Behind the Early Modern English Translation of The Laws of Oléron: Determining the Underlying French Text

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to analyse the sixteenth-century French texts which might lie behind an Early Modern English translation of a sea-code known as the Laws of Oléron, in an attempt to determine which of them served as the actual basis for the rendition. The original code has been dated back to the thirteenth century, with the earliest extant copies coming from the fourteenth century, at which point it was already known and used in England. It was not, however, before the sixteenth century that a translation was commissioned and appeared in a book called The Rutter of the Sea. The publication in question went through multiple editions and the views concerning the French text that served as the basis for the rendition diverge greatly. This paper analyses the various proposed theories and juxtaposes the actual French texts with each other and the Early Modern English translation.