0000000000283934
AUTHOR
Guido Rossi
Deconstructing iurisdictio: the Adventures of a Legal Category in the Hands of Humanist Jurists
the contribution explores the approach of humanist jurists to the concept of "iurisdictio", and the reaction of non-humanist jurists to it
Baldus and the Limits of Representation
Most contributions on agency and representation in medieval law tend to look at collegiate offices, not individual ones: when, how and to what extent can a plurality of people be represented by a single individual. For individual offices - that is, offices not representing a collectivity - the approach was typically another. From the king to the magistrate, the office was not necessarily viewed as a different subject from that of the individual person discharging it, but rather construed as a series of powers vested in that person. Influenced by canon lawyers (chiefly, Innocent IV), Baldus de Ubaldis on the contrary approached the individual office in the same way as the collegiate one. Irr…
Companies and Company Law in England, 16th to 19th Centuries: Legal Personality, Limited Liability and Pink Unicorns
the contribution explores the early developments of company law in England, from the Sixteenth century onwards, focusing especially on the emergence of the concepts of legal personality and limited liability
Insurance in Elizabethan England. The London Code
English insurance came into being almost entirely during the Elizabethan period. However, the Great Fire of 1666 consumed most of London's mercantile document, and therefore little is known about early English insurance. Using new archival material, this study provides the first in-depth analysis of early English insurance. It focuses on a crucial yet little-known text, the London Insurance Code of the early 1580s, and shows how London insurance customs were first imported from Italy, then influenced by the Dutch, and finally shaped in a systematic fashion in that Insurance Code. The London Insurance Code was in turn heavily influenced by coeval continental codes. This deep influen…
Florence and the Great Fire: New Sources on English Commerce in the Late Sixteenth Century
history of insurance law
Caso fortuito e culpa levissima: premesse ad uno studio sul nesso di causalità nel pensiero giuridico tardo medievale
Lo studio esamina lo sviluppo del nesso causale nel diritto comune tardo medievale
Introduction to Maritime Risk Management. Essays on the History of Marine Insurance
this work provides an introduction to the multiform and complex issue of managing the risk in maritime commerce, looking at the development of insurance, sea loan and general averages across Europe.
Early modern maritime insurance between mercantile customs and ius commune
Le droit coutumier a qualifié la responsabilité du capitaine de navire de culpabilité. Les juristes, notamment les tribunaux, se sont concentrés sur des catégories spécifiques (contractuelles, délictuelles ou pénales). Le passage de l’un à l’autre implique une différence très significative en matière de qualification du comportement, donc des preuves requises. Cela a eu des conséquences importantes sur l’étendue de la responsabilité du capitaine du navire, donc sur la position des assurés.
Representation and Ostensible Authority in Medieval Learned Law
When is it possible to hold valid an act done unlawfully? To answer the question, medieval civil lawyers focused mainly on the case of a slave elected praetor in the mistaken belief that he was a Roman citizen. Most jurists argued that the validity of an act should depend on the validity of its source. But whilst early civil lawyers thought that the source was the person vested with some specific powers (such as the judge, the notary, etc.), later on they began to think of the person as representative of an office, and to ascribe the acts directly to the office itself. This evolution – and so, the foundations of the concept of ostensible authority – was due to the influence of canon lawyers…
England 1523–1601: The Beginnings of Marine Insurance
Extant information about early English marine insurance follows a discontinuous trend. It is remarkably scarce until the mid-sixteenth century, when it increases substantially in the space of a few years, only to fade again after a few decades, and return to growth towards the end of the seventeenth century. After that, plenty of records remain. However, this misbehaving trend does not affect our knowledge as much as would appear to be the case at first sight. The reason lies in the unparalleled continuity in English insurance policies, which remained nearly identical from the 1570s to the policy model prescribed in the Marine Insurance Act of 1906 (First Schedule). This makes up, at least …
The barratry of the shipmaster in early modern law: polysemy and mos Italicus
Summary ‘Barratry’ is a polysemic term: it means deceit, bribe, simony, and fraud of the shipmaster. This article seeks to trace the origins of the word and to explore its different meanings, focusing especially on the influence that older meanings had on the development of more recent ones. This operation is of particular importance to understand the meaning of barratry that would appear for last – that of fraud of the shipmaster. By the time civil lawyers started dealing with maritime barratry, they were already well familiar with the other meanings of the term. This probably favoured the adaptation process, but it also left a deep mark on its outcome: the weight of those other meanings o…
Il fallimento in Inghilterra tra Cinque e Seicento
L'articolo studia il primissimo sviluppo della materia fallimentare nella common law tra Cinque e Seicento
From custom to law, an economic rationale behind the black lettering
This article employs the number of rule recipients in order to explain the transformation of some customs into laws. The publication of rules may mark the reaching of the threshold number beyond which the spontaneous rule leaves room for the State intervention. In addition, the publication resolves a couple of questions that Hayek left unresolved. Examples are provided from ancient merchant customs and contemporary international law.
Indignitas, Heresy and Schism: Canon Law and the Iurisdictio of the Mali Pastores
On the concepts of heresy, schism and indignity in medieval canon law
The liability of the shipmaster in early modern law: comparative (and practice-oriented) remarks
This article deals with the liability of the shipmaster in early modern law in civil and common law, focusing on the approach of Italian and (to a lesser extent) also Iberian courts on the one hand, and on that of common law courts (mostly the King's Bench) on the other. The practice-oriented approach is deliberate: the article seeks to understand what the actual position of the carrier was, not how did learned jurists classify it. Once distinguished practice from dogmatic elaborations (especially for the civil law), this work then proceeds to compare the rules applicable in the two different legal systems. Common law courts imposed strict liability on the shipmaster, for it qualified the c…
The Barratry of the Shipmaster in Early Modern Law: The Approach of Italian and English Law Courts
Summary For a long time, the concept of barratry (at least in its maritime meaning) was one and the same on both sides of the Channel. The barratry of the shipmaster was part of the mercantile usages, and it identified the intentionally blameworthy conduct of the master. When law courts began to decide on insurance litigation they were confronted with a notion quite alien to them. Broadly speaking, the shipmaster’s barratry could well be considered a fraud of sort. But in order to decide on its occurrence in a specific case, law courts had to analyse it in legal terms, and so according to the specific legal categories of their own system. The point ceases to be trivially obvious if we think…
The Abandonment to the Insurers in Sixteenth Century Insurance Practice: Comparative Remarks and (A Few) Methodological Notes
The work analyses the development of the rules of maritime insurance practice on the abandonment to the insurers during the first early modern period
La ricezione della lettera di cambio nella common law tra Cinque e Seicento
The article explores the early development of the bill of exchange in the first early-modern common law
Authorities in Early Modern Law Courts
This volume looks at the comparative development of legal practice in the early modern period across Europe. Focusing deliberately on the impact of law courts on substantive law – and not on its systematisation by learned jurists – it studies similarities and differences in the development of the law across different jurisdictions. In doing so it evaluates whether and to what extent it is possible to consider this development as a unitary and truly European phenomenon. This collection re-evaluates current debates surrounding the development of civil law in the early modern period in the context of the grand narratives of European legal history and sets out to challenge current orthodox view…