Law and Custom: Insurance in Sixteenth-Century England

Abstract

A law of marine insurance began to emerge in England in the second half of the sixteenth century. A struggle between merchants and lawyers for jurisdiction over insurance disputes led first to the creation of a merchants’ court in London, and in 1601 of a hybrid court consisting of lawyers – both common and civil – and merchants. In the late 1570s, under pressure from the privy council, a substantial code of insurance was drawn up by London merchants, but it was never formally adopted. Within twenty years custom and practice had moved away from the letter of the rules which had been written down, and the opportunity to create a developed law of insurance was lost.