CHAPTER XIII.

PRESCRIPTION.

CCLI. The second mode of Original Acquisition is effected by the operation of time, by what English and French jurists term Prescription (a). In order to arrive at any solution of this difficult question which may be at all satisfactory, it is necessary to make some observations upon the place which Prescription occupies in the systems both of Private and Public Law, as introductory to the consideration of the place occupied by the same doctrine in the system of International Jurisprudence.

First, as to Private Law. In all systems of private jurisprudence, the lapse of time has a considerable bearing upon the question of property (b). There is, according to all such systems, a period when a de facto becomes a de jure ownership, when possession becomes property. The nature of man, the reason of the thing, the very existence of society, demand that such should be the case. The Roman Law does but give expression to this paramount necessity in the maxim, " Vetus

(a) Grotius, 1. ii. c. iv.

Puffendorf, Jus. Nat. et Gent. 1. iv. c. xii.

Wolff, Jus. Nat. p. iii. c. vii.

Vattel, 1. i. c. xvi. s. 199; 1. ii. c. xi. ss. 140, 151.

(b) Grotius indeed says that usucapio is the creature of the Civil Law, because nothing is done by time, though everything is done in time; but this seems an unworthy subtlety, and is inconsistent with other passages in his work.

"Le Temps, qui renferme en soi l'idée de la durée, de la répétition et de la succession des phénomènes, un des agents de modification, de destruction et de génération pour les choses physiques, restera-t-il sans influence sur la modification, sur la destruction et sur la génération des droits?"-Domaine internat., par E. Ortolan, p. 98.

"tas quæ semper pro lege tenetur" (c). The doctrine of Usucapio exhibits the first trace of this mode of acquisition in Roman Jurisprudence (d). According to this doctrine, the possessor, justo titulo et bona fide, during two years of land, and during one year of movables, which had not previously belonged to him, acquired a property in it or them. This institution was originally confined to the prædia Italica and to the Roman citizen; but the Prætor extended it to the fundi provinciales, and to the peregrinus, under the appellation of præscriptio longi temporis. Justinian, who destroyed the distinction between civil and natural property, took also away the distinction between fundi Italici and provinciales, blended together the usucapio and the præscriptio, and conferred not only a right of possession but of .property on the person who had possessed movables for three, and immovables for ten years inter præsentes, or twenty inter absentes, provided that the subject-matter had been capable of usucapio or præscriptio, and there had been justus titulus and bona fides (e). He also added another species of Prescriptive Acquisition, the Præscriptio xxx vel xl annorum. This longissimi temporis

(c) Dig. xxxix. t. iii. 2: see also xliii. t. vii. 3.

Dig. xliii. t. xx. 3, 4: "Ductus aquæ cujus origo memoriam excessit, jure constituti loco habetur.

(d) Which the Germans call Ersitzung. In the XII. Tables it bore the name of ususauctoritas, i.e. usus et auctoritas.

Puchta, Instit. ii. s. 240.

Savigny, R. R. iv. s. 195.

Savigny, Recht des Besitzes, Abschnitt i. s. 2.

Instit. ii. 6, de usucapionibus et longi temporis præscriptionibus.

Dig. xli. t. iii. de usurpationibus et de usucapionibus.-Code vii. t. 31, de usucapione transformanda et de sublata differentia rerum mancipi et nec mancipi.-33, de præscriptione longi temporis decem vel viginti annorum. -34, in quibus causis cessat longi temporis præscriptio.-35, quibus non objicitur longi temporis præscriptio.-38, ne rei dominicæ vel templorum vindicatio temporis præscriptione submoveatur.-39, de præscriptione xxx vel xl annorum.

(e) "Par là cessent les différences entre la propriété civile et la propriété naturelle entre l'usucapion, cette patronne de l'Italie, et la prescription, cette patronne du genre humain."-Troplong, p. 139.

Cod. C., De Usucapione transformanda.

possessio, as it was afterwards called, did not confer property on the possessor or take it away from the proprietor, but it furnished the possessor with a defence against all claimants, and that though there had been no justus titulus. Besides these classes of Prescription measured by a definite time, was the indefinite class, Immemorial Prescription (immemoriale tempus, possessio vel præscriptio immemorialis), which was called adminiculum juris quo quis tuetur possessionem, quæ memoriam hominum excedit (ƒ).

This kind of Prescription was available when the origin of the possession was incapable of proof-when nobody could recollect that it had belonged to another person. Such a Prescription might have for its object things incapable of being otherwise acquired, though not such things as were by nature res communes. It is mentioned, however, with reference to only three heads of what may be called public law -namely, 1. With reference to public ways (viæ publicæ, private, vicinales). 2. To a right of protection from the rainwater (aquæ pluvia arcendæ). 3. The right relating to watercourses (ductus aquæ (g) ).

CCLII. The passages in the Roman Law (h) show that the doctrine of Immemorial Prescription was applicable only to those few cases in which either a right of a public character, or an exemption from the obligation of such a right, was to be acquired. It is not surprising, therefore, that the doctrine. should have occupied a very subordinate place in Roman jurisprudence, or, the reason of the thing being considered, that it should during the Middle Ages have risen into an institute of continual use and of the highest importance.

(f) "The possession necessary to constitute a title by prescription must be uninterrupted and peaceable, both according to the Law of England, the Civil Law, and those of France, Normandy, and Jersey."— Benest v. Pipon, 1 Knapp Privy Council Reports, p. 60.

(g) See note (c).

"Scævola respondit solere eos, qui juri dicundo præsunt, tueri ductus aquæ quibus auctoritatem vetustatis daret, tametsi jus non probaretur.”— Dig. xxxix. t. iii. 26.

(h) Savigny, R. R. iv. s. 198.

In the first two of the three instances specified in the Digest, Immemorial Prescription appears, on examination, to be unconnected with the fact of actual possession, but in the last to be necessarily bound up with it; and this condition is treated as indispensable in later jurisprudence.

CCLIII. The Canon Law (i) contains two remarkable instances of the application of Immemorial Prescription. In the year 1209 a Papal Legate forbade the Count of Toulouse the exercise of certain regal privileges with respect to the imposition of taxes. The Pope, at the request of the Count, declared that the prohibition extended only to the taxes arbitrarily imposed, and not to those which were equitable; under which class were to be reckoned those which had been permitted by the Emperor, the King, or the Lateran Council, and also those "vel ex antiqua consuetudine, a "tempore cujus non exstat memoria, introducta" (j). The second passage relates to the case of a bishop, who claimed a Prescriptive Right to the tithes and churches within the see of another bishop. It has been seen that, according

(i) Savigny, R. R. iv. s. 198.

Eichhorn, Kirchenrecht, b. vii. c. vii. iv.: "Verjährung gegen die Kirche."

Suarez, de Leg. 1. viii. c. xxxv. s. 21. More than 100 years, however, were held necessary to establish a prescription against the Church of Rome: 1. ii. t. xiii. c. ii., t. vi.

The distinction between "Usucapio" and "Præscriptio" is thus stated by one of the most eminent of modern canonists, Schmalzgrüber (Jus Canonicum, vol. ii. p. 321). He says:

"Distinctio propria et primaria" is1. Usucapio is cause.

2. Præscriptio is effect.

"Distinctio ordinaria" is

1. "Usucapio" concerns res corporales" and requires actual

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possession, veram possessionem."

2. "Præscriptio" does not, but is content with quasi possessio.

The use of the phrase "præscriptum est obligationi" implies opposition to a former proprietor.

Præscripta est servitus, præscripsi rem

legitimate acquisition."

(j) x. lib. v. t. 40, c. 26, de V. S.

implies no more than

to the Roman Law, a possession for three, ten, or twenty years with, or for thirty without, a title, furnished the possessor with a defence on the ground of præscriptio or usucapio against any private claimant. Churches were, generally speaking, privileged against any Prescription less than forty years; but that Prescription against the Church did not require a title provided there were a bona fides. In the case of the bishop, however, this Prescription of forty years, it was said, would not avail, because it was contrary to the Common Law: "ubi tamen est ei jus commune contrarium "vel habetur præsumptio contra ipsum, bona fides non sufficit: "sed est necessarius titulus, qui possessori causam tribuat præscribendi : nisi tanti temporis allegetur præscriptio, cujus "contrarii memoria non existat” (k).

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CCLIV. The tendency and spirit of modern legislation and jurisprudence has been to substitute, in Private Law, a short definite period of time in lieu of Immemorial Prescription.

In England, the "time of memory" was, at a very early period of her history, ascertained by the law to commence from the reign of a particular monarch; for though a custom was said to be good when it had been used "time out of "mind," or "for a time whereof the memory of man runneth "not to the contrary," the phrase referred to a fixed epoch, namely, that the custom was in use before the beginning of the reign of Richard I. Recent legislation has introduced a Prescription limited by a specific number of years, which it has substituted for the doctrine of immemorial usage (7.)

(k) The whole passage in the sixth book of the Decretals is as follows: Episcopum, qui ecclesias et decimas, quas ab eo repetis, proponit, licet in tua sint constitutæ diœcesi, se legitime præscripsisse, adlegare oportet, cum jus commune contra ipsum faciat, hujusmodi præscriptionis titulum et probare; nam licet ei qui rem præscribit ecclesiasticam, si sibi non est contrarium jus commune, vel contra eam præsumtio non habeatur, sufficiat bona fides; ubi tamen," &c.-L. ii. t. 13, cap. 1. De Præscript. in VIto.

(1) Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, b. 2, c. iii.