Ordinamenta et consuetudo maris
The Ordinamenta et consuetudo maris ("Ordinances and Custom of the Sea") was a convention governing maritime trade promulgated at Trani in 1063: "the oldest surviving maritime law code of the Latin West".[1]
The Ordinamenta is preserved in a
The text of the Ordinamenta contains the date anno Domini 1063 and specifies the first indiction. This has been cited as "a strong argument in favour of the authenticity of the ordinances", since the first indiction only coincides with the sixty-third year of a century every three hundred years, but it did with 1063.[3] The text also refers to ‘‘electi consoli in arte de mare’’, which is translated "Consuls elect of the Guild of Navigators" in the Black Book. Neither the translation "guild" nor that of "company" (typical for Latin societas) for the presumed Latin original, ars, is strictly accurate.[4] Nevertheless, the term has been seen as evidence of the existence of a sailors' corporation at Trani in the mid-eleventh century.[1]
Notes
- ^ One of the copies in Fermo contains additionally an ordinance on maritime average from Ancona. The ordinances are printed on paper and the statutes of Fermo on parchment. The other copy, printed in 1589, is contained entirely on paper and is identical to the French copy.
- ^ "published by the consuls of the city of Trani".
References
- ^ a b Paul Oldfield, City and Community in Norman Italy (Oxford: 2009), 247.
- ^ Travers Twiss, ed., Monumenta juridica: The Black Book of the Admiralty, appendix, part iv, 522 n.1
- ^ Twiss, 523 n.1.
- ^ Twiss, 525 n.1
Further reading
- G. Coniglio. "La società di Trani e gli ‘ordinamenta’." Archivo storico pugliese 24 (1981): 75–88.