shall wilfully cut the cable of a ship should be impaled alive."

It was a general rule at all the Mediterranean ports to engage by "cartel," or proclamation, such ships as were required for special purposes. In those of Aragon and at Marseilles the cartel was usually inscribed upon a board of wood, and affixed to the point of a spear or lance. This cartel stated the number of ships required, and the object and character of the expedition. The ceremony was one of a formal and somewhat attractive description. Garlands of green leaves and ribbons of the most conspicuous colours ornamented the cartel board. The royal banner, or that of the prince who required the ships, floated by the side of the cartel, and a herald repeated in a loud voice the conditions of the charter, formal contracts being executed in the presence of a notary. These contracts were very minute in their details, and specified not only the size of each ship, the number of the crew, the extent of space to be allotted to the passengers, or for the conveyance of horses, but even the size of the rigging, with an inventory of almost every article which had been shipped for the use of the vessel and crew.

Like the contracts or charter-parties of our own time the conditions varied. Sometimes the charter-commissioners were left to engage for the whole ship, or at a stated rate for each passenger; such rates varying, as now, with the nature of the accommodation afforded, and ranging from the "paradise" and*