Res Nec Mancipi
idea · 2 works · 2 mentions · 3 anchored passages
res nec mancipi · things not mancipable · things which did not require a Mancipation
in the texts
Institutes of Roman Law
The Roman law category of things whose ownership passes by mere tradition.
Things not mancipable include wild beasts, as bears, lions;
This informal mode of alienation did not, like mancipatio, in jure cessio, and usucapio, belong to Jus Civile, but to Jus Gentium, § 65;
Complete ownership in things not mancipable is transferred by merely informal delivery of possession (tradition), if they are corporeal and capable of delivery.
Ancient Law
The lesser Roman property class transferable by simple delivery, which gradually absorbed the favored class.
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;
The Res Mancipi, however, did certainly at first enjoy a precedence over the Res Nec Mancipi, as did heritable property in Scotland, and realty in England, over the personalty to which they were opposed.
The distinction between Res Mancipi and Res Nec Mancipi is the type of a class of distinctions to which civilisation is much indebted, distinctions which run through the whole mass of commodities, placing a few of them in a class by themselves, and relegating the others to a lower category.