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MODES OF ACQUISITION OF CORPOREAL THINGS

Gaius and Justinian devote their main attention to the modes of acquisition of res corporales—the ways in which a thing may become mine.

They classify these as belonging either to the civil or to the natural law in the sense explained above.1 Traditio, for example, is a natural mode of acquisition, whereas mancipatio and in iure cessio are peculiarly Roman and are therefore civil modes. This classification is, however, difficult to justify in individual cases, and later commentators have usually adopted others, especially that into original and derivative modes. By a derivative mode one acquires from a previous owner, and there­fore, in theory at least, one proves one’s title by proving the title of one’s predecessor.[44] [45] By an original mode one acquires a title which is not dependent on any previous title. Either the thing has never before been owned (occupatio of a wild animal) or, if it has, the new ownership is proved without reference to the old. For example, if a cobbler soles my shoes, my title to the leather he has used depends not on his title to it (he may have stolen it), but on its having been incorporated in my shoe (accessio).[46] I prove my title by proving the incorporation.

We shall consider first the derivative modes and then the original, and within the latter we shall for convenience dis­tinguish prescription, which in the form of usucapio is civil, from the other modes which are all natural.

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Source: Nicholas Barry, Metzger Ernest. An Introduction to Roman Law. Oxford University Press,1976. — 317 p.. 1976

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