Manus Injectio

In order to understand the proceedings in bonorum emptio, or execution against the entire property of an insolvent debtor, the principal mode of execution at the time when Gaius wrote, we must study the earlier mode of execution by manus injectio, or process against the body of the debtor, which was one of the old legis actiones regulated by the Twelve Tables, 4 §§ 21-25, and which was the model o …

In the early law the only general form of execution was personal (manus injectio), and when the praetor established a form of real execution it operated, whether at the instance of one, or of several creditors, as a transfer of the debtor’s entire property to the vendee.

(1) As manus injectio might be founded on a previous judgment or an admission of debt (res judicata or aes confessum), and missio in possessionem might be granted against judicatus who makes default, so in English law non-payment of an admitted or a judgment debt after service of a debtor’s summons is an act of bankruptcy, and instead of suing out a writ of execution the creditor may petition for …

The Manus Injectio is expressly stated to have been originally the Roman mode of execution against the person of a judgment debtor.