§12.] THE LAW OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. [CHAP. II. CHAPTER II. THE IDEA OF A CORPORATION IN THE COMMON LAW. 1 Relation of the common to the Ro- man law, § 10. Coke's idea of a corporation, §§ 11- 13. Blackstone's idea of a corporation, §§ 14, 15. Perpetual succession, § 16. Capacity to sue and use a seal, § 17. Capacity to hold lands, § 18. Capacity to make by-laws, § 19. Dissolution, § 20. Doctrine that a corporation is a per- son, §§ 21, 22. Classification of Corporations, §§ 22a -22/. § 10. The early common law of corporations was largely Relation of k° rrowe( l from the Roman law. 2 In the Roman the com- system, however, there are not to be found the fan- mon to the . . . . Roman tastic structures ot split hairs, with which the com- mon lawyers, aided by the philosophers of the schools delighted to adorn their system of jurisprudence. The " myste- rious," "intangible," "invisible," "immortal," though "soul- less " qualities of corporations are the creatures of the common law. § 11. In Coke on Littleton and Coke's Reports, the common law is embodied as in no other volumes. It is, there- of°a corpo- fore, in the main, Coke's conception of a corporation ration. which is given in this chapter, the modifications and developments of later authorities being briefly noted. § 12. " A body politic," says Coke, " is a body to take in suc- cession, framed (as to that capacity) by policy, and therefore it is called by Littleton a body politic ; and it is called a corpora- tion or a body incorporate, because the persons are made into a body, and of a capacity to take and grant, etc." 3 1 See Case of Sutton's Hospital, 10 Rep. 1 ; Comyn's Digest, Title " Franchise; " Coke on Lit., Thom- as's Ed., Book I. chap. xiii. ; Viner's Rolle's and Bacon's Abridgments, Title "Corporation ; " Kyd on Cor- porations, Introduction ; Black- stone's Com., Book I. chap, xviii.; 2 Kent's Com., Lecture xxxiii. ; Angell and Ames on Corporations, Introduction and chaps, i., ii., and iii. 2 E. g., the passage in Bracton, f. 7, concerning the ownership of public buildings is quoted from the Ins. of Justinian, ii. 1, § 6. 8 Co. Litt., 250 a.
