time law, the idea naturally occurred of compiling from them the common principles to form a code to which each city would only have to make such additions as its localities required. This seems to have produced in Sweden the Stadtlagh, or code of the cities. And in 1618, Gustavus Adolphus, having caused the most ancient and authentic manuscripts to be collected and carefully compared with each other, ordered the publication of an official and authoritative text of the Stadtlagh, which received the appellation of Legisterium Sueciæ, and contains a pretty extensive title on maritime law.

Upon this collection of the maritime laws of his country, Loccenius wrote an able and learned commentary, in his work entitled De Jure Maritimo et Navali, Libri Tres, published at Stockholm in 1652. In this work, Loccenius treats, not only of property in vessels, of maritime contracts, of bottomry, and of averages, but also of marine insurances, De Aversione Periculi, vulgo, Adsecuratione. About the same time, viz., in 1661, Stypmannus published, at Stralsund, his work entitled De Jure Maritimo et Nautico, in quarto; and, in 1667, Kuricke, the author of the commentary, Ad Jus Hanseaticum, published his Diatriba de Assecurationibus and Quaestiones ad Jus Maritimum Pertinentes; of which three works an edition was published by Heineccius, at Magdeburg, in 1740, under the title of Scriptorum de Jure Nautico et Maritimo Fasciculus.

In about half a century after its promulgation, even the revised code established by Gustavus Adolphus was found by experience to be insufficient; and, in 1667, Charles XI. caused to be digested a special code of maritime law, which still governs Sweden, with the exception of the first part, relative to the crews and police of vessels, modified by the enactment of 1748, and of the sixth part, relative to averages and marine insurances, modified by the enactment of 1750. This code

was commented upon at length by Flintberg in 1796, under the title of Schwed Seerecht mit Anmerkk, and extended to a third edition in 1815; was translated into Latin by Loccenius; and was published, in 1834, in Swedish and French, by M. Pardessus. This code, M. Pardessus observes, well merits attention; for, although neither so complete nor so well digested as the Ordonnance of France of 1681, it presents some very wise regulations, which would not have been out of place in that Ordonnance, and from which instruction might have been derived even by the compilers of the French Code de Commerce of 1807, who, probably, had not, any more than those of the Ordonnance of 1681, the Swedish code under their consideration.

CHAPTER VIII.

MARITIME AND COMMERCIAL LAW OF DENMARK.

SECTION I.

Ancient Law.

THE existing monuments of maritime legislation in Denmark are not so ancient as those of Norway. It is difficult, however, to believe that, till the twelfth century, the period at which the documents still in preservation commence, Denmark, whose inhabitants have always been distinguished as active and bold navigators, should have been devoid of rules to guide individuals in their transactions and judges in their decisions. It is to be presumed rules were followed similar to those found in the Norwegian codes. When it is considered

that the vast northern territory, designated under the general appellation of Scandinavia, has been inhabited by nations of one common origin, placed in the same situation, and cultivating the same habits of life, it cannot be doubted that their civil legislation has been founded on the same principles; and if this be probable with regard to their general civil legislation, for a much stronger reason might it be so with regard to their maritime legislation.

The most ancient monuments of this description in Denmark are not what, in our present language, can properly be called laws; namely, acts emanating officially from sovereigns, or depositaries of public authority they consist only of traditional customs and local usages established by common agreement of the citizens, sometimes in an express manner, sometimes by little and little, by a sort of tacit consent; or of the collections of decisions pronounced at first by judges in particular cases, and, afterwards, generalized in such a manner as to admit of their application to all similar questions.

A body of jurisprudence thus formed could, in what concerns maritime law, receive extension and improvement only so far as commerce itself, in its advancement, multiplied the transactions which it was required to regulate, or the disputed questions which judges had to determine. But if, from certain causes, the navigation of a country, whose jurisprudence established itself in this manner, passed into the hands of foreigners, allowed to have their differences decided according to their own proper laws, and by the magistrates or judges of their own nation, the native or local jurisprudence behoved to remain stationary-nay, could not fail insensibly to fall into desuetude, and to give place to that which presided over the business transactions of which the monopoly was in the hands of these foreigners. And in this way, it appears, it may be best explained

how it happens that the monuments of maritime legislation in Denmark, anterior to the code promulgated by King Frederick II. in 1561, are so few in number and so little developed.

Maritime commerce first became extensive in this kingdom by the establishments formed there by the German cities, of which the Hanseatic League was afterwards composed; but, as in Norway and Sweden, this extension served only to found and secure the monopoly of the League, at the expense of the native merchants. And this explains why the proper maritime law of Denmark behoved to remain stationary-why, neglected and almost forgotten, during the Hanseatic domination, it remained in a state of such imperfection as forced the country to adopt, if not as an express or positive law, at least as a customary and subsidiary law, the usages of the League. Nay, so accustomed were the natives to conform to these foreign usages, that, when kings, more enlightened as to their interests, or more capable of defending or vindicating them, profited by the divisions and increasing weakness of the League to revive maritime commerce among their subjects, the Hanseatic usages formed the basis of the codes which they prepared and ultimately adopted; and that of 1561 is, in fact, modelled upon the Hanseatic statutes and jurisprudence.

The earliest maritime law of Denmark is to be found in the municipal statutes of the different towns or provinces, and the subsequent usages which were adopted for the purpose of modifying them, and, more frequently, of supplying their defects. The most ancient of these municipal statutes is that of Sleswick, about the beginning of the thirteenth century, which contains only a small number of rules of maritime law; and this statute was adopted by Flensburg in 1284, with some slight changes. About the same time, also, Apenrade

adopted the statute of Sleswick; and, in 1292, Hadersleben also enacted a statute, in which a good deal is borrowed from that of Sleswick. In 1240, a civil code was established for Jutland, but did not supersede any previous municipal rules of maritime law, of which there are few traces in this code. In Holstein, the city of Kiel, in 1232, and the town of Plöen in 1236, adopted the law of Lubeck. A collection of decisions, under the title of the Laws of the Province of Scania, appears to have been made in the thirteenth century, but merely contains some regulations as to shipwrecks. There are, likewise, two collections of judicial decisions under the name of the Laws of Iceland, which appear to have been made in the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, to have been held in estimation, and to have possessed authority for a long time before such usages had been confirmed by the Sovereign. The municipal statute of Copenhagen of 1254 contains nothing relative to maritime law, although the port of that city was by that time much frequented; and the subsequent statute of 1294 contains only four articles of this description, and of no value in general maritime legislation.

But it is not to be supposed that the business transactions to which navigation gave rise occasioned no disputes, or that there were no rules for the decision of these disputes. It is rather to be believed that the principles, though few in number, which are found in the Statute of Sleswick, and in the similar collections of usages in the neighbouring towns and provinces, were followed in the other parts of Denmark. This law, quite imperfect as it was, was perhaps sufficient in the early times, when more regular commerce succeeded piracy; and so much the more so because the foreigners who came into that country had, in all matters in which they were interested, the right of being judged by their