Chapter Summary

This chapter had two purposes. First, we saw the nature of the law of obligations, the area with which the remaining chapters of the book are concerned. In particular, we saw that the law of obligations can be defined as the law of personal rights, these being rights that are enforceable against some specific person or persons, and we saw how these rights are transferred or extinguished.

It is with the first of these categories — obligations arising from contract — that the remainder of this chapter was concerned. Unlike the usual approach to modern contract law, the Romans did not usually present the law in this area as depending on general principles. Instead, they viewed it as a law of multiple specific contracts, each with its own rules. Nonetheless, they are united by the idea of a contract being based on agreement. In medieval and modern law, this idea has been taken further, and there has been developed the idea that, in principle, any seriously intended agreement is legally binding, unless it is illegal, immoral or impossible, or that agreement is vitiated by some defect of consent.

Further Reading

G.3.88, 163-81

J.3.13; 3.29

D.4.2-3; 46.2-4

P Birks, The Roman Law of Obligations (E Descheemaeker ed, Oxford University

Press 2014) chapters 1 and 2

E Metzger ed, A Companion to Justinian’s Institutes (Duckworth 1998) 127-8, 172-4 A Watson, The Law of Obligations in the Later Roman Republic (Oxford University

Press 1965) chapter 13

R Zimmermann, The Law of Obligations: Roman Foundations of the Civilian Tradition (Oxford University Press 1996) chapters 1, 2 and 17-25