Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-669899f699-qzcqf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-03T23:00:53.553Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Beyond the Free Sea

The Law of the Sea in Renaissance Europe

from Part I - International Law in Renaissance Europe (1492–1660)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2025

By
Louis Sicking
General editor
Randall Lesaffer
Randall Lesaffer
Affiliation:
KU Leuven and Tilburg University
Get access

Summary

The question of whether or not the sea can be owned or controlled has occupied the minds of many over the centuries. The discovery of America by Columbus made the questions of ownership of the sea and how regimes to govern the sea could be created and managed gain importance on a global scale. This chapter discusses the history of the law of the sea from the perspective of ‘Renaissance Europe’, focusing on the ‘battle of the books’ dominated by the publication of Mare Liberum (1609) by Hugo de Groot (Grotius) and John Selden’s Mare clausum (1635). It shows that the concept of the free sea was perfectly compatible with the adjacent or territorial sea both in legal practice and in principle. The idea of the free sea, defended and made explicit by Grotius, was not new but originated in Roman law and its medieval interpretations. Rather than the free sea, mare clausum was the new contribution of early modern thinking on the law of the sea. The concept of mare clausum had been shaped by the division of the world’s oceans between Spain and Portugal based on the papal bull Inter Caetera (1493) and the treaties of Tordesillas (1494) and Zaragoza (1529).

Keywords

Renaissance Europelaw of nationslaw of the seafree seaGrotiusSeldendiscoveriespapal grants
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of International Law , pp. 107 - 134
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Further Reading

Allaire, B., ‘Between Oléron and Colbert: the evolution of French maritime law until the seventeenth century’ in Maria Fusaro, B. Allaire, R. Blakemore, T. Vanneste and Dunford, M. (eds.), Labour and Empire: Comparative Perspectives on Seafarers, c. 1500–1800 (London: Palgrave MacMillan 2015) 77–99.Google Scholar
Armitage, David, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000).Google Scholar
Benton, Lauren, A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010).Google Scholar
Blakemore, Richard, ‘Law and the sea’ in Jowitt, Claire, Lambert, Craig and Mentz, Steve (eds.), Routledge Research Companion to Marine and Maritime Worlds, 1400–1800 (London: Routledge 2020) 388–425.Google Scholar
Borschberg, Peter, ‘Hugo Grotius’ theory of trans-oceanic trade regulation: revisiting Mare liberum (1609)’, International Law and Justice Working Paper no. 2005/14 (August 2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borschberg, Peter, Hugo Grotius, the Portuguese and Free Trade in the East Indies (Singapore: NUS Press 2011).Google Scholar
Calafat, Guillaume, Une mer jalousée. Contribution à l’histoire de la souveraineté (Méditerranée, XVIIe siècle) (Paris: Éditions du Seuil 2019).Google Scholar
Delgado, Paulino Castañeda, ‘La interpretación teocrática de las bulas alejandrinas’, Anuario Mexicano de Historia del Derecho, 5 (1993) 20–59.Google Scholar
Fisch, Jörg, Die Europäische Expansion und das Völkerrechts. Die Auseinandersetzungen um den Status der überseeischen Gebiete vom 15. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart (Stuttgart: Steiner 1984).Google Scholar
Fedele, Dante, The Medieval Foundations of International Law. Baldus de Ubaldis (1327–1400), Doctrine and Practice of the Ius Gentium (Leiden and Boston: Brill 2021).Google Scholar
Kempe, Michael, Fluch der Weltmeere. Piraterie, Völkerrecht und Internationale Beziehungen 1500-1900 (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag 2010).Google Scholar
Ladero Quesada, Miguel Angel, ‘Los debates sobre el Mare Clausum’, Cuadernos de Historia de España, 74 (1997) 233–54.Google Scholar
Nellen, Henk, Hugo Grotius. A Lifelong Struggle for Peace in Church and State, 1583–1645 (Leiden and Boston: Brill 2014).Google Scholar
Oudendijk, Johanna K., Status and Extent of Adjacent Waters. A Historical Orientation (Leiden: Sijthoff 1970).Google Scholar
Sicking, Louis, ‘The pirate and the admiral: Europeanisation and globalisation of maritime conflict management’, Journal of the History of International Law, 20 (2018) 429–70.Google Scholar
Toomer, G. J., John Selden. A Life in Scholarship, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009).Google Scholar
Vadi, Valentina, War and Peace. Alberico Gentili and the Early Modern Law of Nations (Leiden and Boston: Brill 2020).Google Scholar
van Ittersum, Martine J., Profit and Principle. Hugo Grotius, Natural Rights Theories and the Rise of Dutch Power in the East Indies (1595–1615) (Leiden and Boston: Brill 2006).Google Scholar
van Ittersum, Martine J., ‘The long goodbye: Hugo Grotius’ justification of Dutch expansion overseas, 1615–1645’, History of European Ideas, 36 (2010) 386–411.Google Scholar
Vieira, Monica B. ‘Mare liberum vs. Mare clausum: Grotius, Freitas, and Selden’s debate on dominion over the seas’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 64 (2003) 361–77.Google Scholar
Wijffels, Alain (ed.), Alberico Gentili consiliatore. Atti del convegno. Quinta giornata gentiliana, 19 Settembre 1992 (Milan: Giuffrè 1999).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×