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(1) The urban communities of various kinds, small and great (civitates, municipia, coloniæ, vici), as well as their local governing boards (curiæ, decuriones).1

L. 7, § 2, D.

(iii. 4). L. 73, § 1, D. (xxi. 1).

2 L. 38, § 6, D. (xxxii. 3).

(2) Religious confraternities (collegia, templi). (3) Public functionaries, e.g. scribes, and L. 1, pr. D. other partly private and partly public officers. (4) Guilds of fellow-craftsmen, e.g. smiths, bakers, and mariners.3

(iii. 4). L. 5,

§ 12, D. (1.6)

(5) Friendly clubs, which often served religious and L. I, D. (xlvii. political objects, and were, therefore, jealously watched by the government.

22).

(6) Associations formed only for purposes of gain. L. 9, § 1, D. Such were the societies for farming the public. revenues, for working gold, silver, and salt mines,

(iv. 2).

and the like.

RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF CORPORATIONS.

The general rights of corporations in respect of ownership, possession, obligations, and actions were, in Justinian's time, the same as those of natural persons, except where the absence of the facts of family life and of the peculiar incidents of humanity (as birth, death, and marriage) destroyed the analogy between artificial and natural persons. With this exception, the differences between the rights and duties of corporations and those of natural persons were the following:

(1) In respect of usufruct, or the rights of using and taking the fruits of what was owned by another, the duraL. 56, D. (vii. tion of such a right was limited to one hundred

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(2) In the case of a township (civitas) making a contract. of loan, in which an equal quantity of things of the same kind and value is to be returned to the lender (mutuum), L. 27, D. (xii. the township is only bound so far as the loan is really to its advantage.

I).

L. 15, § 1, D. (iv. 3). L. 4, D. (xliii. 16). L.9,

§ 1, D. (iv. 2).

(3) A corporation could not be sued for fraud, but its individual directors could, and its corporate acts might be set aside on the ground of undue pressure exercised by it.

(4) Certain corporations had specially granted to them the right to succeed on an intestacy, and in priority to the public treasury, to the property of their

deceased members.

C. (vi. 61).

1 Ulp. (xxii. 5). L. um., § 1, D. (xxxviii. 3).

L. 12, C. (vi.

(5) The rights of corporations to enter on an inheritance, as heir, to take a legacy, and to benefit from a trust under a will (fideicommissum), were all generally recognized in Justinian's time, but it was only by gradual legislative efforts in imperial times that this had been fully brought about. Ulpian denied the right of towns to be heirs, except in the case of the property of their freedmen.1 The right was conceded to towns by the Emperor Leo I., in A.D. 469.2 Even in Justinian's time it would seem that the old general 24). rule of Hadrian's day was still in force, that a "collegium could only take an inheritance when specially privileged to do so."1 Nerva and Hadrian (A.D. 96-138) L. 8, C. (vi. permitted legacies to be made in favour of 24). towns, and Marcus Antoninus (A.D. 138-161) Ulp. (xxiv. extended the right to all legally constituted corporations. The validity of a trust under a will in favour of a town was first recognized by a senatus consultum (Apronianum) apparently passed in the time of Hadrian.4

2

28).

'L. 20, D. (xxxiv. 5).

Gaius (ii. 195). 4 Ulp. (xxii. 5). L. 26, 27, D. (xxxvi. 1).

INTERNAL ORGANIZATION OF CORPORATE BODIES

(Collegia).

The typical organization of bodies incorporated for purposes of self-government and of the conduct of external relations was a municipality. In a municipality L. 1, § 1, D. the government or representation of the whole (iii. 4). body was entrusted to the town councillors, two-thirds of whom must be present at the time of doing any corporate act, to which a majority of those present must assent. There was a corporate chest and corporate property; and the directors were represented in their litigation and other official acts by a

L. 2, 3, D. (1.9). L.46, C. (x. 31).

permanent agent (syndicus), or by one appointed for the particular occasion (actor). In the case of other corporate bodies, all the members shared equally in the government, or, at least, could by vote (within certain legal limits) make the internal constitution of the body what they pleased. This provision is said by Gaius to be a transcript of a law L. 4, D. (xlvii. of Solon's, of which he professes to translate the exact words.

22).

CREATION AND EXTINCTION OF CORPORATE BODIES.

16).

It would seem that three persons were sufficient and L. 85, D. (1. necessary number to constitute a corporate body, though, as has been already noticed, the corporation was not extinct, even though the number is subsequently reduced to one. A corporate body always. drew its existence directly from the act of the executive government, or of the legislature; though, when the purpose of a corporate body was not among those classed as illegal, or was among those classed as legal, the act of L. I, D. (iii. 4). authorization was presumed. Corporate bodies L. 3, § 1, D. came to an end by (1) the time for which they (xlvii. 22). Arndts, $ 44, were authorized running out; (2) withdrawal by the State of its authorization, whether express or implied; (3) the death or withdrawal of all its members; (4) a resolution of the members of the association.

obs. 4.

On the dissolution of a corporate body, it would seem that the destination of the property was fixed by the State —that is, by the executive government acting through the judicial authority in conformity with well-established principles-except in cases where the paramount object of the corporate body was pecuniary gain. In these cases it is probable that the members themselves fixed the destination of the property when it was by their will that the dissolution took place; and when they did not fix it, or when the dissolution took place against their will, an equitable distribution among the members was made by the judicial authority. Provisions for this distribution might be contained in the articles or "statutes" of the association.

§ 2.-Things.

One of the main purposes of law is to settle the competing claims of persons to portions of the material universe. These become "property," and the appropriation of them is the subject-matter of "contracts." In either case law is called upon to ascertain the rights of the parties; to prevent, by anticipation, the controversies. which might otherwise arise; or to determine them, by at judicial sentence, after they have arisen. Thus law has a main concern with these material objects or things, so far as they are susceptible of complete appropriation or even of momentary possession.

The rules of law which apply to different classes of things have in all countries grown partly out of the various physical nature and capabilities of the things themselves, and partly out of historical, political, and social accidents which have led to the thing being impressed with a special juridical character based upon the possibilities and modes of its being owned and transferred. Physical and juridical classes are seldom co-extensive; in other words, the limits of a class based on the physical features of things seldom correspond precisely with the limits of a class marked out by historical development or juridical symmetry; and therefore law has arbitrarily to determine what things do, and what do not, fall within the juridical class.

Before examining the chief classes into which things were distributed in Justinian's time, it must be noted that the word res, like the words sache and thing in German and English, had a wider meaning, besides the narrower and stricter meaning of a sensible and material object. There were "incorporeal" as well as "corporeal" things; incorporeal things including such groups of rights as are implied in an inheritance, an obligation, a right of using and taking the fruits (usufructus), a right of guardianship. Res or thing, in this sense, was only a L. 2, J. (ii. 2). convenient term to signify an integral group Ulp. (xix. 11). of rights which, for the moment, by the act of the imagination, are treated as consolidated into a material substance,

and as becoming objects of rights outside themselves. An inheritance, for instance, like the true corporeal things which enter into its composition, may be acquired, lost, or transferred, as may also an obligation and an usufruct, and thus the analogy between these composite rights and material things is not wholly forced and unnatural.

I. The broadest and the most important of all divisions of things was that between things susceptible of appropriation by private persons and things not so susceptible L. 6, D. (xviii. (in nostro patrimonio, in commercio, extra patri1). L. 1, § 2, monium nostrum, extra commercium). Things D. (xx. 3). which were not susceptible of appropriation by private persons were:

(1) Things common to every one (res communes), as air, flowing water, the open sea, and the sea-shore. These things were not appropriated even by the State, though the use of them, as, for instance, in case of building temporarily on the sea-shore, was regulated by

1 L. 14, 50, D. (xli. 1).

2

* L. 3, J. (ii. 1). law. The inland limit of the sea-shore was the highest line to which the tide reached in winter.2

(2) Things set aside for peculiarly solemn uses (res divini juris, res nullius). These things were, in fact, withdrawn from the general market and set apart by the State for sundry purposes recognized as of supreme importance, whether of a practical or purely sentimental kind. These things were subdivided into i. "sacred," ii. "religious," and iii. "sanctified" (sanctæ).

(i.) "Sacred" things were things which had been publicly and solemnly devoted to the service of God, as churches, offerings, and vessels used in divine worship. They could neither be owned, possessed, alienated, hypothecated, or pledged even by the ministers of religion, except in case of extreme necessity, as for the redemption of captives.1 Ecclesiastical property, that is, property vested in the Church, was not included among sacred things, though it could only be alienated and mortgaged with special formalities.2

1 L. 8, J. (ii. 1). L. 30, § 1, D. (xli. 2) L. 9

D. (xli. 3). L. 21, C. (i. 2).

Nov. (cxx. 10).

2 L. 14, 17, C. (i. 2).

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