Keeping Kings in Check 81which, although strictly applicable only to restricted groups of persons,
came to be widely accepted. Th e law of Rhodes, or Rhodian Code, was the
earliest example. It was thought to be of ancient origin (from about 300 bc),
but our earliest actual reference to it is only in the seventh century ad, by
Isidore of Seville. Th e maritime laws of the Italian city of Amalfi (known
as the Amalfi an Table, or the Ta b u l a a m a l fi ntina) dated from around 1100
and were in general use among the city- states of Italy. Seaport towns on the
Atlantic and North Sea coasts commonly made use of the Laws of Oléron (a
small island in the Bay of Biscay), which were compiled around 1150 (and
published in Rouen in 1266). In the Baltic Sea area, the Laws of Wisby, is-
sued by a port city of that name on the island of Gotland in about 1350, were
similarly widely followed. Th is corpus may in turn have been based on the
Laws of Oléron. A set of laws issued by a body of merchants in Barcelona,
called the Consolato del Mare (“Consulate of the Sea”), promulgated some-
time between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, also had a wide impact.
Th ese codes dealt with a host of practical questions involved in day- to-
day maritime trading. Th e Consolato del Mare was noteworthy, in addition,
for providing the fi rst elaboration of rules dealing with maritime neutrality.
It has been observed that offi cial just- war doctrine frowned on neutrality
and provided no rules on the subject. But practical men needed some regu-
lar procedures and proceeded to devise them on their own. Th e principal
problem was what to do about neutral goods carried on belligerent ships. If
the ship was captured, could the neutral- owned goods be taken too? Th e
Consolato held not. Conversely, if goods owned by a national of a belliger-
ent state were being carried on a neutral ship, then the belligerent’s enemy
could capture those goods but not the vessel or any neutral- owned cargo.
Th e maritime states of Western Eu rope, in the later Middle Ages, began to
devise a system of prize courts and prize law to deal with maritime captures.
(“Prize” comes from the French prise, meaning “taken,” in the sense of cap-
tured.) Th is was an arrangement in which goods were not taken from ships at
sea by the captors on their own (sometimes rather rough) initiative. Instead,
the ship itself was captured and escorted, with cargo intact, into a port. In the
parlance that developed, the captured ship would be said to be “taken into
prize.” Th e own ers would then have the opportunity to contest the legality of
the capture before some kind of judicial authority or body. Th is practice of
prize adjudication began in En gland in the late thirteenth century, with other