this was not done the bishops should take the matter in hand by appointing administrators, the heirs or legatees after such default not being allowed to interfere. The other charitable purposes specially mentioned are houses for aged persons or infants, orphanages, poor-hospitals, and redemption of captives. The bishops are to inspect and if necessary discharge the administrators, bearing in mind the fear of the great God and the fearful day of eternal judgment. All profits from the endowment belong from the first to the charity. Delay after admonition by the bishops made the heirs or legatees who were charged with the charity, liable for double the endowment. Annuities for clergy, monks, nuns, or other charitable bodies were not to be commuted for a single sum, lest it should be spent and the claims of the future be disregarded. The property of the testator was mortgaged for the annuity, unless an agreement was made in writing and duly recorded for setting aside an inalienable rent, larger than the annuity by at least one-fourth and not subject to heavy public dues. If the bishops were slack, possibly being corrupted by the heirs, or others, the metropolitan or archbishop was authorised to interfere, or any citizen might bring an action on the statute and demand the fulfilment of the charity.
If, in order to avoid the Falcidian Law, a testator leaving all his property for the redemption of captives, appoints captives to be his heirs, Justinian (531) directed such an appointment to be good and not void for uncertainty. The bishop and church-manager (oeconomus) of the testator's domicile had to take up the inheritance without any gain for themselves or the Church. Similar appointments of poor as heirs are valid, and fall, if left uncertain by testator, to the poor-house of the place, or if there are several such to the poorest, or if there be none such, the funds are to be distributed to poor beggars or others in the place.
Property. The. distinctions, which existed under the early Roman Law between land in Italy and land in the provinces with a form of conveyance (mancipatio[1]) applicable to the former and not to the latter, disappeared before Justinian. Under him full ownership in all land, wherever situate, was conveyed by delivery actual or symbolical, in accordance with agreement, or at least with the transferor's intention to part with the property. And the same applied to all other corporal objects. Such a distinction between real and personal property, between
- ↑ Mancipation was thus: The parties meet in the presence of no less than five witnesses, all Roman citizens of the age of puberty or upwards. An additional witness called libripens, "balance-weigher," holds a bronze balance. The acquirer or purchaser holds a piece of bronze as a symbol of the price, and seizing the thing to be acquired, for instance, a slave, or clod (as symbol of land), asserts it to be his by the law of the Quirites, strikes the balance with the bronze and hands it to the other party or vendor.
