The Jurisdiction of the Admiralty of England Asserted, Against..

1663. London, 1663. 1st ed.. London, 1663. 1st ed. Zouch on Admiralty Jurisdiction Zouch, Richard [1590-1661]. The Jurisdiction of the Admiralty of England Asserted, Against Sr. Edward Coke's Articuli Admiralitatis, in XXII Chapter of His Jurisdiction of Courts. London: Printed for F. Tyton and T. Dring, 1663. [xvi], 152 pp. Octavo (6-1/2" x 4"). Later sheep, rebacked in period style, blind rules with corner fleurons to boards, lettering piece and gilt-edged raised bands to spine, original endleaves retained. A few minor scuffs to boards, moderate rubbing to extremities, corners bumped and somewhat worn, pastedowns loose and lightly edgeworn, brief early owner markings to verso of front cover and rear endleaf, early owner signature (Jo: Conant) to front free endpaper. Moderate toning to interior, light soiling to title page. $1,750. * First edition. The expansion and improvement in English naval power under Cromwell and Great Britain's growth as a maritime power created a demand for works on admiralty law. These factors created a rivalry between the admiralty and common law courts for jurisdiction that culminated during the chief justiceship of Lord Coke, which led to several publications in which the law merchant and the civil law play prominent parts. Along with Godolphin's A View of the Admiral Jurisdiction (1653), Zouch's treatise was among the first to address this need, and, due to the author's status, the most important. The leading civilian of his day, he was an advocate of Doctors' Commons, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty and Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford. Later editions were published in 1683 and 1685. It was also reissued in the 1686 edition of Malynes's Lex Mercatoria. From the library of either John Conant (1608-1694), the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford in the seventeenth century, or his son, John Conant (1653/4-1723), Fellow at Merton College in the University of Oxford, and a top seventeenth-century lawyer at Doctors' Commons in London, who was also the biographer of his father. More likely the younger, as the author is Richard Zouche (1590-1661), who was himself a highly-distinguished lawyer at Doctors' Commons; and this younger Conant was a known bibliophile. A catalogue of the younger Conant's library, as sold posthumously, is extant and held by Houghton at Harvard. English Short-Title Catalogu.