Page 59 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn
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MEDIEVAL IUS COMMUNE
sales of land and a prejudiced seller.102
Since in Justinianic Roman law the remedy based on C. 4.44.2 was limited to
sellers of immovables and the aedilician remedies and the remedies under the sales contract to movables, these remedies did not encroach extensively upon another's field of application. After all, C. 4.44.2 only applied to sellers of land, whereas the aedilician and civil remedies applied only to buyers of defective things or encumbered or impaired land, as seen in the previous sections. A constitution in the Codex Theodosianus even discards the possibility to rescind on the grounds of lesion beyond moiety altogether.103
Neither are there signs that the remedy for lesion beyond moiety competed with the remedies for latent defects or vice-versa in early-medieval doctrine. In anticipation to this book's investigation into early modern Spanish law and scholasticism the following paragraphs discuss the legal situation in medieval Spain.
The Lex Romana Visigothorum or Breviarium Alarici, a compilation of Roman law promulgated by the Visigoth king Alaric II (reigned: 484-507), contains a constitution from the Codex Theodosianus stating that
'it does not behove to break the faith of a sale made without the violence of deceit. Neither can a contract concluded without any fraud be disturbed by the clamour of litigation because of a suit solely based on the thing's lesser price.'104
Thus, not only is the scope of the remedy for lesion beyond moiety limited to sellers. It is discarded altogether. Combined with the fact that in another provision of the Breviarium only a limited number of defects in slaves and cattle give grounds for a claim to have the paid price returned,105 it appears that remedies for latent defects present the only
102 That a lesion beyond moiety did not constitute dolus in classical Roman law is defended by Wacke, 'Circumscribere', pp. 195-196.
103 CT 3.1.1.
104 Lex Romana Visigothorum, 3.1.1, p. 72 (= CT 3.1.1): 'Imp. Constantinus A. ad profuturum Pf.
annonae. Venditionis atque emtionis fidem, nulla circumscriptionis violentia facta, rumpi minime decet. Nec enim sola pretii vilioris querela contractus sine ulla culpa celebratus litigioso strepitu turbandus est. Interpretatio: quum inter ementem et vendentem res fuerit definito pretio comparata, quamvis plus valeat, quam ad praesens venditur, hoc tantummodo requirendum est, si nihil fraudis vel violentiae egit ille, qui comparasse probatur. Et si voluerit revocare, qui vendidit, nullatenus permittatur'; the Lex Romana Visigothorum was also in force in early-medieval France. Hänel, Lex Romana Visigothorum, xci; on this law see also Mayer-Maly, 'Pactum, Tausch und laesio enormis', p. 228ff.
105 Lex Romana Visigothorum, 3.4.1, p. 76 (= CT 3.4.1): 'Imppp. Valentinianus, Theodosius et Arcadius AAA. Nebridio Pf. U.: Habito semel bonae fidei contractu mancipioque suscepto et pretio dissoluto, ita demum repetendi pretii potestas est ei, qui mancipium comparaverit, largienda, si illud quod dixerit fugitivum, potuerit exhibere. Hoc enim non solum in barbaris... Dat. III. Kal. Iul. Constantinopoli,
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