''Rei vindicatio'' is a legal action by which the

plaintiff A plaintiff ( Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an ''action'') before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy. If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of the p ...

demands that the

defendant In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case. Terminology varies from one jurisdic ...

return a thing that belongs to the plaintiff. It may be used only when the plaintiff owns the thing, and the defendant has wrongly claimed or assumed possession of the same thing, and is currently impeding the plaintiff's possession of the thing. (reprinted in 1991) The term originated in

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...

. The plaintiff could also institute an ''actio furti'' (a personal action) to punish the defendant. If the thing could not be recovered, the plaintiff could claim damages from the defendant with the aid of the ''condictio furtiva'' (a personal action). With the aid of the ''actio legis Aquiliae'' (a personal action), the plaintiff could claim damages from the defendant. ''Rei vindicatio'' was derived from the

ius civile Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justin ...

, and therefore was available only to Roman citizens.

Specification of the thing

The function of ''rei vindicatio'' remains the same in most modern legal systems as it was in ancient Rome. However,

Roman law Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor J ...

was much more particular about the specification of the "thing". A plaintiff could not have won a case without specifying the thing in question. At a theoretical level, Roman

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...

s identified three kinds of "thing": * ''Corpus unitum'' * ''Corpus coniunctum'' * ''Corpus ex distantibus'' was not a single thing, but a bundle of independent things, such as a herd of cattle. Cattle were so important in Roman society that Roman jurists developed the regulation on cattle on a full scale. ''Corpus ex distantibus'' was the most disputed of the three.

Greek influence on Roman legal thought

Two law schools in Rome, the

Sabinian school The Sabinian school was one of the two important schools of Law in Rome during the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. The Sabinians took their name from Masurius Sabinus but later were known as ''Cassians'' after Sabinus' student, Cassius Longinus. Sabini ...

and the Proculian school, remained influential from the late

Republic A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...

throughout the classical period. Most modern Romanists consider these schools to be influenced to some extent by

Greek philosophy Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empir ...

. They say that the Sabinian school was the student of

Stoicism Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century Common Era, BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asser ...

, while the Proculian school followed

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

Peripateticism The Peripatetic school was a school of philosophy in Ancient Greece. Its teachings derived from its founder, Aristotle (384–322 BC), and ''peripatetic'' is an adjective ascribed to his followers. The school dates from around 335 BC when Aristo ...

. Greek influence is especially evident in classical Roman thinking on accession and specification. Sabinians, following Stoicism, argued that in these areas ''

hyle In philosophy, hyle (; from grc, ὕλη) refers to matter or stuff. It can also be the material cause underlying a change in Aristotelian philosophy. The Greeks originally had no word for matter in general, as opposed to raw material suitable ...

'' ‘substance’ supersedes ''

eidos Eidos may refer to: * Eidos (philosophy), a Greek term meaning "form" "essence", "type" or "species". See Plato's theory of forms and Aristotle's theory of universals * Eidos plc, a British software company, which created video game publisher Eido ...

'' ‘form’. Proculians countered that ''eidos'' is the decisive factor for a fate of a thing.

References

Roman law nl:Rei vindicatio {{Latin-legal-phrase-stub

Specification of the thing

Greek influence on Roman legal thought

See also

References