Mancipatio

Lat. In Roman law. A certain ceremony or formal process anciently required to be performed, to perfect the sale or conveyance of res mancipi, (land, houses, slaves, horses or cattle.) The parties were present, (vendor and vendee,) with five witnesses and a person calied "libripens," who held a balance or scales. A set form of words was repeated on either side, indicative of transfer of ownership, and certain prescribed gestures performed, and the vendee then struck the scales with a piece of copper, thereby symbolizing the payment or weighing out, of the stipulated price. The ceremony of mancipatio was used, in later times, in one of the forms of making a wlll. The testator acted as vendor, and the heir (or familiœ emptor) as purchaser, the latter symbolically buying the whole estate or succession, of the former. The ceremony was also used by a father in making a fictitious sale of his son, which sale, when three times repeated, effectuated the emancipation of the son.