ADMIRALTY. A court which has 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, people at large, on the coast of Italy and the northern 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 bor rowed, perhaps, from the Roman law, a copy of which had at that time been discovered at Amalfi, but 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. See that sub.
title under Cons. The first collection of these cus toms is said to be as early as the eleventh century ; but the earliest authentic evidence we have of their exietenps is their publication, in 1266, by Alphonso X., King of Castile ; 1 Pardessus, Lois Maritimes, 201. See 3 Kent 16.
On Christmas of each year, the principal 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 in to execution, under proper °filters, on all movable property, ships as well as other goods, but an ex ecution from these courts did not run against land; Ordonnance de Valentia, 1283, c. 1, §§ 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 jurisdiction 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 warlike than commer cial; Ordonnance de Louis XIV., liv. 1; 2 Brown, Civ. & Adm. Law, c. 1. The court had jurisdiction of all national affairs transacted at sea, and partic ularly of prize; and to this was added jurisdiction of all controversies of a private character that grew out of maritime employment and Commerce ; and this, as nations grew more commercial, became in the end its most important jurisdiction.
The admiralty is, therefore, properly the succes sor of the consular courts, which were emphatically the courts of merchants and sea-going persons. The most trustworthy account of the jurisdiction thus transferred is given in the Ordonnance de Louis XIV., published in 1681. This was compiled 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 uni versally received at the time as an authoritative exposition of the common maritime law; Valin, Preface to hid Commentaries ; 3 Kent 16. They have been recognized as authority in maritime causes by the courts of this country, both federal and state ; The Seneca, 3 Wall. Jr. 395, Fed. Cas. No. 12,670; Morgan v. Ins. Co., 4 Dalt. (U. S.) 455, 1 L. Ed. 907, where Tilghman, C. J., referred to them "not as containing any authority in them selves but as evidence of the general marine law." The changes made in the Code de Commerce and in the other maritime codes of Europe are unim portant 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 government of their crews and their employment, whether by charter-party or bill of lading, and 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. See CODE.