Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 2 1913.djvu/124

96 common chest, could manumit their slaves and take legacies and inheritances. They usually acted through a manager; their resolutions required a majority of the quorum, which was two-thirds of the whole number of councillors (decuriones). They are said corpus habere, "to be a body corporate."

Other associations for burials or for religious or charitable purposes, often combined with social festivities, were allowed to exist with statutes of their own making, if not contrary to the general law. But without express permission they could not have full corporate rights. Guilds or unions of the members of a trade, as bakers, are found with various privileges. Such authorised societies or clubs were often called collegia or sodalitates. They were modelled more or less on civic corporations: Marcus Aurelius first granted them permission to manumit there slaves.

The large companies for farming the taxes (publicani) or working gold or silver mines had the rights of a corporation, but probably not so far as to exclude individual liability for the debts, if the common chest did not suffice.

differs from the three other contracts, which are based on simple agreement. There are no reciprocal services and no remuneration or common profits. It is gratuitous agency: not the agency of a paid man of business; that would come under the head of hiring. Nor is it like the agency of a slave; that is the use of a chattel by its owner. It is the agency of a friend whose good faith, as well as his credit, is at stake in the matter. The mandatee is liable to the mandator for due performance of the commission he had undertaken, and the mandator is liable to him only for the reimbursement of his expenses in the conduct of the matter.

Similar agency but unauthorised, without any contract, was not uncommon at Rome, when a friend took it upon himself to manage some business for another in the latter's absence and thereby saved him from some loss or even gained him some advantage. The swift process of the law courts in early days seems to have produced and justified friendly interference by third parties, which required and received legal recognition. The person whose affairs had thus been handled had a claim upon the interferer for anything thereby gained, and for compensation for any loss occasioned by such perhaps really ill-advised action or for negligence in the conduct of the business, and was liable to reimburse him for expenses, and relieve him of other burdens he might have incurred on the absentee's behalf. Such actions were said to be negotiorum gestorum, "for business done."

But in Rome the usual agent was a slave; for anything acquired by him was thereby ipso facto acquired for his master, and for any debt incurred by him his master was liable up to the amount of his slave's peculium; and if the business in question was really for the master's account or done on his order the master was liable in full. And though