HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD Donna illu med. LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK THE INSTITUTES OF ROMAN LAW BY RUDOLPH SOHM PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG Translated (FROM THE Ffourth editION OF THE GERMAN) BY JAMES CRAWFORD LEDLIE, B.C.L., M.A. OF THE MIDdle templE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW AND OF LINCOLN COLLEge, oxford WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY ERWIN GRUEBER, DR. JUR., M.A. OF BALLIOL COLLEGE READER IN ROMAN LAW IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS Library of L. D. Evans 3-931 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE IN translating Professor Sohm's Treatise on Roman Law I have been obliged to follow an arrangement, and to avail myself of expressions, to which, in some instances, English readers, not familiar with the terminology and methods of exposition in use among German jurists, will perhaps be inclined to take exception. Such a phrase as 'obligatory right,' or 'petitory action,' or 'heir by necessity,' will strike them as no less strange than the arrangement which treats of the law of procedure under the heading of the law of property. But where the object is to produce a close and faithful translation, the order of the original must, I conceive, be strictly adhered to; and where phrases such as 'Forderungsrecht,' 'petitorische Klage,' 'Noterbe,' occur, for which we have no equivalent at all, or, at any rate, no recognised rendering, translations must be found which, if they are to be accurate, must of necessity be more or less unfamiliar. And this unfamiliarity will not be without its advantages if it saves the student from erroneously importing into a German treatise the ideas associated with some of the commoner terms of English jurisprudence. I have to express my thanks to Sir William Markby and Mr. E. A. Whittuck for many useful suggestions made during the progress of the translation. J. C. L. |