Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 2 1913.djvu/117

Rh land and chattels, as is found in English law, never existed with the Romans either as to transfer of ownership between the living or in succession to the dead. A distinction between movables and immovables is found in some matters, e.g. a title to the former being secured by acquisition on lawful grounds in good faith and uninterrupted possession by the holder and his predecessor in title for three years, whereas title to the latter required like acquisition and ten years' uninterrupted possession if claimant lived in the same province as the possessor, or twenty years when he lived in a different province. Further protection in some cases was given by an additional twenty years' possession: and claims of the Church were by a law of 535 good against one hundred years' adverse possession; but in 541 the period was reduced to forty years.

Rights in things, as distinguished from ownership, were called and were of two classes, according as the benefit of them was attached to persons or to immovables. The principal case of the former was usufruct, i.e. the right of use and enjoyment of profits, corresponding in its main incidents to life tenure. A man might have a usufruct in lands or houses or slaves or herds and even in consumables. Security had to be given to the owner for reasonable treatment and restoration in specie or equivalent at the expiry of the usufruct, which was lost not only by death but also by loss of civic status: it could not be transferred to another person. Minor rights of similar character are bare use and habitation.

The second class of servitudes corresponds to English "easements." They were limited rights, appurtenant to certain praedia whether farms in the country or houses in towns. They secured to the occupier a limited control over neighbouring houses or lands, which was necessary or at least suitable for the proper use of the dominant farm or house to which they were servient. Rights of way, of leading water, of pasturing cattle, are instances of country servitudes: rights of light and prospect and carrying off water are instances of urban servitudes. They were created usually by grant and were lost by non-user for a period of two years, which was raised by Justinian to ten or twenty years.

i.e. plantation. The practice grew up in imperial times of tracts of country, in many cases waste land, being held by tenants at a fixed rent (usually called canon, vectigal, pensio) on the terms that so long as the rent was duly paid the tenant should not be disturbed and could transmit the land to his heirs or sell or pledge it. The owners were usually the State or the Emperor (who had a private domain) or country towns in Italy or in the provinces. The lawyers doubted whether to treat this contract as sale or lease. Zeno, about 480, decreed that it should be regarded as distinct from both, and rest upon the written agreement between lord and tenant. By Justinian's edicts the tenant had to pay without demand the public taxes and produce the receipts and pay the canon to the lord, who for three (or in