304 //. FROM THE llOO'S TO THE 1800'S chant and the statute staple gave to English and foreign merchants a right of recourse against their debtor's land.^ The common law as yet knows but little of these rules. A writing obligatory payable to bearer is known among the merchants as early as the 13th century. The first English case upon a bill of exchange in the Common Law Courts is of the year 1603.2 In this period, as we have said, the merchant courts and the merchant law are so closely connected with the mari- time courts and maritime law that we may regard them as branches of the same Law Merchant. In the middle of the 14th century the rise of the court of Admiralty causes a cleavage between these two branches of the Law Merchant. The cleavage is widened by the action of the Common Law Courts. Their jealousy confines the court of Admiralty rigidly to maritime causes, and leads them to appropriate to themselves jurisdiction over commercial causes. In the end they assimilate what they have appropriated, and con- struct our system of mercantile law. (ii) The rise of the Court of Admiralty and its Juris- diction. (a) The rise of the Court of Admiralty. The earliest mention of the term Admiral is in a Gascon Roll of 1295, in which Berardo de Sestars is appointed Admiral of the Baion fleet. ^ There are similar mentions of Admirals in these Rolls in 1296 and 1297. In 1300 Gervase Alard is appointed Admiral of the Cinque Ports ; and this appears to be the earliest use of the title in England. " It would appear that the title of Admiral, originating probably in the East, and afterwards adopted by the Genoese and other navies of the Mediterranean, came by way of Gascony to England, and was there adopted about the beginning of the 14th century."* » 11 Ed. I. (Statute of Acton Burnell) ; 13 Ed. I. St. 3; 27 Ed. III. St. 2 c. 9.
- Martin v. Boure, Cro. Jac. 6-8.
» Select Pleas of the Admiralty (S. S.) i xii. The Black Book of the Admiralty (i 56, 72) contains references to an Admiralty court in the reigns of Henry I. and John. These are apocryphal tales of the 14th century, Select Pleas of the Admiralty i xi.
- Ibid xii.
