MARITIME LAW (Lat. »tarlatans, relating to the sea, from Lat. mart-, sea)* fn its broadest sense, that system of law, both public and pri vate, which relates to commerce and navigation upon the high seas or other navigable waters. The sources of the law of the sea as now applied in England and the United States are more an cient and perhaps more complex than those of any other branch of English law. Some of its doctrines, as the law of general average, are traceable to the Rhodian laws, dating as early ass a.c. 900, from which they were adopted into the civil law, and bi- it transmitted to modern Europe. _Many of them may be attributed to customs established by the revival of trade in the countries bordering the Mediterranean and in Southwestern Europe in the thirteenth and four teenth centuries. During this period the com mereial States and cities began the compilation of the usages and customs of sea commerce and the judgments of the various maritime courts. The earliest of these is the Cons»lato del more (q.v.). A later compilation, having even greater influence upon English law, was the laws of 0145ron. (See OLf:RON. ) The laws of Wisby, being a compilation of mercantile enstoms and usages adopted by a congress of merchants at Wisby in the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, about 1288. which became the basis of the ordinances of the Hanseatic League, were also of great influence in the development of the modern laws of the sea ; as were also those ordi nances themselves, and French marine ordinance, promulgated by Louis XIV. in 1681. by which the whole law of shipping, navigation, marine insurance, bottomry, etc., was collected and sys tematized. The local ordinances of Barcelona, Florence, Amsterdam, Antwerp. Copenhagen, and KiMig,sberg were also not without influence.
The earliest English eompilation of maritime law appears to have been the Black Book of the Admiralty, supposed to have been published during the reign of Edward III.. but later addi tions were made. It was based substantially upon the laws of Oleron. England never passed general
maritime ordinances, but the maritime law drawn from the sources here indicated has been embodied in a series of decisions of the courts of admiralty jurisdiction, which, with the de cisions of our own Federal courts rendered since the American Revolution, constitute the maritime law of the United States. See the article AD M MALTY LA w•; and, for the historical develop ment of public maritime law, see INTERNATIONAL LAw• and the titles belonging to that subject.
Maritime law is administered in England by the courts of admiralty: in the United States by the Federal courts, which, by the United States Constitution, have jurisdiction over all causes in admiralty. This jurisdiction of the Federal courts is not, however, exclusive, and a suitor may seek his remedy at common law in the State courts wherever the common law is com petent to give a remedy. In England maritime causes are said to be those which directly affect commerce or navigation upon waters in which the tide ebbs and flows. In the United States, where the conditions are different, maritime causes are deemed to he those directly affecting commerce upon navigable waters which in them selves o• by means of other waterways form a continuous highway to foreign countries. Ilence the fact that commerce in a given case is car ried on only upon waters within a single State does not necessarily affect jurisdiction of the Federal courts: and jurisdiction is not dependent upon the power of Congress to regulate commerce. Maritime jurisdiction therefore depends upon the subject matte• and not the parties, hence a, Unit ed States court may take jurisdiction over a maritime cause arising in a foreign vessel be tween foreigners. The exercise of jurisdiction over foreigners is, lhoweve•, purely discretionary, and may he refused; and it is a general prin ciple that a maritime court will not take juris diction over a ship of war of a friendly foreign nation.