10 FEBRUARY 1872, Page 18

THE BLACK BOOK OF THE ADMIRALTY.*

UNDElt a title whiob, to the ordinary reader, must be suggestive of scandal, Sir Travers Twiss has brought out a solemn and learned work, as far removed as possible in its nature from the productions known to the present and past generation by the style and title of Black Books. It has no concern with pay, pensions, sinecures, jobs, profligate establishments, and its connection with the word " Blacke," we presume, may be referred solely to the -colour of the binding which held together the original. It is an ancient and venerable collection of the customs and usages of the sea, having their origin far back in the middle ages,—how far no one can say with absolute precision, but somewhere between the reigns of William I. and King John. The MS., however, appears to have been compiled early in the fifteenth century. A still older document is that famous compilation of maritime usages known as the " Laws of Oleron," which indeed may be regarded as the foundation of the English collection of laws. The task undertaken and so ably executed by Sir Travers Twiss was rendered more difficult, and at the same time more necessary, because the original of the Blacks Book has dis- appeared from the Admiralty Registry, a remarkable fact, which may testify either to the carelessness of the Admiralty clerks of the Georgian era, or to the unscrupulous avidity of some book- collector. An English MS., which has done duty for the original, narrowly escaped neglect or confiscation. It was given to the College of Advocates in Doctors' Commons in 1685, by Sir Leoline Jenkins, who had filled the office of Judge of the High Court of Admiralty. In 1809, a Mr. Allison, to whom Sir James Marriott bequeathed some books, the valuable MS. among them, gave it to Sir William Scott, and by him, we assume, it was restored to the library of the College,—" so near," writes Dr. Twin, " does this volume appear to have run the risk of disappearing from public notice by passing irregularly into private hands." The MS. is the

The Black Book of the Admiralty, Wilton Appendix. Edited by Sir Travers Twins, QC D.C.L., Her hiajesty's Advocate-General. Published by the Authority of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the Direction of the Master of the Bolls. Vol. L

more precious because it contains "an abstract of our Lawes of Oleron," as well as " the Lewes in the Blacks Book of the Admi- ralty," translated from the French by Thomas Bedford, Deputy Registrar of the Court when Sir Leoline Jenkins was judge. As the Doctors' Commong Library was sold in 1858, and as even the modern copy of the Black Book had disappeared from the Admi- ralty archives, Dr. Twiss " thought," and rightly, " that he might do an useful service both to letters and to the law by editing a restored text of the Black Book." Dr. Spink lent him the M.S. of Bedford, and somebody found the lost copy at the Admiralty, so that by the aid of these and the result of his own researches in the British Museum, the able editor had copious materials for the elabo- rate work which he has so carefully performed. In an " Introduc- tion " abounding with proofs of unflagging research, Sir Travers Twiss has set forth a critical account of the various manuscripts and of the probable dates of their compilation, a subject upon which we will not enter.

It is regarded as indubitable that "the Navy was managed from the earliest times by the King and his Council, before whom com- petent persons from the seaports were from time to time summoned to give advice upon maritime affairs." The first High Admiral, or functionary placed in command of all the Fleets, was Sir Thomas Beauchamp, who was appointed in 1360, but the first mention of an Admiral in our own printed law occurs in the 8th Edward II. Sir Harris Nicholas has printed a list of Admirals beginning with John Perbrown, who was Admiral of the North, and Waresius de Valoignes, Admiral of the West, in 1327. The first Vice-Admiral was a Genoese, Nicolas Liana Maria, or, as Sir Harris prints it, Nicolas Usdemer, a name which reminds us that Richard Com de Lion's Admiral, as well as his best man-of-war, was called Trench le Men Sir Travers Twiss says that the Court of Admiralty in the days of Richard was a Court of Record, " which privilege appears to have been wrested from the High Court of Admiralty, and has only been restored in recent times by 24 Victoria, c. 10, s. 14." And in a note he adds that it was a Court of Record in the thirteenth of Richard II., when " its jurisdiction was first regulated by statute." Many of the usages and customs have become obsolete, but the principles on which they were based lie at the root of the laws which govern the practice of the present day. The earliest ordinances are dae to Henry I., who among other things mitigated the severity of the law of wreck by ordaining that no vessel should be regarded as a wreck from which one person escaped alive ; an ordinance which, in the barbarous days of the Plantagenets, was probably only obeyed when obedience could not be avoided. Then come those of Richard I., a great sailor himself. King John contributed largely. He forbade the exaction of customs dues on account of merchan- dize landed for sale, if such merchandize, should not be sold,—a sort of initiation of the bonded-warehouse system of our day. He ordained that there should be a uniformity in the customs levied upon water-borne merchandize throughout the realm, and further, that tallage should not be paid, but only anchorage, and the latter at a fixed rate throughout the coasts of England. The moat strik- ing of his ordinances, however, was that which laid down the arrogant rule that " if the [lieutenant of the King, or the admirall of the King, or his] lieutenant in any voyage appointed by the Common Counsell of the Kyngdom did at sea meet with any shyps or vessells laden or empty which would not strike and lower their sailes at the command of the Kyng's lieutenant or the Kyng's admirall, or his lieutenant, but makeing resistaunce against those of the ffleet, that if they can be taken that they be reputed as

enemies, and their shyps, vesselle, and goodes should be forfeited," even if they were or alleged themselves to be friends of the King, and that the "company" should be imprisoned for rebellion. Dr.

Twiss comments on the objections of those who contend that this ordinance, so much relied on by Selden, is apocryphal ; but he does not state explicitly that all their objections are baseless, and that the ordinance is genuine. There is certainly nothing intrinsically improbable in the ordinance itself, which set np a claim that the sea-dogs of the thirteenth century were quite capable of advanc- ing. One objection to the authenticity of the ordinance is that it was written in the French tongue. In answer to that, Sir Travers offers the following interesting remarks :-

"It may be observed, with regard to the language of the Law in England daring the period over which the ordinances in Part C. of the Black Book extend, namely, from the reign of Henry I. to Edward I., that the practice of pleading in the French tongue was established in the Curia Regis as early as in the reign of Henry I. An anecdote, how- ever, which is told by Peter of Blois in his account of the origin of the University of Cambridge, shows that the French tongue was but little understood by the country people in England in the reign of Henry I, inasmuch as the scholars and people who flocked to hear the monks of

Crowland, when they first taught in a barn on the banks of the Cam, are represented as unable to understand them because they taught in Latin

or French. In the reign, however, of Henry IL the French tongue began to find its way over the country, assisted by the large immigra- tion of Norman families, who had crossed over into England with Henry IL, on his accession to the throne. The French tongue was also adapted in the circuit of the Justices in this reign, and new forms of pleading and trial were introduced in the assize, the names of which were French, and which have been handed down to the present day. Giraldus Cam- brands, writing about this time, expresses a wish in his introduction to his Topographia Hibernia that hie book might be translated into French in order that it might be better known, In the following reign of Richard L the Crusade contributed materially to extend the use of French among the upper classes of England ; and if it has been cor- rectly handed down to us that the French tongue was used by preachers in this King's reign, the knowledge of that tongue must have spread considerably amongst the lower classes. What was the language of the 'seafaring classes in England at this time is a problem for the solution of which we have little data, unless the record of 12 Edward III. in the Rolls' Office may be relied upon, which refers to King Richard I. the introduction of the Laws of Oleron into England. No Latin version of these laws has been mentioned by any writer, and it is a fair conclusion from this record that the French tongue must have been familiar to the seafaring classes of England in this king's reign. There is little evidence as to the extent to which the French tongue was in use in the next following reign of King John, but it has been contended by Mr. Luders and other writers that a critical com- parison of the French version of the Great Charter, as published by D'Aohery, with the Latin version still extant in the Registry of the Bishop of Lincoln, warrants a belief that the Latin version is a translation from the French, and that the Barons of England spoke French at Runimede. Be that as it may, as the original Articles upon which the Barons agreed with the King, and which are extant in the British Museum, are drawn up in Latin, the presumption is that the Charter itself, in which they were incorporated, was also drawn up in Latin. We have less uncertainty as regards the reign of Henry for Matthew Paris, a contemporary writer, informs us that he was in danger of losing his livelihood because he did not understand French. The French tongue acquired in this King's reign an undisputed place in Public Acts. The proceedings of the Parliament held at Oxford A.D. 1258 (43 Henry III.) afford evidence that French was the spoken language of all the Orders, as the oaths to bo taken by the Chancellor and Chief Justiciary, as well as by the Commons, are drawn up in French, and it appears that King Henry published his adherence to the provisions of this Parliament in the French language, as well as in Latin and English. The French tongue found its way, during this King's reign, into the Statute Law, as the Statutum de Scaccario, which is assigned to the fifty-first year of King Henry III., is in that language. It deserves note that the object of that statute was, in the first place, to prevent exactions in collecting the Crown rents from the farmers of the Crown lands ; secondly, to obviate frauds on the Customs in regard to exports ; and thirdly, to regulate the wages of artizans and labourers employed by the Crown • and it is a reasonable conjecture that the French tongue would not have been adopted in this statute, unless its provisions would have been thereby rendered more intelligible to the classes to be affected by it."

Dr. Twiss further refers to the Statutes of Edward I., to the petitions to Parliament in the French tongue, to the use of French at the Norham Conferences, and the fact that French was "the spoken language of the Parliament." The most surprising state- ments in these observations to the ordinary reader will be those which imply that French was the language, not only of the sea- faring folk who visited the Continent, but of the working folk affected by the Statutum de Scaccario !

Naturally the learned editor bestows great attention upon the "Laws of Oleron." These laws form part of the Black Book, but as the original of that compilation is lost, it cannot now be ascertained whether any special title was therein prefixed to them. A memorandum of Edward III. recites that the justiciaries of the King were to be consulted touching a revision of the laws and statutes relating to maritime affairs, " which laws and statutes," the memorandum continues, " were by the Lord Richard, formerly King of England, on his return from the Holy Land, corrected, interpreted, and declared, and were pub- lished in the Island of Oleron, and were named in the French tongue La Ley Olyroun." Dr. Twiss is of opinion that these words mean that King Richard did not make, but sanctioned judgments previously published at Oleron. And farther, he says, "The better opinion would seem to be that those judgments were the result of certain legal privileges granted by the Dukes of Guienne to the Commune of Oleron, prior to the island passing into the possession of the British Crown upon the marriage of Eleanore, daughter and heiress of the Duke of Guienne, with Henry H. of England, amongst which privileges was that of the Prudhommes of the Commune exercising jurisdiction in maritime matters, and adjudicating on them in the Court of the Mayor, according to the usages of the sea and the customs of mer- chants and mariners. There is clear evidence that such a jurisdiction was exercised by the Commune of Olgron in the fourteenth century." Whether the laws were introduced by Edward I., who visited Guienne on his return from the Holy Land, or had been a tradition from the reign of Richard I., he refrains from discussing ; but he adds that " the Courts of the Sea are recognized in the Assizes of Jerusalem as following a law distinct from that of the land ; and that the Assizes of Jerusalem date from the reign of Godfrey de Bouillon, the contemporary of Henry I. of England." Whence we may safely infer that the laws, or judgments rather, labelled Oleron are at the bottom of very great antiquity.

Besides the laws of the sea, very quaint and curious, the volume contains other documents of historical and antiquarian interest. Among these are-the " Ordinances of War," a striking exposition of the rules and modes of conducting the " Wager of Battle " or " the Ordnance and Forme of Fighting within Listes," and a treatise entitled "De Materia Duelli." In the appendix are some documents of great value, notably the ordinance of Philippe de Valois for the expedition against England, and the " Ordinances of war made by King Henry V. at Mawnt," that is Mantes, on the Seine. We have said enough to show that the student of early English history will find the volume before us of varied usefulness;—replete as it is with illustrations, not only of modes of government and administration, but of manners and customs, and adorned throughout by the learning of the editor, displayed on every page with the pen of a master.