Research On Medieval European Maritime Law (from The11th To The15th Century)

The medieval period was an important period witnessing the evolution anddevelopment of European maritime law. Especially from the11thto the15thcentury,economic recovery and social transformation brought in a continuous development ofshipping and trade business. As a result, lots of trade cities and maritime codesappeared in the costal areas of the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic, the North Sea andthe Baltic Sea. Those maritime codes enriched the content of maritime law byinheriting the tradition of the Rhodian-Roman maritime law and absorbing newmaritime custom derived from practice. They set a historic foundation for moderninternational maritime law.Medieval maritime law had many sources. Among them, the most importantones were Roman law and maritime custom. Roman law represented the oldtradition in medieval maritime law. During the process of code formation, Romanlaw preserved, developed and disseminated rules of ancient maritime law. Maritimecustom was the new element of medieval maritime law. The new custom, whichderived from shipping and trade practice at the medieval period, greatly modified andenriched the existing maritime laws and regulations. Sometimes maritime customwas even applied prior to statutory laws.The11thand12thCenturies were the historic period during which manyEuropean cities intensively filed documents and compiled legal rules. The first medieval maritime laws just appeared during that time. At that time, the compilationtechnology of maritime law was comparatively primitive, so the whole legal systemlacked logic and systematicness. Some articles conflicted with each other, whilesome articles just duplicated other ones. Sometimes a law was merely a collectionof rules with different sources. The formats of the laws differed from each other, butthey shared two same characteristics which were simplicity and practicality. All ofthose law compilations were familiar to the seamen and businessmen all over Europe.The laws played an important role in rights protection, dispute resolution anddiscipline regulation.It is a disputable question whether maritime law is internationalized or unified.Different people have different opinions. Take the formation and dissemination ofmedieval maritime law into account, maritime law undoubtedly is internationalized.However, it doesn’t mean that maritime laws of different areas must share same orsimilar rules.The first important medieval maritime laws appeared in Italy and otherMediterranean regions. Those maritime laws can be found in the law compilationsincluding the Table of Amalfi (around1010A.D.), the Ordinances of Trani (around1063A.D.), the Constitutum Usus of Pisa (around1160A.D.) and the Assizes ofJerusalem (the12thCentury). The appearance of the above mentioned maritime lawsmarked the birth of a brand new maritime law system.Mediterranean regions, especially Italy, had taken a leading role in the economicrenaissance and trade development since the11thCentury. Like banks, drafts andother new “inventions” in the fields of economics and law, the original impetusbehind the update and development of maritime law was the active trade deals in thearea. It was not an accident that cities of Amalfi, Trani and Pisa firstly started thework of maritime law compilation. With the Crusades Expeditions, the eastern andwestern parts of the Mediterranean regions further connected. As a result, Europefurther increased its trade with Near East and other farther regions. Theestablishment of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem partly served the trade interests ofEurope. Therefore, a twofold structure had been established that feudal law and law of Burghers (maritime law was part of it) existed on the same land of the FeudalKingdom.However, the laws emerged at the very early stage were not the most famousmedieval maritime laws. The most famous ones were the Consulate of the Sea, theRolls of Oleron and the Wisby Sea-Laws. Those three laws respectively representedthe maritime custom and maritime law development of the Mediterranean Sea, theAltantic and the Baltic Sea.The Consulate of the Sea of the middle13thCentury was born in the SpanishPeninsula. It was famous for its fruitful contents and widely applications. TheCustoms of the Sea covered many substantive maritime rules. They were the mostancient and core part of the law. The later version of the Consulate of the Sea alsoincluded procedural rules governing court hearings of maritime disputes and publicrules of privateering and capture. Although different comments exist, the Consulateof the Sea was in fact widely accepted by European nations and was known as “thecommon law of the sea”.In terms of both time and geography, the Rolls of Oleron of the late13thCenturywas born in the medieval period when British history and French history connectedclosely. The law mainly covered the custom and rules on trade and transportation ofred wines in Europe in the13thCentury. From the perspective of its formationprocess, the law was probably a record of the maritime judicial activities happened onOleron Island which was off the west coastline of France. The law enjoyed animportant status in northwestern and northern parts of the continental Europe and inEngland. Both in England and France, it was regarded as an official legal source.All or main parts of some well-known maritime codes, including the Judgments ofDame, the Flanders Sea-Laws and the Wisby Sea-Laws, were merely translations ofthe Rolls of Oleron into local languages.The rules of the Wisby Sea-Laws, which were formed in the last half15thCentury, did not come from the Wisby City, which was located on Gotland Island.Instead, the law was constituted by maritime rules of Lubeck, Flanders and Holland.The law regulated rights and obligations of masters, crewmen and businessmen, general average and ship collision. The Wisby Sea-Laws acted as a bridge joiningthe medieval maritime law and the modern maritime law. It greatly influenced theHanseatic law of the sea, which was formed in late medieval period, and the MarineOrdinances of Louis XIV, which was formed in early modern period. Although itenjoyed a high reputation, the law could not represent the latest development ofmaritime law in the15thCentury. Formation of new maritime laws, which weremore systematic and modern, had been under process.Look through the medieval maritime law as a whole, we can find that the law isclosely connected to shipping practice. To carry out risky sea-based activities, shipowners, masters, crewmen and businessmen together formed an occupationalcommunity or even a destiny community. Common adventure and common ventureare the eternal themes of maritime law.To carry out common maritime adventure, rules regulating ship owners, mastersand crewmen, maritime loans, maritime partnership and carriage of goods by sea weredeveloped in the medieval period. To keep order and discipline on board, crewmenmust obey master’s orders. However, compared to the rules in ancient times,democracy and civilization standard increased in the society on board so that rights,welfare and dignity of the crewmen were respected to some extent. To do seabornetrade, it was a usual business mode that several ship owners teamed up to run a ship.That was called joint ownership. Beside ship owners, some people madeinvestments in foreign trade by the means of maritime loans and maritime partnership.They earned high profits from others’ labor. Maritime loans could be issued throughmany different types of contract, including respondentia, bottomry loan and cambiummaritimum. Maritime partnership had also developed some complicated types ofcontract, including commenda, societas and Colonna. At that time, quaternus, whichwas also known as book or register, was a newly emerged thing in the practice ofcarriage of goods by sea. It better clarified rights and obligations of ship owners andcargo owners by recording cargo lists, crewmen names and other agreements in awritten form. Early bills of lading come from this kind of quaternus. However, theformat changed from book to bill then to document so that the bill of lading became negotiable. Till then, medieval carriage of goods by sea had become similar tomodern transportation in each and every aspect.To mutually correspond to maritime risk, medieval maritime law developed andrefined a full set of special legal rules governing ship collision, general average,wreck protection, salvage and limitation of liability. The medieval rules on shipcollision were not developed yet. They mainly inherited the rules of Roman lawwithout any substantial change. Rules on general average reflected geographicdifference. For example, different regions had different rules calculating the valuesof jettison and saved cargo. Rules on calculation method can be used as animportant standard to decide whether any two maritime laws share a close relationshipor not. Before the modern times, there was a long-term fight between the protectionof ship and cargo and the feudal right of shipwreck, which was the right to possess oreven rob others’ ship and cargo survived from a wreck. On the other hand, lawalways remunerated and rewarded salvage activities. In Mediterranean regions, ruleson limitation of liability emerged in shipping practice long before. Limitation ofliability was further established in modern times, playing an active role in decreasingthe burden of the shipping industry and encouraging more people to join in maritimeadventures. Before modern technology had a material progress, collision, wreck andloss were the risks coming along with sea navigations all the time. The basic rulesestablished by medieval maritime law on these aspects had been inherited by modernmaritime law.Based on the historical documents of the medieval period, there was a stronghistoric connection among maritime cities, maritime codes and maritime jurisdiction.Maritime judicial authority was the authority not only recognize and apply maritimerules but also record, save and update maritime rules. It played an important role inpromoting maritime law development. In medieval times, Europe had manymaritime judicial authorities. Among them, the Court of the Consuls of the Sea andthe Court of Admiralty in England were two major types.The Court of the Consuls of the Sea stemmed from the consular judicial traditionin Italian cities. This tradition was later widely accepted in southern and northern parts of Europe. The most famous example was the Barcelona Consul of the Seafrom the Kingdom of Aragon, which was usually connected to the name of theConsulate of the Sea.The Court of Admiralty originated from the position of the Admiral in England.In the middle of the14thCentury, to strengthen its control over the sea and to handlediplomatic disputes with neighboring nations derived from sea robberies conducted byits citizens, England established the Court of Admiralty on the position of the Admiral.Before the17thCentury, the Court of Admiralty in England exercised a broadjurisdiction.The development trail of the medieval European maritime law in the pasthundred years is like a three-fourth circle covering the south, west and northcoastlines of the Europe. The circle nearly covered all the coastal areas of Europecivilization as well. The development of maritime law not only laid the lawfoundation for Europe to lead in economic and social development all over the world,but also stamped a strong mark of sea on European civilization.Nowadays, maritime law has become an important part of our country’s legalsystem. It plays a unique role in developing shipping and trade and building greatsea power. For us, maritime law once was a foreign import transplanted into Chinathrough law revision in late Qing dynasty. It has not been a long time since wepromulgated and implemented our own maritime law. Conducting a research on thehistory of maritime law not only has the academic significance but also assist us tobetter understand the historic environment of the emergence and development ofmaritime law, and to better apply the principles and rules of maritime law.