Mancipation

The Roman Mancipation required the presence first of all the parties, the vendor and vendee, or we should perhaps rather say, if we are to use modern legal language, the grantor and grantee.

The key to all its characteristics lies in its descent from the mancipium, or ancient Roman conveyance, a proceeding to which we may unhesitatingly assign the parentage of two great institutions without which modern society can scarcely be supposed capable of holding together, the Contract and the Will.

Such commodities were at first, I imagine, called emphatically Things or Property, and the mode of conveyance by which they were transferred was called a Mancipium or Mancipation;

And we first treat of acquisition by will.

quod testamentum dicitur per aes et libram, scilicet quia per mancipationem peragitur.

Unde et si is qui in potestate patris est familiae emptor adhibitus sit, pater eius testis esse non potest;

Although, as we know the Mancipation in Roman legal history, it is a form of private transfer, it plainly bears the stamp of its original publicity.

The legal notions which I described as decaying and dwindling have always been regarded as belonging to what may be called the osseous structure of jurisprudence;