ADMIRALTY. A court which bas a very extensive jurisdiction of maritime causes, civil and criminal.
On the revival of commerce after the fall of the Western empire, and the conquest and settlement by the barbarians, it became necessary that some tribunal should be established that might hear and decide causes that arose out of maritime commerce. The rude courts established by the conquerors had properly jurisdiction of controversies that arose on land, and of matters pertaining to land, that being at the time the only property that was considered' of value. To supply this want, which was felt by merchants and not by the government or the peo ple at large, on the coast of Italy and the north ern shores of the Mediterranean a court of consuls was established in each of the principal maritime cities. Contemporaneously with the establishment of these courts grew up the customs of the sea, partly borrowed, perhaps, from the Roman law, a copy of which had at that time been discovered at Amalfi, hut more out of the usage of trade and the practice of the sea. These were collected from time to time, embodied in the form of a code, and published under the name of the Consolato del Mare. The first collection of these customs is said to be as early as the eleventh oentury; but the ear liest authentic evidence we have of their existence is their publication, in 1266, by Alphonso X. King of Castile. 1 Pardessus, Lois Maritimes, 201.
2. On Christmas of each year, the prinoipal mer chants made choice of judges for the ensuing year, and at the same time of judges of appeal, and their courts had jurisdiction of all causes that arose out of the custom of the sea, that is, of all maritime causes whatever. Their judgments were carried into execution, ender proper officers, on all mova ble property, ships as well as other goods, but an execution from these courts did not run against land. Ordonnance de Valentia, 1283, o. 1, 00 22, 23.
When this species of property came to be of suf ficient importance, and especially when trade on the sea became gainful and the merchants began to grow rich, their jurisdiotion, in most maritime states, was transferred to a court of admiralty; and this is the origin of admiralty jurisdiction. The
admiral was originally more a military than a civil officer, for nations were then more warlikethan commercial. Ordonnance de Louis %Ir., liv. 2 Brown, Civ. & Adm. Law, o. 1. The court had ju risdiction of all national affairs transacted at sea„ and particularly of prize; and to this was added jurisdiction of all oontroversies of a private cha racter that grew out of maritime employment and commerce; and this, as nations grew more com mercial, became in the end its most important jn. risdietion.
3. The admiralty is, therefore, properly the see Lessor the consular courts, which were emphati cally the courts of merchants and sea-going per acne. The most trustworthy account of the juris diction thus transferred is given in the Ordonnance de Louie XIV., published in 1831. This was com piled, under the inspiration of his great minister Colbert, by the most learned men of that age, from information drawn from every part of Europe, and was universally received at the time as an authori tative exposition of the common maritime law. Valin, Preface to his Commentaries; 3 Kent, Comm. 16. The changes made in the Code de Commerce and in the other maritime codes of Europe are un important and inconsiderable. This ordinance de scribes the jurisdiction of the admiralty courts as embracing all maritime contracts and torts arising from the building, equipment, and repairing of ves sels, their manning and victualling, the govern ment of their crews and their employment, whether by charter-party or bill of lading, from bottomry and insurance. This was the general jurisdiction of the admiralty : it took all the consular jurisdic tion which was strictly of a maritime nature and related to the building and employment of vessels at sea.