Chapter Summary

The main verbal contract was stipulatio, which was one of the oldest forms of contract. Its requirements were very formal and, especially in earlier law, very strict: the contract was constituted by question and answer, using particular verbs.

Further Reading

G.3.92-127

J.3.15-19

D.45

C.8.37

P Birks, The Roman Law of Obligations (E Descheemaeker ed, Oxford University Press 2014) chapter 4

G MacCormack, ‘The Oral and Written Stipulation in the Institutes’ in P G

Stein and A D E Lewis eds, Studies in Justinian’s Institutes in Memory of J A C Thomas (Sweet and Maxwell 1983)

E Metzger ed, A Companion to Justinian’s Institutes (Duckworth 1998) 134-48

B Nicholas, ‘The Form of the Stipulation in Roman Law’ (1953) 69 LQR 63 and 233

A Watson, The Law of Obligations in the Later Roman Republic (Oxford University

Press 1965) chapter 1

R Zimmermann, The Law of Obligations: Roman Foundations of the Civilian Tradition (Oxford University Press 1996) chapter 3