View source for Rei vindicatio

{{short description|Legal action; demand by the plaintiff that the defendant return their property}}
{{no footnotes|date=November 2013}}
[[File:Florence,_Biblioteca_Medicea_Laurenziana_Ms_Littera_Florentina_(Codex_Florentinus)_fol._112v-113r_Pandects_excerpt.jpg|thumb|[[Digest (Roman law)|Digest]] excerpt about the [[rei vindicatio]] compiling the opinions of the [[Ulpian]] and [[Julius Paulus|Paulus]] from the 6th-century [[Littera Florentina]].]]
In [[Roman law]], '''{{lang|la|rei vindicatio}}''' ({{ety|la||claim of the subject}}) was a [[legal action]] by which the [[plaintiff]] demands that the [[defendant]] return a thing that belongs to the plaintiff. It may be used only when the plaintiff [[Ownership|owns]] the thing, and the defendant has wrongly claimed or assumed [[Possession (law)|possession]] of the same thing, and is currently impeding the plaintiff's possession of the thing.<ref>{{cite book |last=Berger|first=Adolf |author-link= |title=Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law|volume=43 (Part 2)|publisher=The American Philosophical Society |location=Philadelphia|year=1953|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=oR0LAAAAIAAJ&dq=The+victorious+plaintiff+regained+possession+of+the+object+claimed&pg=PA672 672] |language=en|isbn=0-87169-435-2 |oclc=873814450}}  (reprinted in 1991)</ref> 

The plaintiff could also institute an {{lang|la|[[actio furti]]}} (a personal action) to punish the defendant. If the thing could not be recovered, the plaintiff could claim damages from the defendant with the aid of the {{lang|la|condictio furtiva}} (a personal action). With the aid of the {{lang|la|actio legis Aquiliae}} (a personal action), the plaintiff could claim damages from the defendant.

The term originated in [[ancient Roman law]]. It was derived from the {{lang|la|[[roman law#Ius Civile, Ius Gentium, and Ius Naturale|ius civile]]}}, and therefore was available only to [[Roman citizenship|Roman citizens]].

==Specification of the thing==
The function of ''rei vindicatio'' remains the same in most modern legal systems as it was in ancient Rome.  However, [[Roman law]] was much more particular about the specification of the "thing".  A plaintiff could not have won a case without specifying the thing in question.

At a theoretical level, Roman [[jurist]]s identified three kinds of "thing":
* ''Corpus unitum''
* ''Corpus coniunctum''
* ''Corpus ex distantibus'' was not a single thing, but a bundle of independent things, such as a herd of cattle.  Cattle were so important in Roman society that Roman jurists developed the regulation on cattle on a full scale. ''Corpus ex distantibus'' was the most disputed of the three.

==Greek influence on Roman legal thought==
Two law schools in Rome, the [[Sabinian school]] and the [[Proculian school]], remained influential from the late [[Roman Republic|Republic]] throughout the [[classical antiquity|classical]] period.  Most modern [[wikt:Romanist#Noun|Romanist]]s consider these schools to be influenced to some extent by [[Greek philosophy]].  They say that the Sabinian school was the student of [[Stoicism]], while the Proculian school followed [[Aristotle]] or [[Peripateticism]].  Greek influence is especially evident in classical Roman thinking on accession and specification.  Sabinians, following Stoicism, argued that in these areas ''[[hyle]]'' ‘substance’ supersedes ''[[Theory of forms|eidos]]'' ‘form’. Proculians countered that ''eidos'' is the decisive factor for a fate of a thing.

==See also==
* [[Replevin]]
* [[Trover]]
* [[Detinue]]
* [[Conversion (law)]]
* [[Bailment]]
* [[In rem]]
* [[Bona fide purchaser]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Roman law]]
{{Italic title}}
[[nl:Rei vindicatio]]


{{AncientRome-law-stub}}
{{Latin-legal-phrase-stub}}