[AFRICANUS libro septimo quaestionum. ] §41.1.40.prQuaesitum est, si is, cui liber homo bona fide seruiret, decesserit eique is heres extiterit, qui liberum eum esse sciat, an aliquid per eum adquirat.
[AFRICANUS, from Questions, book 7] The question was asked whether, if a person whom a free man was serving in good faith should die, and someone who knows that he is free should succeed him as heir, the heir acquires anything through him.
non esse ait, ut hic bona fide possessor uideatur, quando sciens liberum possidere coeperit, quia et si fundum suum quis legauerit, heres, qui eum legatum esse sciat, procul dubio fructus ex eo suos non faciet: et multo magis si testator eum alienum bona fide emptum possedit.
He said that it is not the case that this person is regarded as a bona fide possessor, since he began to possess him knowing that he was free; for even if someone should bequeath his own land, an heir who knows that it has been bequeathed will without doubt not make the fruits from it his own; and much less so if the testator possessed someone else's land which he had bought in good faith.
et circa seruorum igitur operam ac ministerium eandem rationem sequendam, ut, siue proprii siue alieni uel legati uel manumissi testamento fuerint, nihil per eos heredibus, qui modo eorum id non ignorarent, adquiratur.
Therefore, the same reasoning must be followed regarding the labor and service of slaves, so that, whether they were their own or someone else's, or were bequeathed or manumitted by will, nothing is acquired through them for heirs, provided that they were not ignorant of this fact.
etenim simul haec fere cedere, ut, quo casu fructus praediorum consumptos suos faciat bona fide possessor, eodem per seruum ex opera et ex re ipsius ei adquiratur.
For indeed, these two things generally go together, so that in the same case in which a bona fide possessor makes consumed fruits of estates his own, in the same case acquisition is made for him through a slave from the slave's labor and from his own property.