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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §29.7.19.pr

Effects of Codicils After Childbirth or Misconception

Passage 4595 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

This section discusses the validity of codicils and the scope of the obligation to pay bequests when another self-successor is born after a codicil was written to one son, or when a father writes codicils mistakenly believing one of his two surviving sons had predeceased him.

[MARCELLUS libro quarto decimo digestorum. ] §29.7.19.prIs qui unum filium habebat, cum codicillos ad eum scripsisset, decessit intestatus herede eo et quem postea procreauit.
[MARCELLUS, in his fourteenth book of Digests.] A person who had one son, having written codicils addressed to him, died intestate, leaving as his heirs that son and another whom he had subsequently begotten.
adgnatione sui heredis nemo dixerit codicillos euanuisse: igitur si nihil tum de postumis sperauit, et codicilli non euanescent et quae relicta sunt, pro parte dimidia filius, ad quem codicillus factus est, soluere compellitur, non etiam postumus.
No one would say that the codicils became void by the birth of a self-successor: therefore, even if he then expected nothing in regard to posthumous children, the codicils will not become void, and the son to whom the codicil was addressed is compelled to pay half of what was left, but not the posthumous child.
sed et si codicillos reliquisset duobus superstitibus filiis decedens, cum putaret alterum ex his prius decessisse, simili modo dici potest omnia perinde debere filium, ad quem scripti sunt codicilli, atque si solus heres exstitisset patri.
But also if, on his death, he had left codicils, having two surviving sons, while thinking that one of them had died before him, it can be said in like manner that the son to whom the codicils were written owes everything just as if he had emerged as the sole heir to his father.
immo dumtaxat partem debet: eorum tamen, quae pro parte praestari non possunt, nihil eorum praestandum, quoniam illi non fuerit filio ablaturus, nisi solum putaret successorem sibi futurum.
Nay, he owes only his share: however, of those things which cannot be performed in part, none of them must be performed, since he would not have taken them away from that son, unless he thought that he would be his sole successor.

Notes

  1. 29.7.19.prherede eo et quem postea procreauit — A nominal ablative absolute structure with herede, where eo and the relative clause quem postea procreauit (with its antecedent omitted) function as the subjects: 'with him and the one he afterwards begot as heirs.'
  2. 29.7.19.prdixerit — Third-person singular perfect active subjunctive, used in a potential sense to mean 'no one would say.'
  3. 29.7.19.prfuerit ... ablaturus — An active periphrastic conjugation (future participle ablaturus + esse) in the perfect subjunctive. Because it is inside the subordinate quoniam clause, a past contrary-to-fact apodosis ('he would not have taken away') is shifted into the perfect subjunctive. The phrase illi filio is a dative of separation or disadvantage depending on the idea of taking away in ablaturus.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §29.7.19.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:29.7.19.pr

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