PREFACE

The following pages are an attempt to find out what Roman lawyers thought about juristic Personality, about the right of corporations and other entities to own property and bring law-suits.

This right was certainly extended from individuals to towns and voluntary associations, and perhaps further. But the Romans did not theorise about it, and their ideas must be deduced partly from their language, and more from the rules laid down in law books and the practice we find in literary records and inscriptions. A final chapter discusses whether the ancient Roman law of Personality has any lessons for the present day.

The modern books I used most in writing the first draft, fourteen years ago, were Mitteis, Römisches Privatrecht, Saleilles, De la Personnalite juridique, Mommsen, De Collegiis et Sodaliciis Romanorum, and Waltzing, Les Corporations professionnelles chez les Romains. It would be impertinent for me to praise any of them, but it must be said that if I seem to differ from these authorities more often than I agree with them, that is because I never differ from them without trying to justify myself, whereas I constantly accept their doctrines without mentioning their names.

A more recent work of great value and importance is Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Geschichte der juristischen Person, vol. i, 1933. This book is much longer than mine and differently arranged, but vol. 1, the only one yet published, corresponds roughly to my chapters 1, iv and v. There are very few points on which I have changed my mind after reading Schnorr von Carolsfeld; for the most part we have come independently to the same conclusions; but he has collected and presented a vast mass of fresh evidence. The labour of sifting such a multitude of authorities must have been very arduous; and it is none the less valuable because it tends to confirm established opinions rather than to upset them.

A book I did not come across till after mine was in proof is G. Krüger, Die Rechtstellung der vorkonstanti- nischen Kirchen., 1935.

I cannot accept the author’s view that Christian congregations were lawful and authorised as collegia cultorum, not funeraticia, as early as the second century; but her extensive quotations from the Church Fathers show that the episcopal administration we find under Justinian was already well developed before the time of Constantine. Some interesting general observations, especially on the Western forerunners of the Byzantine charities, may also be found in “Les institutions d’assistance dans la société romano-byzantine du iv* siècle à Justinien”, by P. Laborderie-Boulou, in Revue Generale du Droit, de la Legislation et de la ’Jurisprudence en France et à Petranger, vol. lix, 1935.

Greek and Egyptian law are outside my scope. I should have liked to follow up the pioneer work of San Nicolò, Ägyptisches Vereinswesen, but decided it would take me too far afield. Consequently I cite very few papyri, and those. For guidine me to them I have to thank Dr H. I. Bell.

Much space has been saved by not recording that a text has been suspected of interpolation unless the suspicion seemed reasonable and the interpolation substantial.

Thanks are due to many friends for their assistance, and especially to Professor W. W. Buckland, who originally suggested the subject, read the book both in manuscript and in proof, and has for fifteen years given me constant help and encouragement; to Professor L. Wenger, who read the work as it was in 1925 and made many valuable comments; to His Honour Judge Dowdall, who gave me some references for the word persona·, and to Mr F. H. Lawson, Dr D. Daube and Dr K. Lipstein, who have helped me on particular points or told me of books and articles I might otherwise have missed.

P.W.D.

CAMBRIDGE

March 1938

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Source: Duff Patrick William. Personality in Roman Private Law. Augustus M. Kelley,1938. — 250 p.. 1938

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PREFACE

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