Definition
A French marine law term for affreightment — the contract by which a shipowner agrees to carry another party's goods by sea in exchange for freight payment. The term designates either the contract itself or the legal relationship it creates between the shipowner (or master) and the shipper (or freighter). Nolissement is the French civil law equivalent of what common law admiralty calls a contract of affreightment, typically evidenced by a charter party or bill of lading.
Common Confusion
Nolissement is not the contract document itself but the legal transaction or relationship the document memorializes. Researchers encountering the term in historical French marine law sources should not conflate it with the charter party (charte-partie) or bill of lading (connaissement), which are the written instruments. Nolissement names the underlying contractual arrangement — the freight engagement — that those instruments record. Additionally, Burrill's cross-reference to nolis (the freight or hire paid for carriage) clarifies that nolissement and nolis are related but distinct: one is the contract, the other is the consideration paid under it.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear almost exclusively in historical French marine law materials, civil law admiralty sources, and treatises discussing the Ordonnance de la Marine (1681) — the foundational French maritime code that governed commercial shipping law across much of the civil law world for over a century. Researchers working in American admiralty law before and shortly after the Revolution, Louisiana maritime practice, or comparative maritime law will encounter nolissement as a direct doctrinal ancestor of modern affreightment law.
The practical trap: the term does not appear in English common law admiralty sources under this name. Researchers moving between civil law and common law admiralty materials must track the same legal concept under two different vocabularies — nolissement in French sources, affreightment or contract of affreightment in English and American sources. Failure to recognize the equivalence can create the false impression of a doctrinal gap where none exists.
Louisiana is the most likely jurisdiction in American case law or practice materials where nolissement might surface by name, given its civil law heritage and status as a major port jurisdiction. The term may also appear in early American admiralty treatises that drew on French sources, particularly in discussions of charter parties and the rights and liabilities of shipowners.
Note on citation discrepancy: Black's 1st Edition cites the Ordonnance de la Marine as "liv. 3, tit. 1," while Black's 2nd Edition and Bouvier cite it as "liv. 8, tit. 1." Burrill agrees with the 1st Edition. This is a minor but real discrepancy across the shelf sources that researchers consulting the Ordonnance directly should be aware of. The Ordonnance de la Marine (1681) is the actual source document; confirm the book and title reference against the original when precision matters.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four shelf sources agree on the essential definition: nolissement is the French marine law term for affreightment. The entries are brief and functional — none elaborates on the substantive law of affreightment within the nolissement entry, instead directing the reader to the Ordonnance de la Marine as the governing authority.
Burrill adds the most analytical value by linking nolissement to nolis, the freight payment, establishing the etymological and doctrinal relationship between the contract and its consideration. This is useful for researchers tracing the structure of French maritime contract law.
What the historical dictionaries do not provide: any discussion of how nolissement operated in practice, its elements, the remedies available for breach, or how French doctrine on the subject compared to English admiralty rules. For substantive law, researchers must go to the Ordonnance itself or to treatises on French marine law and comparative admiralty.
Jurisdictional Note
Nolissement is a term of French civil law and will not appear as operative legal vocabulary in English common law jurisdictions. In the United States, it has relevance primarily in Louisiana maritime and commercial law history, and in any federal admiralty matter touching on civil law sources or French colonial-era practice.