Consulate of the Sea
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The Consulate of the Sea ( ca, Consolat de mar; ) was a quasi-judicial body set up in the
Crown of Aragon The Crown of Aragon ( , ) an, Corona d'Aragón ; ca, Corona d'Aragó, , , ; es, Corona de Aragón ; la, Corona Aragonum . was a composite monarchy ruled by one king, originated by the dynastic union of the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of ...
, later to spread throughout the Mediterranean basin, to administer
maritime Maritime may refer to: Geography * Maritime Alps, a mountain range in the southwestern part of the Alps * Maritime Region, a region in Togo * Maritime Southeast Asia * The Maritimes, the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prin ...
and commercial law. The term may also refer to a celebrated collection of maritime customs and ordinances in
Catalan language Catalan (; autonym: , ), known in the Valencian Community and Carche as ''Valencian'' (autonym: ), is a Western Romance language. It is the official language of Andorra, and an official language of three autonomous communities in eastern ...
, also known in English as ''The Customs of the Sea'', compiled over the 14th and 15th centuries and published at
Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...
in or before 1494. In the 21st century, the Catalan term ''Consolat de mar'' is today used for a commercial arbitration service operated by the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, and also for a series of trade-promotion offices operated by the city of Barcelona.


Medieval institution

The Catalan institution can be traced to the grant of the ''Carta Consular'' to the city of Barcelona by Jaume I of Aragon in 1258.Art. 21
Barcelona Maritime Code of 1258
This gave Barcelona merchants the right to settle their commercial disputes without interference from the royal courts: in return, the king received much needed financial support for his wars of expansion. Mercantile Law (''ius mercadorium'') was becoming established at the same time through much of Europe, and similar bodies had already been established in Messina (first third of the 13th century) and
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(1250).Moliné y Brasés (1914). As the territories of the
Crown of Aragon The Crown of Aragon ( , ) an, Corona d'Aragón ; ca, Corona d'Aragó, , , ; es, Corona de Aragón ; la, Corona Aragonum . was a composite monarchy ruled by one king, originated by the dynastic union of the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of ...
expanded, it was customary to establish new Consulates of the Sea in the major ports. One of the earliest was in
Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...
(1283), where the charter of Peter III of Aragon makes it clear that disputes are to be settled "according to maritime customs, as these are accepted in Barcelona."


''Book of the Consulate of the Sea''

The full title in Catalan is ''Les costums marítimes de Barcelona universalment conegudes per Llibre del Consolat de mar'', or "''The maritime customs of Barcelona universally known as the Book of the Consulate of the Sea''". The earliest extant printed edition of the work (Barcelona, 1494) is without a title-page or frontispiece, but it is described by the above-mentioned title in the epistle dedicatory prefixed to the table of contents. The only known copy of this edition () is preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
.Jados (1975). The epistle dedicatory states that the work is an amended version of the ''Book of the Consulate of the Sea'', compiled by Francis Celelles with the assistance of numerous
shipmaster A sea captain, ship's captain, captain, master, or shipmaster, is a high-grade licensed mariner who holds ultimate command and responsibility of a merchant vessel.Aragon and Messner, 2001, p.3. The captain is responsible for the safe and efficie ...
s and merchants well versed in maritime affairs. According to a statement made by Capmany in his ''Codigo de los costumbras maritimas de Barcelona'', published at
Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...
in 1791, there was extant to his knowledge an older edition, printed in semi-Gothic characters, which he believed to be of a date prior to 1484. There are, however, two Catalan manuscripts preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the earliest of which, being ''MS. Espagnol 124'', contains the two first treatises which are printed in the ''Book of the Consulate of the Sea'' of 1494, and which are the most ancient portion of its contents, written in a hand of the 14th century, on paper of that century. The subsequent parts of this manuscript are on paper of the 15th century, but there is no document of a date more recent than 1436. The later of the two manuscripts, being ''MS. Espagnol 56'', is written throughout on paper of the 15th century, and in a hand of that century, and it purports, from a certificate on the face of the last leaf, to have been executed under the superintendence of Peter Thomas, a notary public, and the scribe of the Consulate of the Sea at Barcelona. The edition of 1494 contains, in the first place, a code of procedure issued by the kings of Aragon for the guidance of the courts of the consuls of the sea, in the second place, a collection of ancient customs of the sea, and thirdly, a body of rules for the government of cruisers of war. A colophon at the end of these ordinances informs the reader that the book commonly called the ''Book of the Consulate of the Sea'' ends here; after which there follows a document known by the title of ''The Acceptations'', which purports to record that the previous chapters and ordinances had been approved by the "Roman" people in 1075, and by various princes and peoples in the 12th and 13th centuries: this is generally regarded as of no historical value. The paging of the edition of 1494 ceases with this document, at the end of which is the printer's colophon, reciting that the work was completed on 14 July 1494, at Barcelona, by Pere Posa, priest and printer. The remainder of the volume consists of what may be regarded as an appendix to the original ''Book of the Consulate''. This appendix contains various maritime ordinances of the kings of Aragon and of the councillors of the city of Barcelona, ranging over a period from 1271 to 1493. It is printed apparently in the same type with the preceding part of the volume. The original ''Book of the Consulate of the Sea'', coupled with this appendix, circulated in Europe under the title, ''The Consulate of the Sea'', and in the 16th century was translated into the Castilian, the Italian, and the French languages. The Italian translation, printed at Venice c. 1549 by Jean Baptista Pedrezano, was the version that obtained the largest circulation in the north of Europe, and led many jurists to suppose the work to have been of Italian origin. In the next century, the work was translated into Dutch by Westerven, and into German by Engelbrecht, and it is also said to have been translated into
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
. An excellent translation into French of ''The Customs of the Sea'', which are the most valuable portion of the ''Book of the Consulate'', was published by Pardessus in the second volume of his ''Collection des lois maritimes'' (Paris, 1834), under the title of ''La Compilation connue sous le nom do consulat de la mer''. See introduction, by Sir Travers Twiss, to the ''
Black Book of the Admiralty The ''Black Book of the Admiralty'' is a compilation of English admiralty law created over the course of several English monarchs' reigns, including the most important decisions of the High Court of Admiralty. Its starting point is the Rolls of ...
'' (London, 1874), which in the appendix to vol. iii, contains his translation of ''The Customs of the Sea'', with the Catalan text.


See also

*
Book of the Consulate of the Sea The ''Book of the Consulate of the Sea'' ( ca, Llibre del Consolat de Mar, lit=''Book of the Consulate of Sea'') is a compendium of maritime law that governed trade in the Mediterranean for centuries. Of Catalan origin, it was translated into m ...


References


''Consulate of the Sea and Related Documents''.
Translated by Stanley S. Jados (1975). University of Alabama Press.

Edited by Ernest Moliné y Brasés (1914). Barcelona: Henrich. *
"De la favor de les causes mercantivols."
Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...
of the Corts de Catalunya, Montsó, 1510.


External links

{{Commons category-inline, Consolat de Mar
Consolat de Mar Conflict Resolution Centre
Law of the sea Catalan language History of Valencia Principality of Catalonia Crown of Aragon Spanish Empire Quasi-judicial bodies Catalan law Legal history of Spain fr:Lonja de la seda#Salle du Consulat de Mer