Definition of Cessio Bonorum

In Roman law. Cession of goods. A surrender, relinquishment or assignment of all his property and effects made by an insolvent debtor for the benefit of his creditors. The effect of this voluntary action on the debtor's part was to secure him against imprisonment or any bodily punishment, and from infamy, and to cancel his debts to the extent of the property ceded. It much resembled our voluntary bankruptcy or assignment for creditors. The term is commonly employed In modern continental jurisprudence to designate a bankrupt's assignment of property to be distributed among his creditors, and is used in the same sense by some English and American writers, but here rather as a cenvenient than as a strictly technical term. See 2 Bl. Comm. 473; 1 Kent, Co.min.247, 422; Ersk. Inst. 4, 3, 26.