This article compares the doctrines on transnational commercial customs in Malynes' Lex Mercatoria (1622) and in the writings of Clive M. Schmitthoff and Berthold Goldman. It is argued that core problems in conceptualizations of lex mercatoria are present in all these texts. Malynes unsuccessfully attempted to reconcile a new approach of considering law merchant as ius gentium on the one hand, with a tradition of particular customs of trade on the other. All three authors mentioned struggled when explaining how custom emerges from contracts or practice. Malynes, Schmitthoff and Goldman tried to apply existing notions (usage, custom) in order to do so, often referring to historical arguments, but they could not bridge the fundamental differences existing between customs of trade and ius gentium. As a result, all three authors failed in putting forward a workable theory of lex mercatoria. Non-matching legal views on international business practices were cut and pasted together, as it were, and new theories on lex mercatoria would do well not to replicate this approach.
Abstract: In this contribution it is demonstrated how in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Dutch rules concerning negotiable credit instruments (i.e., bills obligatory to bearer and bills of exchange) transformed financial law throughout the European continent. The Antwerp and Amsterdam authorities devised precepts of law on such issues that went against substantial principles of the academic ius commune . In the course of the seventeenth century, the former's success brought about their insertion into financial legislation of German cities. This phenomenon came along with a new comparative approach of legislators in the whole of Europe, which was typical of that period. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the continental ius commune system was indeed increasingly reoriented towards adoption of legal solutions existing alongside the traditional university-based literature. These developments facilitated the introduction of the Dutch norms of law into legal treatises and codifications to the disadvantage of older theories of civil law. As a result, by 1800, Dutch rules relating to the assignment of commercial paper and recourse liability of assignors had become firmly established. Even today, they form a part of the private law of many continental European countries. However, the implementation of these modern ideas has never been complete. As a result, some existing and inconvenient differences between arrangements of transfers of debts and claims could be harmonized in the spirit of the work of the early modern Dutch jurists. Résumé: Cet article démontre l'influence que des règles néerlandaises touchant à des instruments de crédit négociables (lettres obligatoires au porteur et lettres de changes), qui datent des seizième et dix-septième siècles, ont exercée sur le droit financier du continent européen. Des juristes travaillant pour les gouvernements d'Anvers et d'Amsterdam ont créé de nouvelles normes officielles en matière de finances. L'application au dix-septième siècle de ces solutions dans des villes allemandes s'inscrivit dans une transformation générale des approches juridiques. A cette époque, le système du ius commune devint plus comparatiste et des juristes commencèrent à élaborer de nouvelles pratiques, même si pour celles-ci ils ne trouvèrent pas d'arguments dans le corps de la littérature juridique. Ce phénomène a facilité l'introduction, dans des traités et dans des codifications, des principes néerlandais mentionnés, et ce au désavantage de theories académiques. Il en résulta, vers 1800, une reconnaissance générale de cessions d'effets commerciaux, ainsi que d'un droit de recours dans le chef du bénéficiaire d'un tel transfert, règles qui appartiennent toujours au droit privé de plusieurs pays du continent européen. Cependant, à ce moment et plus tard, l'intégration de ces idées modernes dans le droit positif fut incomplète. Certains inconvénients qui sont toujours liés aux différents types de transferts de droits et dettes peuvent être interprétés dans l'esprit des solutions des anciens juristes néerlandais.
Migrating Words, Migrating Merchants, Migrating Law, edited by S. Gialdroni, A. Cordes, S. Dauchy, D. De ruysscher and H. Pihlajamäki, offers a transdisciplinary account of the connections between merchants' journeys, the languages they used and the development of commercial law. ; Readership: Scholars interested in commercial law history, economic history, history of linguistics, translation and, more generally, in the lives and travels of merchants and the impact they had on the development of law.
This colloquium focuses on urban and princely space in the Duchy of Brabant in the late Middle Ages and early modern period. The focus is on how territorial developments were perceived in different social milieus. After all, urban elites, the monarch and his entourage had different - but sometimes similar - opinions about what Brabant actually was and used various media to communicate their ideas about it. Administrative, narrative and cartographic sources, architecture, literature and art bear witness to this. The Belgian-Dutch "Stichting Colloquium De Brabantse Stad" organizes an international meeting every three years at which various aspects of the history of the cities and of urban life in the old Duchy of Brabant are examined. The colloquium is organized alternately in the provinces of Antwerp, Flemish Brabant, Walloon Brabant, North Brabant and in the Brussels Capital Region. The XIXth colloquium, taking place in Brussels at the Université Saint-Louis, is being organized in cooperation with the NWO research project Imagining a territory.
