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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §11.1.1.pr-11.1.1.1

Interrogations on Inheritance Shares and Their Disuse

Passage 1747 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

The text explains the necessity of interrogating an heir in court regarding their share of inheritance when a specific claim is made in a personal action, and notes how this interrogatory action later fell into disuse, being replaced by voluntary statements made before the judges.

[CALLISTRATUS libro secundo edicti monitorii. ] §11.1.1.prTotiens heres in iure interrogandus est, qua ex parte heres sit, quotiens aduersus eum actio instituitur et dubitat actor, qua ex parte is, cum quo agere uelit, heres sit.
[CALLISTRATUS, from the second book of the Admonitory Edict.] An heir must be interrogated in court as to the share for which he is an heir, as often as an action is instituted against him and the plaintiff is in doubt as to what share the person with whom he wishes to bring the action is an heir.
est autem interrogatio tunc necessaria, cum in personam sit actio et ita, si certum petetur, ne, dum ignoret actor, qua ex parte aduersarius defuncto heres exstiterit, interdum plus petendo aliquid damni sentiat.
However, interrogation is necessary when the action is in personam, and that only if a specific thing is claimed, lest the plaintiff, while ignorant of the share for which his adversary has become heir to the deceased, should sometimes suffer some loss by claiming more.
§11.1.1.1Interrogatoriis autem actionibus hodie non utimur, quia nemo cogitur ante iudicium de suo iure aliquid respondere, ideoque minus frequentantur et in desuetudinem abierunt.
But today we do not use interrogatory actions, because no one is compelled to answer anything concerning his own right before trial, and therefore they are less frequently used and have fallen into disuse.
sed tantummodo ad probationes litigatoribus sufficiunt ea, quae ab aduersa parte expressa fuerint apud iudices uel in hereditatibus uel in aliis rebus, quae in causis uertuntur.
Instead, those things which have been expressed by the opposing party before the judges, whether in inheritances or in other matters involved in the lawsuits, are alone sufficient for the litigants for the purpose of proof.

Notes

  1. §11.1.1.prdefuncto — Dative case, modifying *heres exstiterit*, meaning "became heir to the deceased." While one might expect a genitive *defuncti*, Latin idiomatically uses the dative with *heres* to denote the person to whom one succeeds.
  2. §11.1.1.prplus petendo — Ablative of the gerund expressing means, meaning "by claiming more" (making an over-claim, *pluris petitio*). In classical Roman law, a plaintiff who sued for more than what was actually due lost the entire case and forfeited their claim, which is the "loss" (*aliquid damni*) referred to here.
  3. §11.1.1.1Interrogatoriis actionibus — Ablative case, functioning as the object of the verb *utimur* (first-person plural of *utor*, "to use"). Certain verbs like *utor* and *fruor* take their object in the ablative instead of the accusative.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §11.1.1.pr-11.1.1.1. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:11.1.1.pr-11.1.1.1

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