Institutes of Roman Law. Gaius
within the appointed period (cretio), 2 § 164; neither of which persons were said to undergo capitis minutio, because neither of them suffered a reduction of the universitas juris called status.
On the whole, then, Savigny seems justified in considering the definition given by Paulus and his statement respecting the children of adrogatus as inexact. Paulus himself, in speaking of emancipation, implies the true conditions of capitis minutio: Dig. 4, 5, 3 Emancipato filio et ceteris personis capitis minutio manifesto accidit, cum emancipari nemo possit nisi in imaginariam servilem causam deductus; aliter atque cum servus manumittitur, quia servile caput nullum jus habet ideoque nec minui potest.
Although rupture of the ties, and forfeiture of the rights, or release from the duties, of agnation, were not the essence of capitis minutio minima, yet they were among its principal consequences. The capite minutus lost his claim as suus heres at civil law, that is, his right to succeed to an intestate ascendent, or to be instituted heir in his will or formally disinherited. These effects of capitis minutio were, however, counteracted to some extent by jus praetorium or the legislation of the praetor (bonorum possessio unde liberi: and contra tabulas). He also lost his right as legitimus heres at civil law, that is, his right to succeed as nearest agnate to an intestate collateral; and here the praetor only so far interposed to assist the capite minutus, as, in default of all persons entitled as nearest agnates, to call him to the succession in the inferior order of cognates (bonorum possessio unde cognati). The collateral civil heir was called legitimus heres (statutory heir) because his title was founded on the statutes of the Twelve Tables, which, in default of self-successors, called the nearest collateral agnates to the succession. Subsequent statutes created certain quasi agnates or persons entitled to succeed in the same order as if they were agnates, who hence were also called legitimi heredes; e. g. children entitled to succeed to an intestate mother under the Sc. Orphitianum, and mothers entitled to succeed to intestate children under the Sc. Tertullianum. The effect of capitis minutio in extinguishing title to succeed was confined to legitimus heres created by the Twelve Tables, and did not extend to the legitimus heres created by these subsequent statutes.
Besides the effects of capitis minutio which followed logically from its consisting in a degradation or fall in status, and from its involving elimination from a given family or a certain circle of agnates, it had certain other abnormal or arbitrary consequences—consequences, that is, which may have once been explicable on known maxims of the civil law, but which are now inexplicable, whose rationale had perhaps been lost even in the classical period, and is certainly now past conjecture. Such is the rule, that capitis minutio minima of an independent person extinguished the debts of capite minutus. It is true that the injustice operated by this rule of civil law in the case of adrogatio was counteracted by the interposition of the praetor, but, as at civil law filiusfamilias, though incapable of rights, was capable of obligations, it is not obvious why even at civil law a man’s debts should have been cancelled by his degradation from the status of paterfamilias to that of filiusfamilias. 3 § 84, comm.; 4 § 38.
DE LEGITIMA PATRONORVM TVTELA.
§ 165. The same statute of the Twelve Tables assigns the guardianship of freedwomen and of freedmen below the age of puberty to the patron and the patron’s children, and this guardianship, like that of agnates, is called statutory guardianship, not that it is anywhere expressly enacted in the Twelve Tables, but because the interpretation has procured for it as much reception as it would have obtained from express enactment; for the fact that the statute gave the succession of a freedman or freedwoman, when they die intestate, to the patron and patron’s children, was deemed by the lawyers of the republic (veteres) a proof that it intended to give them the guardianship also, because the Tables, when they call agnates to succeed to the inheritance, likewise confer on them the guardianship.
§ 166. The analogy of the patron guardian led in its turn to the establishment of other guardianships also called statutory. Thus when a person mancipates to another, on condition of remancipation to himself, either a son or grandson through a son, who are below the age of puberty, or a daughter or granddaughter through a son of whatever age they may be, he becomes their statutory guardian when he manumits them after remancipation.
§ 166 a. CONCERNING FIDUCIARY GUARDIANSHIP. But there are other kinds of guardianship, called fiduciary, which arise when a free person has been mancipated by his parent or coemptionator to an alienee and manumitted by the latter.
§ 167. The guardianship of Latins, male or female, below the age of puberty, does not necessarily belong to their manumitter, but on whoever before manumission was their quiritary owner. Accordingly, a female slave belonging to you as quiritary owner, to me as bonitary owner, if manumitted by me without your joining in the manumission, becomes a Latin, and her property belongs to me, but her guardianship to you, by the enactment of the lex Junia. If the slave is made a Latin by one who combines the character of bonitary and quiritary owner, both her effects, and the guardianship of her, belong to one and the same person.
§ 164 a. As in default of agnates the inheritance by the law of the Twelve Tables devolved on the gens it may be inferred by the reasoning adopted in § 165 that the guardianship passed to it also. So it is probable that at the beginning of the lacuna Gaius made mention of the statutory guardianship of the Gentiles, and that this is the passage on the subject referred to in 3, 17. As to the nature of the gens, see Introduction.
§ 166 a. Cf. §§ 115, 175, 195 a.
§ 167. It seems anomalous that a Latin, i.e. a non-civis, should have been a subject of wardship: for as tutela is an institute of jus civile (§§ 142, comm., 189), i.e. jus civium, we should have expected that, as in the case of patria potestas, both pater and filius must be cives Romani, § 128, so here both parties, the ward as well as the guardian, must of necessity be cives Romani. The anomaly, however, was expressly enacted by the lex Junia: which further departed from the law of the Twelve Tables by separating the guardianship from the right of succession; for it gave the guardianship to the person who before the manumission had been quiritary owner, but the right of succession to the person who had previously been bonitary owner. Latinus was not only capable of being a ward, but also of being a guardian, Fragmenta Vaticana, 193; that is, though he was incapable of being a testamentary guardian, § 23, he could, it would seem, be made a tutor dativus, that is, appointed by a magistrate, § 185.
DE CESSICIA TVTELA.
§ 168. Statutory guardians, whether agnates or patrons, and manumitters of free persons, are permitted to transfer the guardianship of a female ward by surrender before a magistrate; the guardianship of a male ward is not allowed to be transferred, because it is not considered onerous, being terminated by the ward’s attaining the age of puberty.
§ 169. The surrenderee of a guardianship is called a cessionary guardian.
§ 170. On his death or loss of status the guardianship reverts to the surrenderor, and on the surrenderor’s death or loss of status it is devested from the cessionary and reverts to the person entitled after the surrenderor.
§ 171. As far, however, as agnates are concerned, in the present day there is no such thing as cessionary guardianship, for agnatic guardianship over female wards was abolished by the lex Claudia.
§ 172. Fiduciary guardians, according to some, are also disabled from transferring their guardianship, having voluntarily undertaken the burden; but although this is the better opinion, yet a parent who has mancipated a daughter, granddaughter, or great-granddaughter, with a condition of remancipation to himself, and manumitted her after remancipation, should be excepted from the rule, for he is ranked with statutory guardians, and has the same privilege as the patron of a manumitted slave.
§ 168. In later Roman law, when the interest of the ward and not that of the agnates was principally regarded, guardianship became inalienable. Similarly in English jurisprudence guardianship is said not to be capable of assignment or transfer, because it is not a right but a duty.