London without tax, he speaks of the tax on shipping as his royal right and that of his predecessors. This appears to be the earliest notice of Saxon London in a contemporary document.[1] For maritime commerce there must have been regulations of some kind from the earliest time, and the earliest that can be traced in the North of Europe is ‘The Maritime Law of Wisby.’ At the time when Ethelbald granted a remission of his tax to this ship in the port of London, Wisby was the commercial centre of the North. In early London there was probably a maritime court, as there was in Ipswich. The court sat daily, as shown by the customary of that town, to administer the Law Marine to passing mariners.[2] This practice is referred to in the Domesday of Ipswich, and this is probably the earliest extant record of any court sitting regularly.[3] When and how the practice originated is uncertain, but it was a legacy of Imperial Rome that maritime causes should be heard without delay by competent judges in each province, and there is good reason for believing that mediæval Europe accepted this legacy and never allowed it to lapse.[4]
In the shipping trade of the Netherlands in the Middle Ages we meet with two codes of maritime regulations, one called the Rolls of Oleron, from a French source,[5] and another resembling what is known as the Maritime Law of Wisby. With these mediæval maritime codes we are only concerned so far as regards the antiquity of the Wisby code and its provisions in reference to ‘lay days.’ The Maritime Law of Wisby was first published at Copenhagen in 1505, under the name of ‘The Supreme Maritime Law.’[6] The provisions of this code are similar to those of ‘The Usages of Amsterdam,’ with which those of the Frisian ports of Enchuysen, Stavern, and others
