2. The definition of iniuria
Down to the days of the Dutch and German usus modernus we therefore find iniuria, in terms of the actio iniuriarum, defined in the special sense of contumelia: "Hoc loco et in specie denotat [sc: iniuria] contumeliam a contemnendo", wrote Lauterbach[5553] and he added the following German equivalents: l'Eine Schmach, Verleumdung, Ehrenrührige, verkleinertiche Wort und Werck." Some authors hied to be more specific; thus, for instance, Voet described iniuria as a wrongful act committed in contempt of a free man by another who thereby with evil intention impairs either his person, his dignity or his reputation ("...
delictum in contemptum hominis liberi admissum, quo ejus corpus, vel dignitas, vel fama laeditur dolo malo").[5554] Availing themselves of a distinction dating back to Labeo,[5555] most writers stated that iniuria may be committed by acts or words ("aut re aut verbis"). Iniuria litteris ("quae fit verbis contumeliosis in scripturam redactis")[5556] was either added as a third category[5557] or subsumed under either iniuria realis or (more often) iniuria verbalis.[5558] A specific form of iniuria litteris, the libellus famosus, was often[5559] treated as a separate kind of delict.[5560] Voet, suggesting a somewhat fanciful[5561]" analogy between obligations arising from iniuria and those arising from contract, added a fourth class of iniuriae quae consensu inferuntur.[5562] Others simply appended a general, salvatory clause (iniuria committitur facto, vel verbo, vel scriptura, "vel aliis multis modis").[5563] Many of the examples provided in 13th- to 17th-century literature for each of these two, or three, or four modes of committing iniuria were still the ones[5564] discussed in title 10 of Digest 47: convicium facere and barbam dimittere as much as, for instance, comitem abducere or matronam honestam adsectari.[5565]3.
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- 1. Iniuria in the XII Tables
- 1. The definition of D. 47, 2,1, 3
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