Imagine for a moment that you are a 15th century merchant and that during a boat trip mice eat the goods. Who should bear the cost of the wreck? It will depend on whether the skipper brings cats on board or not; in case he has not foreseen it, he will be the one who will have to assume the costs. What if at the end of the trip you can’t pay the sailors? Then he will have to sell the ship, the sailors must be paid both yes and no, in the same way that during the crossing he will have the obligation to provide them with a diet that must include meat on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and, at night, a menu with bread, cheese, sardines or onions. To drink, three servings of wine in the morning and three at night.
The art critic and historian Ricard Mas, curator together with La Vanguardia journalist Plácid Garcia-Planas of Del gòtic al metavers. 3/4 of the millennium Consulat de Mar, admits that just the idea of ??an exhibition that talks about medieval laws and maritime law can make more than one sleepy and many others will run away. But it promises fascinating stories and, once the tour has been completed, the visitor will still be able to throw himself into the sea as if he were one of the sailors in a boat, hoist the sails or take the helm, thanks to virtual reality glasses.
From the Gothic to the metaverse, at the Maritime Museum (until October 22), it is part of the 3/4 millennium commemoration, with which the Consulate of the Sea celebrates 750 years of existence. “There are few institutions as old in Europe and in the world”, highlights Marçal Girbau, curator of the celebration of “one of the most groundbreaking institutions in the Western world. His great contribution to the world, the Book of the Consulate of the Sea, was, in fact, the first commercial code, a reference for all the countries of the western world in matters of navigation, which remained valid for centuries”. Catalonia’s greatest contribution to human history.
The Book of the Consulate of the Sea, which can be consulted in the virtual library of the Cervantes Institute or on Google Books, is, in fact, the guiding thread of the exhibition, a journey into the past that reminds us of what we were and where we are 750 years later. The senior consul, Jordi Domingo, gives a diaphanous example: “In the event that the wife of the owner of the ship, who was the captain, was separated from him, she had the right to the return of the dowry contributed to the marriage. The dowry was a preferential credit over any other credit, that is to say, it went above banks, sailors, merchants, shipowners… Absolutely above everyone was the woman. That is, like now”, quips Domingo, for whom, “in the same way that nowadays we have taken giant steps in terms of science or technology, which are extraordinary, in humanistic and social fields you realize when you read the Book of the Consulate of the Sea that we have really taken leaps and bounds compared to the 13th and 14th centuries”.
The Consulate Book is, in reality, a compilation of rules written by the men of the sea themselves, who were not lawyers, but merchants, skippers, sailors… and were applied by their own, quick and cheap justice, the highest authority of which he was the consul. Everything is regulated. The sailors had to embark prepared for the fight, and they carried a crossbow, a sword and a scabbard. And in the very common case that a ship belonging to the Crown of Aragon crossed paths with another normal and ordinary cargo ship, the captain put the merchants traveling with the goods to a vote whether to attack it or not. They risked losing everything and even being injured, they risked their lives. But they were the ones who had the last word.
The sailor, it has already been said, was always paid, even if he got sick, but poor if he did not obey his superiors: if he quarreled with the skipper, he lost half his salary and the effects on board, which he brought to the interior of a beautifully decorated heavy trunk. If a watchman fell asleep on the beach or in the harbor, he could not drink wine and his diet was limited to bread intake for a day. Although there were much worse cases. When a captain decided to hire a pilot, he had to swear beforehand that he knew the route. If he lied, the skipper had the power to cut off his head, but only if, by popular vote, the rest of the crew gave him permission.
