Definition
A term drawn from French maritime law referring to the hiring of a vessel — the contract by which a shipowner places a vessel at the disposal of another party for the carriage of goods or passengers in exchange for compensation. It is the French-law equivalent of what English and American admiralty law calls affreightment. The contract arising from affretement defines the rights and obligations between the shipowner (fréteur) and the charterer or shipper (affréteur). Also known in French sources as nolissement.
Common Confusion
Affretement and affreightment are not two different concepts — they are the same concept expressed in two different legal traditions. Researchers encountering affretement in a French or civil-law maritime source should treat it as functionally equivalent to affreightment in common-law admiralty sources, while remaining alert to doctrinal differences in how the two systems allocated liability and defined the parties' obligations. The term nolissement appears as a synonym in French sources; some historical authorities treat the two terms as interchangeable, while others reserve one or the other for specific contractual forms.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a navigational marker, not a working doctrine. A researcher is most likely to encounter affretement when tracing the civil-law roots of American maritime contract law, when reading comparative admiralty scholarship, or when working with French colonial-era commercial records and ordinances. Its primary documentary home is the Ordonnance de la Marine of 1681 (Ord. Mar.), which is the foundational French maritime code and the source cited in all three historical dictionary entries. Researchers should treat affretement as a signal to pivot to affreightment for substantive doctrine in common-law systems.
The Ordonnance de la Marine exercised significant influence on early American admiralty jurisprudence, particularly in Louisiana, where French civil law traditions persisted. Researchers working in Louisiana maritime history or comparative law contexts will encounter this term more frequently than those working in other jurisdictions.
One research trap: the historical dictionaries' citation to "Ord. Mar. liv. 1, tit. 2, art. 2" and "liv. 3, tit. 1, art. 1" refers to the 1681 Ordonnance, organized by livre (book) and titre (title). These citations are authentic but require access to the French original or a scholarly edition — they will not appear in standard common-law reporters or digests.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries — Black's (1st and 2nd editions) and Burrill's — are in complete agreement, reproducing nearly identical text. All three identify affretement as a French-law term, translate it as the hiring of a vessel, equate it with affreightment, and note the synonym nolissement. All three cite the same provisions of the Ordonnance de la Marine.
The uniformity across sources is itself informative: none of the historical dictionaries elaborates on French doctrinal content, the internal structure of the affretement contract, or how French law varied from English practice. They treat the term as a cross-reference entry, not a substantive one. This is appropriate given the audience — common-law practitioners who needed to identify the concept and locate its English-law equivalent, not engage with French admiralty doctrine directly. Researchers seeking substantive content on the affretement contract should consult treatises on French maritime law or comparative admiralty scholarship rather than these dictionary entries.
Jurisdictional Note
As a term of French maritime law, affretement has no direct operative force in American or English courts. Its relevance to U.S. law is primarily historical and comparative, with greatest practical significance in Louisiana, where French civil-law traditions shaped early maritime practice. Substantive admiralty law in federal U.S. courts proceeds under the affreightment framework.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Affreightment; Charter Party; Maritime Law