Ancient Law - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition ancient-law

Definition :

Ancient law, uniformly refuse to dispense with a single gesture, however, grotesque, with a single syllable, however its meaning may have been forgotton; with a single witness, however superfluous may be his testimony. The entire soleminises must be scrupulously completed by persons legally entitled to take part in them, or else the conveyance is null, and the seller is re-established in the rights of which he had vainly attempted to divest himself. Henry S. Maine, Ancient Law, 225-26 (17th Edn. 1901).

Ancient law, is the law of antiquity, considered esp. either from an anthropological standpoint or from the standpoint of tracing procedure to modern law, Black Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 85.