larger boat manned by ten men towed the carcass ashore, waiting for high tide to beach the whale, where it was flensed. The blubber was then brought to a boiling house where it was rendered into oil. Tithes and taxes According to the Laws of Oléron the whalemen of Biarritz, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and the rest of the French Basque country were exempt from taxation, although they voluntarily gave the whales' tongues to the church as a gift. It wasn't until the kings of England, acting as the Dukes of Guyenne, that taxes began to be levied upon them. In 1197, the future King John of England (r. 1199–1216) gave Vital de Biole and his heirs and successors the right to levy a tax of 50 angevin livres on the first two whales taken annually at Biarritz, in exchange for the rent of the fishery at Guernsey. In 1257, William Lavielle gave the bishop and chapter of Bayonne a tithe of the whales caught by the men of the same port. This was paid until 1498. In 1261, an act of the Abbey of Honce announced, as a continuation of the tradition of giving the tongue as a gift to the church, a tithe was to be paid on the whales landed at Bayonne. Under a 1324 edict known as De Praerogativa Regis (The Royal Prerogative), King Edward II (r. 1307–27) collected a duty on the whales found in English waters, which included the French Basque coast. His successor, King Edward III (r. 1327–77), continued this tradition by collecting a £6 tax for each whale taken and landed at Biarritz. In 1338, this was relinquished to Peter de Puyanne, admiral of the English fleet stationed at Bayonne. In Lekeitio, the first document to mention the use of whales in its archives, dated 11 September 1381, states that the whalebone procured in that port would be divided into three parts, with "two for repairing the boat-harbour, and the third for the fabric of the church." A document of 1608 repeats this order. A similar order, dated 20 November 1474, said that half the value of each whale caught from Getaria should be given towards the repair of the church and boat-harbor. It was also custom in Getaria to give the first whale of the season to the King, half of which he returned. San Sebastián, in continuing an ancient custom, gave the whalebone