Lex Mercatoria in United Kingdom

The Law Merchant

The Treatise

The Lex mercatoria was a short treatise, the “earliest known treatment of what a later age would call “the law merchant.” It was written in England in the late thirteenth century and exists in only one known copy, which is found in sections of the Little Red Book of Bristol that date from the mid-fourteenth century. The treatise was first published in 1900 in a limited edition that has long been out of print. A translation published without the Latin text in 1962 failed to gain scholarly approval.” (1) The treatise “provides important insights into the legal framework of English commerce in the reign of Edward I.” (2)

A number of scholars argue that the treatise is not simply a work of exposition. Rather, “the anonymous author wrote not only an instructional manual on how to conduct a mercantile court but also made a series of recommendations for improving the process in such courts. The work is informed by a sophisticated and cogently argued view of an ideal relationship between mercantile law and common law.” (3)

Resources

Notes

LEX MERCATORIA AND LEGAL PLURALISM: A LATE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY TREATISE AND ITS AFTERLIFE, by Mary Elizabeth Basile,
Jane Fair Bestor, Daniel R. Coquillette and Charles Donahue, Jr