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.

I.

In the Roman law. A kind of sale in the presence of five witnesses, accompanied with delivery of ■ possession or seisin; the purchaser taking the thing sold in his hand; the imaginary sale of a son in the ceremony of emancipation.

In Roman law. A certain ceremony or formal process anciently required to be performed, to perfect the sale or conveyance of res mancipi, (jand, houses, slaves, horses, or cattle.) The parties wera present, (vendor and vendee,) with five witnesses and a person called “tibripens,” who held a balance or seales. 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 stipnlated price. The ceremony of mancipatio was used, in later times, in one of the forms of making a will, The testator acted as vendor, and the heir (or familie emptor) as purchaser, the latter symbolically Guying the whole estate, or succession, of the former, The ceremony was also used by a father in maktng a lictitious sale of his son, which sale, when three times repeated, efiecluated the emancipation of the son.

1. Every father, in the Roman law, had such an authority over his son, that, before the son could be released from his subjection and made free, he must be twice sold and bought, his natural father being in the first instance the vendor. The vendee was called pater fiduciarius. After this fictitious bargain, the pater fiduciarius sold him again to his natural father, who could then, but not till then, manumit or make him free. The imaginary sale was called mancipatio; and the act of giving liberty, or setting him free, was called emancipatio. 2. The selling or alienating of certain lands by the balance or money paid by weight, and in the presence of five witnesses, was also called mancipatio. This mode of alienation took place only among Roman citizens, and that only in respect to certain estates situated in Italy, which were called mancipia. It was abolished by Justinian. Wharton.