Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/598

 sailor who deserted the master of his ship in time of danger.

The penal statutes of the Christian countries of the Mediterranean forbade, as already explained, any sale of arms or of ships to the Saracens. Persons who violated this enactment were sometimes "hung by the throat," in the terms of the law of Jerusalem. The most lenient punishment, the dispossession of everything the delinquent had in the world and his exposure on the staircase of the tribunal to the public execration, allowed for selling a ship to the infidels, and thereby "wronging the republics two-*fold," was by the statute of Venice of 1232 adopted in principle, if not in all its details, by other Christian countries. But in spite of these stringent laws the Venetians, as already shown, if they did not sell ships or arms to the Saracens, traded with them in other merchandise whenever it suited their purpose. A similar humiliating exposure was inflicted on any pilot or steersman, who, through negligence, had caused the ship under his charge to be boarded, and thus to sustain serious damage or loss. In this case, however, instead of being exposed upon the staircase of the tribunal, the unfortunate offender was obliged, after the confiscation of his property, to sit for six hours upon a cask in a public thoroughfare, in the short dress worn by culprits, with his feet naked, and holding in his hands a helm, amidst the laughter and scorn of the populace.