Identity, Conflict and Commercial Law: Legal Strategies of Castilian Merchants in the Low Countries (Fifteenth–Sixteenth Centuries)

Abstract

This article studies the legal strategies of the Castilian community in the Low Countries during the fifteenth and sixteenth century, using the case study as a proxy for debates on how merchants managed mercantile conflict in medieval and early Europe. Through a detailed archival study, the article offers two important take-aways: first, building on the literature on mercantile conflict management, it argues that Castilian merchants in the late medieval Low Countries used a wide variety of legal and non-legal strategies to manage conflicts, emphasising the social embeddedness of mercantile conflict and contradicting the idea that they only solved conflicts internally. Second, the article goes beyond this literature by showing that the Castilians also actively lobbied for new legislation to adapt commercial law towards their needs. The article therefore shows the importance of understanding the jurisdictionally complex and legal-pluralistic nature of late medieval and early modern Europe serious in studies of mercantile conflict management.