Oleron

Oleron, an island lying in the Bay of Acquitain, at the mouth of the river Charente, formerly in the possession of England. The inhabitants of Oleron have been able mariners for seven or eight hundred years past. They are said to have drawn up the laws of the Navy still called the Laws of Oleron. According to some French writers these maritime laws were digested as the Reole des Jugemens d'Oleron, by direction of Queen Eleanor, wife of Henry II. as Duchess of Guienne, and enlarged and improved by her son Richard I. Selden (de Dom. Mar.c. xiv.) maintains that they were compiled and promulgated by Richard I. as King of England. Writers, as Mons. Boucher, of Paris, and the English Luders, consider the whole account fallacious. The former calls the more story of our Richard I. and Queen Eleanor une chimere des plus invraisemblables, Monthly Review, December, 1811; and see Nouveau Larousse, tom. vi. P. 488. The laws of Oleron were to a great extent the foundation of the maritime laws of most states of Europe.