Acknowledgements List of Images, Tables, Figures, Maps and Graphs Abbreviations 1 Introduction 1.1 General Average: A Long History from Rhodes to the Ever Given 1.2 Transaction Costs, Protection Costs and Institutional Development 1.3 Maritime Trade and Risk Management 1.4 General Average and the Lex Maritima 1.5 Introducing the Low Countries' Maritime Economy 1.6 State Formation, Jurisdictional Complexity and Legal Sources 1.7 Sources, Approach and Structure of the Book Part 1: The Development of General Average and Risk Management 2 The Power and Pains of Polysemy 2.

1 Introduction: The Polysemic Meanings of Averages 2.2 Etymological Origins of GA 2.3 The Principle of GA Explained 2.4 Contemporary GA and Historical Reality 2.5 Averages in the Sixteenth-Century Low Countries 2.6 Risk Management 2.7 Cost Management 2.8 Conclusion3 General Average in Formal Sources of Law 3.

1 Introduction 3.2 GA in Sources of Formal Law 3.3 GA, Salvage, Shipwreck and Ship Collisions: Shifting Legal Boundaries 3.4 Weytsen's Tractaet van Avarien 3.5 Conclusion4 GA in Legal Practice 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The Governance of GA Procedure in Bruges and Antwerp 4.3 The Position of the Shipmaster and Legal Strategies 4.

4 The Insurability of GA, Moral Hazard and Changes in Risk Distribution 4.5 'Atypical' GA Cases 4.6 Conclusion Part 2: Varieties of Averages and Cost Management 5 Contractual Varieties of Averages and Cost Management 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Contractual Varieties of Averages 5.3 The flete y averías as a Cost Management Structure 5.4 Conclusion: Averages and Cost Management6 Consular Averages, Compulsory Contributions and Protection Costs 6.1 Introduction 6.

2 The Seville avería as an Example of Protection Costs 6.3 Privileges and the droit d'avarie: False Friends? 6.4 Disputes on the avería de nación 6.5 The avería(s) 6.6 Conclusion Conclusion Appendix Bibliography General Index.