Local Customs and Common Laws

The law governing maritime commerce in sixteenth-century Scotland is examined in these essays from the perspectives both of learned lawyers who wrote treatises about it, and of merchants and mariners who regulated their own affairs in urban courts.

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Lawyers in Scotland in the later sixteenth century took a disproportionate interest in the law governing maritime commerce. Some essays in this collection consider their handling of the subject in treatises they wrote. Other essays, however, show that disputes relating to maritime trade were handled in a different way in the courts of the towns at which ships arrived. Further essays examine the relationship between these contrasting perspectives. Although the essays focus on the law governing maritime commerce in Scotland, they also contribute to a wider debate about the nature of maritime law in early-modern Europe.