El viejo derecho de los navegantes del Mar de Poniente

Abstract

Following the transition from the High to the Late Middle Ages, and coinciding with the renewal of commercial shipping activity along the Atlantic and Baltic coasts or Europe, a new maritime law based on established customs began to envolve on this part of the continent, a law created by the very people who paticipated in this seafaring activity. This collection of rules, which became the common law of the people who navigated those coasts, was partially set down in written form, resulting in the legal text known as the Rôles d'Oléron, a work which became so widely distributed that from the mid 13th century up to 1681 it came to be applied from the Baltic coasts to the Straits of Gibraltar by all those who werw concerned with shipping. Furthermore, in addition to this maritime code, which together with esblished maritime customs constituted the common law of those seafarers, each of the kingdoms and each of the coastal towns formulated at the same time their own particular maritime laws, thus completing the legal framework for the principal shipping activities that were carried out along the northern and western coasts of Europe.