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transferred. It is quite probable that this change in the Roman law was made to con form to the feudal notions about livery of seizin. Among the rude and ignorant people of that age, visible formalities were deemed of greater importance than among the more refined and better educated Ro mans; and as among the English at that early day contracts were not usually in writing, something was necessary to give notoriety to the fact of the transfer of title to property, and hence the formality of delivery, or livery of seizin, was adopted in the transfer of feudal lands, and by analogy given to the transfer of all property. The idea of delivery seems to be required more as a proof of the contract than as a material part of it; for by the giving of arrka, or reducing the contract to writing, the common law dispensed with delivery, and cut off the locus poznitentia, and thereby conformed to the civil law. The giving of arrha (earnest money) was often used in the civil law to evidence a sale, but was not at all necessary to its comple tion; and we are told in the Institutes," Quod arrhae nomine datur, argumentum est emptionis et venditionis contractae." And Bracton, in treating of the effect of arrha (or arra, as he spells it) says : " Quod arrarum nomine datum est, argumentum est emptionis et venditionis contractae " (fol. 61), — almost the same words. After all, then, it would appear that delivery was required by the common law more as an evidence of a sale than as being a portion of the contract itself, because when other sufficient evidence of the sale (as arrlia, or writing) was present, delivery was dispensed .with, and the law thus conformed entirely with the civil law. It will also be further noted that in the sale of things by tale, the common law as laid down by Brac ton was identical with the civil law. The language and expressions used by Bracton in treating this subject are singularly similar to or nearly identical with those of the Pan dects and Institutes. There is also another peculiarity about the law of sales as defined by Bracton, which tends strongly to show

that the legal principles of sales were derived from the Roman law, and were not merely accidental similarities; that is, that the parties may agree that a certain person may fix the price of the thing sold, and that unless he fixes the price, or if he will not, or is unable, there will be no sale, because there is no price fixed. Such is the Roman law; and the language used by Bracton is so similar to that of the Institutes that one cannot but think it was copied. And again Bracton tells us that where earnest (array is given, if the vendee rues the bargain he forfeits the ear nest, and if the vendor rues he must pay the vendee double the earnest he has received. This is precisely the case under the civil law. Bracton says that the thing sold is at the risk of the seller until delivery, and after delivery at the risk of the buyer, because the thing belongs to the seller until delivered, and to the buyer afterwards; and that any advantage or increase in the thing before delivery belongs to the seller, because " commodum ejus esse debebit, cujus est periculum." Such is the Roman law, and such the reasons for it, with this difference, — that in the Roman law the sale is sometimes com plete before delivery, and the thing sold is in the ownership of the vendee, when under the same circumstances it would by common law be in the ownership of the vendor; but the principle of " Res perit domino " is equally applicable to both. He also tells us that where the vendor sells a thing as sound (" tanquam sanam") and without damage, and it is afterwards discovered that it is damaged or less sound, and was so at the time of sale, the vendor must take back the thing. Here "tanquam sanam" does not imply any promise or warranty of soundness, but only a failure to disclose the fault, and obtaining a fair price. The principle of " caveat emptor" did not seem to prevail in English law in Bracton's time to any great extent, although he says that a vendee is bound to " know the quality of the thing he buys," whether it is sacred or not sacred, obligata or not obligata. Still, when any one has sold a sacred thing