Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 04.pdf/221

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The Green Bag.

ing every one his right (fol. 2.) Both the idea and the language are those of the Digest. So he also shows that the term jus sometimes means natural law or right, sometimes signifies civil law, sometimes the praetorian law, etc.; for the praetor is said to admin ister justice, even when he decrees unjustly, because relation is had, not to what the praetor actually has done, but to that which the praetor ought to do (fol. 3); and this illus tration is taken verbatim from the civil law (Dig. 1, tit. 1, 1. 11) without any reference or citation. He gives numerous other ex planations of the term justitia, and winds up with " Quod percipit honeste vivere alterum non laedere, jus suum cuique tribuere," — the exact words of the Digest. So also his definition of Jurisprudence (fol. 3) is the language of the Digest (1, tit. 1, 1. 10). His classification of law is much the same. He treats of the status of persons in the same order, often using the same words and sentences in his definitions as are used in the Digest. He tells us that servus is derived from servanda, preserving, because the com manders sold their captives, and thus pre served them, instead of killing them, — pre cisely as we are told in the Digest. Entire sections of the Digest are copied verbatim, without any reference, — which it would be too tedious to enumerate, and give refer ences; hence only a small number are cited. His mode of treating of persons under au thority of others is very similar to that of the Digest and Institutes, with this difference, — that slavery is treated of as modified by the feudal law, or, in other words, it is Roman slavery modified by feudal customs. And the paternal power is that of the Roman law, except, perhaps, that on coming of age a man and his family are released from the paternal power. Bracton's first book is entitled " De Rerum Divisione; " it also includes the division of persons, in a similar manner to the Digest. Things are classified in his " Rerum Divi sione" in the same way as in the civil law, and often in ipsissimis verbis. Land is de

nominated an immovable, — not real estate. Movables are defined the same as in the civil law, and are nowhere called personal'property; hence the common law, according to Bracton, classified property as movable and immov able, as did the civil law. In the second book Bracton treats " De acquirendo rerum dominio," — of acquiring ownership of things. This is the title of the entire second book. This title is the first title of the forty-first book of the Pandects, which Bracton copies very closely in many parts, notably in the first four chapters, which treat of the acquisition of property — ownership — by occupation, by fishing, by hunting, hiving bees, taming wild animals and birds, by alluvium, specification, confu sion, finding, etc., etc., all of which is taken from the forty-first book of the Pandects without any reference, except that on folio 10 he refers to. the Institutes, where, he says, the subject is more fully treated. In chapter 4 he defines servitudes, which is copied from the Institutes. No one can compare this portion of Bracton with the Institutes and Pandects, without being fully satisfied of the source from which it was derived. The law, the Latin, and the style is that of the civil law. The subject of donations is treated of more in reference to land than to other property, and in this the principles of the feudal law prevail; but as to other property the princi ples of the civil law generally prevail. The Roman lands were divided out among the soldiers, as a gift from the Roman people, and not from some prince or lord paramount, as in the feudal system, where the lord or donor remained owner of the fee simple. The Roman titles were allodial, while un der the feudal system the donee was only a tenant (of some lord who assumed to give the land), paying rent, and owning only the use of the land under fixed conditions. Hence the Roman law must, of necessity, differ from the feudal law on the subject of donation, alienation, and possession of land. Bracton gives usucaption as one of the