CLEIRAC (Estienne) - Lot 499

CLEIRAC (Estienne) The Uses and Customs of the Sea. Divided into three parts. I. De la navigation. II. Du commerce naval, & contrats maritimes. III. De la juridiction de la Marine. Avec un traité des termes de marine, règlemens de la navigation des fleuves & rivières. Bourdeaux, Millanges, 1647. (Followed by) Explication des termes de Marine employez par les edicts, ordonnances et règlemens de l'Amirauté. Bourdeaux, Millanges, sd. 2 works in one volume in-4: 4f. 592pp. - 79pp. (first 7 pages badly mounted after page 16). Some foxing, a few leaves browned. Contemporary marbled fawn basane, spine ribbed and decorated, headbands foxed, one jaw partly cracked, spotting and rubbing, corners dulled. The work deals with ancient maritime laws, reuniting the judgments of Oleron (Regulations of Wisby and the Teutonic Hanse; the Guidon de la Mer, and a compilation of ancient laws of marine jurisdiction); also contains a passage on whaling. In two curious chapters devoted to his Basque compatriots (Expédition ou Voyage des Basques dans la mer de Groenland, and Première découverte de l'Amérique par les Basques), the author asserts that the Basques discovered Newfoundland and Canada a hundred years before Columbus, and that it was a Newfoundland pilot who revealed their existence to him. The author was a lawyer in Bordeaux. Not in Vinson (Labadie 254 and 255).