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Civil Law I (Roman Law) — University of Cambridge notes | caselaw

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Notes/University of Cambridge/Civil Law I (Roman Law)

Civil Law I (Roman Law)

Civil Law I (Roman Law) on the University of Cambridge Law Tripos (Part IA). The law of ancient Rome as the foundation of the civil-law tradition and a model for thinking rigorously about private-law concepts.

Sources of Roman law and the Institutes

Roman law begins with authority: who may make law, and how legal knowledge is organised.

Property and possession

Possession, ownership, and remedies reveal the Roman jurists’ distinctive architecture of private law.

Acquisition and transfer of ownership

Roman ownership is acquired through carefully differentiated acts, not through vague consensual transfer.

Obligations — contract (the Roman consensual contracts)

Consensus, good faith, and actional analysis in Rome’s four consensual contracts.

Delict — furtum and iniuria

Furtum and iniuria reveal Roman delict as penal, proprietary, and deeply status-sensitive.

Delict — the lex Aquilia

The Aquilian action turned physical damage to property into Rome’s central laboratory of fault.

Roman law and the modern civil-law tradition

Roman categories became Europe’s grammar of private law, but not its complete argument.

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