The Black Book of the Admiralty
With an Appendix

A four-volume set (1871–6) containing medieval codes of maritime law and related materials from England and northern and southern Europe.

Travers Twiss (Edited by)

9781108048941, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 15 November 2012

758 pages, 2 colour illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 4.2 cm, 1.09 kg

The Black Book of the Admiralty is a late medieval Old French manuscript containing a variety of documents relating to the administrative and legal responsibilities of the office of the lord high admiral, with later additions relating to the court of chivalry and the laws of war. The edition of this manuscript produced by Sir Travers Twiss (1809–97) between 1871 and 1876 filled only part of one of four volumes. The remaining content ranges from the late thirteenth-century borough custumal of Ipswich and other later medieval general custumals from south-west France, to a variety of different codes of maritime law also from south-west France, Catalonia, southern Italy, the Baltic and the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem. Volume 4 contains a fourteenth-century procedural code relating to the maritime court of Valencia and late medieval codes of maritime law from the Mediterranean and the Baltic, as well as a Flemish version of the laws of Oleron.

Introduction
List of manuscripts collated or referred to
Chapters and ordinances of the maritime court of the noble city of Amalphi, commonly called the Amalphitan Table
The Gotland sea-laws
Various readings of The Black Book of the Admiralty
Glossary of Anglo-Norman and Gascon words in the Rolls of Oleron etc.
Glossary of Catalan words in the Consulate of the Sea
Glossary of Saxon or Low-German words in the Gotland sea-laws
The laws of Wisbuy
Code of the Teutonic order of Livonia
The Purple Book of Bruges
The Dantzic ship-laws
Code of maritime law drawn up at Lubeck for the use of the Osterlings, AD 1299
Preamble of the Wisby town-law
The Wisby town-law on shipping
Sea-laws in Flanders
The judicial order of the court of the consuls of the sea at Valencia
Maritime assises of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem
Ordinances and customs of the sea published by the consuls of the city of Trani
Index.

Subject Areas: British & Irish history [HBJD1]