ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the role maritime law plays in the general plan for exploring the history of trade law, defines 'maritime law' and lists its main sources, and presents the state of research. The truly scientific treatment of maritime law begins with the doyen of the history of commercial law, Levin Goldschmidt. The chapter discusses the three prominent subdivisions of pre-modern maritime law, namely jettison and general average, bottomry and loan-financed sea trade, and finally shipwreck law and salvage. Universal legal orders in the sense of Lex Mercatoria, Lex Maritima may or may not bear potential for future world law. But they cannot be traced back to the origins of trade law and its earliest sources. The chapter proposes a general development model of geographic expansion, which can perhaps be described as 'from local to global'.
