Commercial law, also known as commercial law, is the general name of the legal norms that adjust the subject of commercial transactions and commercial behavior in the relationship of market economy.
As for the origin of commercial law, most scholars of modern civil and commercial law generally believe that modern commercial law was actually formed in some autonomous cities along the Mediterranean coast in the Middle Ages, and its earliest formation was merchant customary law, that is, merchant law.
(A) the medieval commercial law
Merchant customary law is the original form of commercial law, but the formation of this system has specific social roots.
Medieval Europe (about 395- 1500) was under feudal autocracy, and the commodity economy was extremely weak, mainly manifested in self-sufficient handicraft economy and agricultural society.
165438+In the late 20th century, Europe, which is dominated by agriculture, entered a period of development. With the victory of the Crusade, a large number of surplus goods in Europe flocked to the eastern market, and the commodity economy began to develop rapidly and actively.
This development of East-West trade has promoted the development of maritime trade in the Mediterranean and the prosperity of commercial trade in some emerging cities along the Mediterranean coast. With the growth of Mediterranean coastal cities, the deepening of industrial division of labor and the further development of commodity exchange, a self-discipline organization-chamber of commerce has emerged to adjust the internal economic relations of businessmen.
During this period, several single businessmen became independent classes among many classes based on the same economic interests, and they urgently needed to give legal protection to their interests in order to realize the freedom of business development and business transactions.
But in fact, the medieval European continent was dominated by feudal law and temple law. The trade situation of many commercial cities is extremely inconsistent with the actual situation of feudal legal system, and a series of conditions for protecting commercial activities lack the necessary legal reflection. The laws of many countries even discriminate against businessmen.
It is the sharp contradiction between trade development and feudal legal system, and the chamber of commerce has to set up another norm for development.
In the development of the chamber of commerce itself, it gradually formed its own autonomy and jurisdiction, and conditionally used business habits to formulate autonomy norms and put them into practice in the chamber of commerce, so after hundreds of years of implementation of 1 1 century to14th century, it finally formed the medieval commercial law, that is, merchant customary law.
(2) Modern commercial law
Modern commercial law is developed on the basis of medieval merchant customary law.
After entering the16th century, the long-term relationship of capitalist commodity economy began to sprout, showing great vitality. In contrast, the feudal separatist forces in some European countries gradually declined, which promoted the gradual formation of a unified nation-state.
In line with this, the temple law, which dominated in the Middle Ages, began to be abandoned, which formed the conditions for the nation-state to formulate unified laws and the merchant customary law to be transformed into written law. The new bourgeoisie must first care about formulating its own code to protect the capitalist commodity economic relations. In this situation, Germany and France in Europe took the lead in starting the unification movement of their respective commercial laws.
At the same time, Britain and other European countries have also formulated commercial laws, which have promoted the process of "nationalization of commercial laws" through state public intervention.
(3) Modern commercial law
/kloc-at the end of 0/8 century, the bourgeois revolution was in full swing in Europe and succeeded one by one. The feudal autocratic social relations have been completely shattered, and the whole society has undergone fundamental changes.
Protecting capitalist commodity economic relations, promoting commercial activities and promoting the formation of a unified and complete commodity market have become the basic national policies of many emerging countries.
/kloc-At the beginning of the 0/9th century, continental European countries began to codify on a large scale. Since then, commercial law has appeared as an independent legal department in most civil law countries.
It can be seen that the emergence of commercial law is by no means accidental, but has its profound economic and political reasons.
1, commercial law is based on the further development of commodity economy.
The development of commodity economy has prompted businessmen who have mastered a certain economic foundation and accumulated considerable material information to form a force. They demanded to get rid of the feudal lords' jurisdiction and the domination of religious forces, and use unified social rules to summarize the production and exchange of goods in order to protect and develop free trade. After entering the capitalist society, the inherent requirements of the development of commodity economy will inevitably make the commercial law that was originally an autonomous norm develop into a unified commercial law formulated by the state.
2. The emergence of commercial law is the result of the national mercantilist policy.
16 and 17 centuries, due to the discovery of the new continent, the world market suddenly expanded and the Mediterranean maritime trade spread all over the world. In order to develop their own economies, countries vigorously promote mercantilist policies to promote economic development, which leads to the particularity of businessmen's status and the specialization of commercial activities.
As a result, commercial law has emerged as an independent legal department, and various countries have formulated commercial laws.
It can be seen that commercial law is only rapidly codified in various countries, and it is only the legalization of mercantilist policies in various countries.
French scholar Dennis Trent once pointed out that the formation of commercial law actually comes from practice, and their systematization process is not the spread of civil law scholars, but the efforts of promoters.