Ancient Law - Law Dictionary Search Results
Home Dictionary Name: ancient lawAncient law
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....
Civil Law
Civil Law, that rule of action which every particular nation, commonwealth, or city has established peculiarly for itself, more properly distinguished by the name of municipal law.The term 'civil law' is now chiefly applied to that which the Romans complied from the laws of nature and nations.The 'Roman Law'and the 'Civil Law' are convertible phrases, meaning the same system of jurisprudence; it is now frequently denominated 'the Roman Civil Law.'The collections of Roman Civil Law, before its reformation in the sixth century of the Christian era by the eastern Emperor Justinian, were the following:--(1) Leges Regi'. These laws were for the most part promulgated by Romulus, Numa Pompilius and Servius Tullius. To Romulus are ascribed the formation of a constitutional government, and the imposition of a fine, instead of death, for crimes; Numa Pompilius composed the laws relating to religion and divine worship, and abated the rigour of subsisting laws; and Servius Tullius, the sixth king,...
Nature, law of
Nature, law of, certain rules of conduct supposed to be so just that thy are binding upon all mankind. See NATIONS, LAW OF; and consult Maine's Ancient Law....
Ancient demesne
Ancient demesne, a tenure now abolished by s. 128 of the (English) L. P. Act, 1922 (12 & 13 Geo. 5, c. 16), see COPYHOLDS, but formerly existing in certain manors, which, though now granted to private persons, were in the actual possession of the Crown in the times of Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror, and appear to have been so by the great survey in the Exchequer called Domesday Book, and, therefore, whether lands are ancient demesne or not, is to be tried only by this book, called in consequence Liber Judicatorius; but the question must be tried by a jury whether lands be parcel of a manor which is ancient demesne, being a question of fact. There is great confusion in the books respecting this tenure. It is only the freeholders of the manor who are truly tenants in ancient demesne, and land held in ancient demesne, passes by common law conveyance without the instrumentality of the lord. The copyholders is an ancient demesne manor are merely to be considered as occupying...
Institutions
Institutions. It was the object of Justinian to comprise in his Code and Digest, or Pandects, a complete body of law. But these works were not adapted to the purposes of elementary instruction, and the writings of the ancient jurists were no longer allowed to have any authority, except so far as they had been incorporated in the digest, Smith's Dict. of Antiq. It was therefore necessary to prepare an elementary treatise, and the Institutes were published a month before the Pandects, A.D. 533, and designed as an elementary introduction to legal study (legum cunabula). The work was divided into four books, subdivided into titles.The Institutes are the elements of the Roman Law, and were composed at the command of the Emperor Justinian, by Trebonian, Dorotheus, and The ophilus, who took them from the writings of the ancient lawyers, and chiefly from those of Gaius especially from his Institutes and his books called Aureorum (i.e., of important matters).The Institutes are divided into four...
Vavasor
Vavasor. The first name of dignity, next beneath a peer, was anciently that of vidames, vice domini, or valvasors: who are mentioned by our ancient lawyers as viri magn' dignitatis; and Sir Edward Coke speaks highly of them. Yet they are now quite out of use; and our legal antiquaries are not agreed upon even their original or ancient office (1 Bl. Com. 403). And see Comden's Brit.; Reeves, c. 5, p. 26.The vassal or tenant of a baron, one who held under a baron and also had subtenants, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn....
Common Law
Common Law [lex communis, Lat.]. 'The phrase 'common law' is used in two very different senses. It is cometimes contrasted with equity; it then denotes the law which, prior to the Judicature Act, was administered in the three ' superior ' Courts of law at Westminster, as distinct from that administered by the Court of Chancery at Lincoln's Inn. At other times it is used in contradistinction to the statute law, and then denotes the unwritten law, whether legal or equitable in its origin, which does not derive its authority from any express declaration of the will of the Legislature. This unwritten law has the same force and effect as the statute law. It depends for its authority upon the recognition given by our Law Courts to principles, customs, and rules of conduct previously existing among the people. This recognition was formerly enshrined in the memory of legal practitioners and suitors in the Courts; it is now recorded in the voluminous series of our law reports which embody the d...
Bracton
Bracton, the author of the Latin treatise entitled De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angli'. He lived at the latter end of the reign of Henry the Third. Bracton's book, compared with that of Glanville, is a voluminous work. It is divided into five books, and these into tracts and chapters. See 2 Reeves' Hist. c. viii. 86, note (a), for an analysis of the several divisions of the chapters and a complete digest of the contents of this venerable code. The rules of property are explained; the proceedings in actions, through the minutest steps, are investigated and developed; while every proposition is supported by fair deduction, or corroborated by the authority of some adjudged case, so that the reader never fails in deriving instruction or amusement from the study of this scientific treatise on our ancient laws and customs. Bracton was deservedly looked up to as the first source of legal knowledge, even down to the time of Sir Edward Coke, who seems to have made this author his guide in all ...
canon law
canon law : a body of religious law governing the conduct of members of a particular faith ;esp : the codified church law of the Roman Catholic Church NOTE: Common law has been influenced by canon law in the areas of marriage and inheritance. Roman Catholic canon law, like the civil law, has been modeled on ancient Roman law. The source for Roman Catholic canon law is the Code of Canon Law. The Rudder (Pedalion) is a source for Greek Orthodox canon law. Jewish canon law is contained in the Talmud. ...
Roman law
Roman law : the legal system of the ancient Romans that includes written and unwritten law, is based on the traditional law and legislation of the assemblies, resolves of the senate, enactments of the emperors, edicts of the praetors, writings of the jurisconsults, and the codes of the later emperors, and that is the basis for much of the modern civil law systems ...
- << Prev.
- Next >>
Sign-up to get more results
Unlock complete result pages and premium legal research features.
Start Free Trial