Hamreditas Jacens

In the civil law. A vacant inheritance. So long as no one had acquired the inheritance, if was termed “Aereditas jacens;” and this, by a legal fiction, represented the person of the decedent. Mackeld. Rom. Law, § 737. The estate of a person deceased, where the owner left no heirs or legatee to take it, culled also “caduca;” an escheated estate. Cod. 10, 10, 1; 4 Kent, Comm. 425.

In English law. Anestate in abeyance; that is, atter Lhe ancestor’s death, and before assumption of heir. Co. Litt. 3426. An inheritance without legal owner, and therefore open to the first occupant. 2 BI. Comm. 259. H#REDITAS LUCTUOSA, In the civil law. A sad or mournful inheritance or succession; as that of a parent to the estate of a child, which was regarded as disturbing the natural order of mortality, (turbate ordine mortalitatis.) Cod. 6, 25,9; 4 Kent, Comm. 397. Heereditas nihil aliud est, quam successio in universum jus, quod defunctus habuerit. The right of inheritance is nothing else than the faculty of succeeding to all the rights of the deceased. Jig. 50, 17, 62. Hereditas nunquam ascendit. An inheritanee never ascends. Glanv. lib. 7, ¢. 1; 2 Bl.Comm,. 211. A maxim of feudal origin, and which invariably prevailed in the law of England down to the passage of the statute 3&4 Wm. IV. c. 106, § 6, by which it was abrogated. 1 Stepl.Comm. 378. See Broom, Max, 527, 528. Heredum appellatione veniunt heredes heredum in infinitum. By the title