Chapter Summary
We have seen, then, that ownership could be acquired in Roman law in various ways, depending on the circumstances. Our focus in this chapter has been on the acquisition of ownership from a previous owner, this being known as derivative acquisition.
We saw that, untilJustinian, for property falling into the category of res mancipi (which included Italic land, slaves and certain animals) special, formal modes of transfer were required. The consequences of this were avoided, however, by the development of the concept of bonitary ownership, in which an acquirer was protected as if owner.For other kinds of property, transfer was by delivery, meaning a transfer of possession from transferor to transferee. When Justinian abolished the category of res mancipi, this became the mode of transfer for all property.
Further Reading
G.2.1-64
J.2.1.40-8
D.41.1-2
C.7.25
W W Buckland, A Text-Book of Roman Law from Augustus to Justinian 3rd edn, revd P Stein (Cambridge University Press 1963) 228-41
H Hausmaninger and R Gamauf, A Casebook on Roman Property Law (G A Sheets trans, Oxford University Press 2012) 111-23
E Metzger ed, A Companion to Justinian’s Institutes (Duckworth 1998) 42-5, 49-55
J A C Thomas, Textbook of Roman Law (North-Holland 1976) 151-7, 179-83
A Watson, The Law of Property in the Later Roman Republic (Oxford University Press 1968) 1-21, 61-2
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