The development of dutch law 63 I would not think that the master carried all inherent risks of the stowage-material and I think that is proved by Hugo Grotius’ version of this rule, to which I shall revert within short. From other medieval sources of ocean carriage law, brief mention may be made of the Municipal Ordinance of Amsterdam, made about 1400. Of its 28 (or rather 34) sections only one clearly deals with our topic. As in many other respects, the relevant Section also borrowed some of its contents obviously from the Westkappel Law, to wit. Sect. XL More than for sake of its originality, this Ordinance deserves to be remembered because of its wide dispersal. Together with the Sea Law of Damme-Westkappel, it formed an early uniform pattern for the law of all the Low Countries, and it would in this combined formcontribute, around 1450, to the bulk of the Visby compilation. Later versions of sea-laws leaned quite heavily upon both the Laws of Damme-Westkappel as upon this Ordinance. Its influence even stretched into the 17th century, as I will indicate when dealing with Grotius. Thus, Dutch law made a considerable contribution to a primitive kind of uniformlaw, as it was embodied by the Visby compilation: for pointing to this Dutch origin, which by then was almost forgotten, Verwer, otherwise not an outstanding author of the 17th century, deserves to be credited. When the Middle Ages waned, the Habsburg rulers of our countries made several Ordinances which were not confined locally but had force of law for the entire Low Countries. Two of these Ordinances are relevant for our subject: one of Charles V of 1551 and the other of his son, Philip II of 1563. The Ordinance of 1551 contained three sections on carriage of goods: 52—54—or in a different count, 42—44). Nr 52 (42) had a not very clear provision on the master’s duty to deliver the cargo in dry state and that therefore the master was obliged to make his decks watertight (only extraordinary costs of providing this result, could be claimed in General Average). Nr. 53 brought a more modern, general concept of the master’s obligation. It was the general duty of the master and his ‘Erfiillungsgehilfe’ to avoid loss or damage to the goods and to make good any such damages on the basis of the marketvalue of the goods at the time and place of loading. Here the text is not clear; it may be, that «nloading was meant here, which is the present base for calculating damages in oceancarriage-contracts. An important exception to this general obligation was made by Sect. 54 (44): if the goods melted, leaked, spilled or decayed without negligence of the master and his Erfiillungsgehilfe, then the merchant had to bear the loss. The remaining part of nr. 54 (44) had an odd combination of the Westkappel rule nr XI about the role of the merchant before discharge and a primitive concept of limited liability of the carrier, confined to the freight.
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