Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/247

 7. SCRUTTON: ROMAN LAW INFLUENCE 233 A subsequent treatise on procedure, entitled the Ordo Judici- orum, is Roman in character and terminology, and bears traces of being written by a civilian of the School of Bologna.^ Indeed, as many of the judges in the Court of Admiralty, the deputies of the Lord High Admiral, were clerics, the pro- cedure at any rate, if not also the rules of the Court, was likely to become Roman in character. The inquiry of 1339, already alluded to, was entrusted to three clerics, the Official of the Court of Canterbury, the Dean of St. Maria in Ar- cubus, and a Canon of St. Paul's.^ By an Act of 1403, " les dites admiralles usent leur leys seulement par la ley d'Oleron et ancienne ley de la mer, et par la ley d'Angleterre, et ne mye par custume, no par nule autre manere,'' ^ while in 1406 under the Admiralties of the Beauforts, the jurisdiction of the Ad- miralty Court was much increased.^ It is not therefore won- derful that under Edward VI. the answer was made to a French envoy ^ " that the English Ordinances for Marine affairs were no others than the Civil Laws, and certain ancient additions of the realm." The Black Book itself has an ex- press reference to the Roman Law : " It is ordained and es- tablished for a custom of the sea that when it happens that they make jettison from a ship, it is well written at Rome that all the merchandise contained in the ship ought to contribute pound per pound," ^ and many other clauses are indirectly taken from the same source. The foundations of Admiralty Law are thus to be found in : (1) the Civil Law, (a) as embodied in the Law Merchant, especially in the Laws of Oleron ; (6) as introduced by subse- quent clerical judges, mainly in procedure; (2) in subse- quent written and customary rules, adopted in view of the developments of commerce. This view is borne out by the accounts which text writers give of the nature of the Law. Thus Sergeant Calhs says (in 1622) " I acknowledge that the king ruleth on the sea by the Laws Imperial, as by the »Twiss, ii. Pref. 42. »5 Hen. IV. c. 7; 2 Hen. V. c. 6. •Zouch, 89. •Twiss, i. 127. »Le» Rhodia de jactu. Dig. 14, 2, 1. Twiss has a wrong reference.
 * Twiss, i. 178. The title is Sir T. Twiss' invention.
 * Spelman, Olossarium, sub voce Admirallus, ed. 1687, p. 16.