Sponsio
Of the three above-mentioned adpromissiones, sponsio was the oldest. It was characterized by the use of the word "spondere": "idem dari spondes?" "spondeo".[623] This "idem" that the surety promised would have been spelt out in the promise of the main debtor, which had been concluded beforehand.
We have already come across the institution of sponsio in a broader sense, signifying any stipulation (that is, not only a suretyship stipulation) in which the verb "spondere" was used.[624] Because of a lack of sources, the early history of sponsio stipulatio is somewhat obscure. It is an open question whether the law of contract evolved from suretyship (in that sponsio was at first used exclusively to accept liability for others, then made available for the debtor to stand surety for himself, and only in the end turned into a method of creating debt and liability in one and the same person, that is, of making ordinary promises;[625] sponsio in this broad sense would then possibly have emerged only after the time of the enactment of the XII Tables)[626] [627]—or whether, alternatively, sponsio was applicable, right from the beginning, for purposes other than suretyship.~ Any answer must take into consideration certain terminological factors (namely, that "spondere" means "to promise"—in the broad sense; the word "sponsor",[628] on the other hand, always seems to have been used for a person who promised for somebody else)[629] and it is further complicated by the uncertainty about whether sponsio stipulatio had always been one single transaction, or whether it constituted an amalgamation of what were once two different roots.[630] Be that as it may, for our purposes it is important to note that the sponsor was always liable for somebody else's debt; this is the characteristic difference from other sureties in the ancient law who, like vades and praedes, guaranteed the presence of the person of the wrongdoer/debtor or of the object in dispute in court ("Gestellungsburgen").[631] Sponsio continued to be used for suretyship purposes; by the time of the later Roman Republic it had become, together with the closely related fidepromissio, the only form in which a promise to stand surety could be cast.[632]2.
More on the topic Sponsio:
- The limitations of sponsio
- Sponsio and fidepromissio
- II SPONSIO, FIDEPROMISSIO AND FIDEIUSSIO
- Fidepromissio and the transition to fideiussio
- Verbal contracts (contractus verbis)were contracts that were created by the use of certain formal words (verbis solemnibus).
- 3 THE FORMAL CONTRACTS
- The Betrothal
- Relaxation of the word formalism
- SURETYSHIP
- Beneficium cedendarum actionum
- Basic types of error in Roman law
- 1. The classical principle of "Konsumptionskonkurrenz”
- Subject Index