Many Albanian and foreign authors have noted the coexistence of the statutes of medieval Albanian cities, an expression of the positive law of these areas, with Albanian customary law, as well as the similarities that testify to the mutual influence between the two legal systems. Researchers, such as the albanologist Milan Šufflay, have underlined that the charters of the Albanian cities, although influenced by the positive law of the Italian cities, such as the Republic of Venice or that of Ragusa, have developed original traits. This assessment has been reinforced by studies that have followed the discovery in 1997 of the 'Statutes of Shkodra' by researcher Lucia Nadin and the publication in 2009 of the full text of the Statutes and Ordinances of the Chapter of the Cathedral Church of Drishti, by Musa Ahmeti and Etleva Lala.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze, from a legal point of view, the main characteristics of the statutes of medieval Albanian cities in the domain of commercial law and to assess whether the statutory and the customary law of the Albanian kanun share commonalities and similitudes in the regimes of this branch.