The
Wisbuy Sea Law, also known as the
Gotland Sea Law, was a compilation of medieval maritime laws created in the 1400s. These laws themselves originated from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Wisbuy Sea Law did not originate in Wisbuy but obtained its name, it has been assumed, because the exemplar of the first printed edition (which is the first to mention Wisbuy and Gotland) was kept in Wisbuy (the capital of the island Gotland).
Contents
The text includes common laws which were meant to apply for European countries involved with trade overseas. The rules included solutions to likely dilemmas such as
jettison, shipwreck and ship collision. The laws were to some extent used in the later medieval period but were partly out of date by that time.
Usage
Predecessors of the Wisbuy Sea Law combined two laws: the
Flemish
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
/
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
translation of the
Rôles d’Oléron, known as Vonnesse Damme, from about 1286, and Ordinancie from the second half of the fourteenth century. This text was referred to as the ‘Waterrecht’ (water law) and was spread to different northern European towns. Subsequently, a number of articles originating in
Lübeck
Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the state ...
were added in some Danish manuscripts in the fifteenth century. The first printed edition of this text was made in
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
by Godfried von Gemen in 1505. Gemen referred to the text in his edition as the highest sea law. A second edition emerged in 1532 (in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
) and a third one in 1537 (in Lübeck). This latter edition included seven Articles from the Lübeck
Town Law of 1294, eight articles from Ordnung für Schiffer und Schiffsleute from Lübeck and one article from an unknown source.
References
External links
*
*{{Cite NIE, wstitle=Wisby, Laws of, short=x
14th century in international relations
Admiralty law
Visby
Gotland