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17 L. Q. Rev. 232 (1901)
Early History of the Law Merchant in England

handle is hein.journals/lqr17 and id is 244 raw text is: THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE LAW MERCHANT IN ENGLAND. ALTHOUGH the custom of the King's Court became the common -EA law of the land, there were three classes of persons who were in, a varying degree exempt from it, the priest, the Jew, and the merchant. The relation of the priest to the Canon law of the Church has been treated of authoritatively by Professor Maitland; the place taken by the Jew will be further elucidated, we hope, by the promised volume of the Seldefi Society on the Jewish Plea Rolls; the position of the merchant is still in need of authentic treatment. We know however that side by side with the custom of the King's Court existed the 'custom of merchants,' whatever that was. The reasons for this obscurity are twofold ; few merchant cases came up for decision in the King's Courts, and the local records such as those of the Piepoudre Court of Bristol, the great western port of the kingdom, have most unfortunately been lost or destroyed. And yet by piecing together fragments of evidence collected here and there, we can arrive at an opinion to the effect that there was a definite body of mercantile law, slightly affected perhaps by local variations, which was recognized in this country and in the ports of Europe, and that it was administered there and here in Courts of similar character supported by the royal authority. It was really Law, and it was really International. The history of the law merchant in this country can shortly be stated. It was from the first administered in local and popular Courts of merea- totes et zar'inarii 1, and was intimately connected with the King in Council. There is statutory recognition of this connexion in the Statute of the Staple 2. The' Court of Admiralty after a struggle usurped the jurisdiction, the common law Courts in turn destroyed the Admiralty jurisdiction by repeated prohibitions, while the merchants, dissatisfied with the illiberal policy of the common lawyers, might have resorted to the Courts of Chancery whose doctrines and practice were very similar to their own, had not Lord Mansfield appeared to create the mercantile law of this country. The nature of the law merchant has been stated by the most eminent authorities. Lord Mansfield said ' the maritime law is not Cf. the case of the ship of Placentia (Cor. Reg. Trin. 18 Edw. II. rot, i). 2 27 EdW. III. it. 2, C. 21.

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