As intermediaries in every seaport, shipbrokers consigned cargo to skippers, shipowners, and maritime merchants in return for a commission (a percentage of the total sales). Originally this so-called courtage (finder’s fee) was freely negotiated and was paid equally to buyer and seller, or in the case of financial transactions, by the debtor alone. As late as the 16th century, with a rate of only 2 to 7 tenths of a percent it hardly provided an adequate livelihood [3], but it increased in the course of the early modern period, and by the 19th century at the latest it…