Roman Private Law

2026/2027

Учебный год

ENG

Обучение ведется на английском языке

8

Кредиты

Кто читает:

Кафедра гражданского права (Санкт-Петербург) (Юридический факультет (Санкт-Петербург))

Статус:

Курс обязательный

Когда читается:

2-й курс, 1-3 модуль

Преподаватели

Закревский Александр Васильевич

Саргсян Анна Мурадовна

Тузов Даниил Олегович

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This discipline is implemented for the Higher School of Economics - Saint Petersburg OP "Jurisprudence". To master the discipline, the student must first study the following subjects: - "History of Law and the State of foreign countries": this discipline is important for understanding the place of Roman law in global legal development, as well as in terms of the relationship of Roman private law with Roman public law, which is not covered by this discipline; - "Theory of Law and State": This discipline is necessary for a preliminary understanding of the main legal concepts and institutions that the student will encounter while studying this discipline. As a result of mastering the discipline, students must: 1) know: - the system of sources of Roman law and the characteristic features of each of their types; - the role and significance of Roman jurisprudence; - basic legal constructions, definitions, and classifications of Roman private law; - main trends in the evolution of various institutions and phenomena of Roman private law; - fundamentals of Roman civil procedure and its role in the development of Roman private law; - fundamentals of the Roman law of persons; - basic teachings on legal acts; - Roman property law and the doctrine of possession and its protection; - Roman law of obligations, certain types of obligations; - fundamentals of Roman family law; - fundamentals of Roman inheritance law; - Roman legal terminology in Russian and Latin; 2) be able to: - explain the reasons and features of the creation of a universal legal system in ancient Rome, useful for use in conditions of developed property turnover; - identify the impact of Roman private law on legal systems and individual private law institutions and norms of various States; - give a description of the institutions of Roman private law; - work with sources of Roman law; - explain the methods used by Roman lawyers in the course of their work, the ways they analyze specific life situations; 3) have the following skills: - solving incidents. - interpretation of sources of Roman law; - use of Latin legal terms. This discipline belongs to the basic part of the professional cycle of training students in the direction of "Law "(Bachelor's degree). The main provisions of the discipline should be used in the future when studying the following disciplines of the private law cycle: - Civil law of the Russian Federation; - Civil Procedure law of the Russian Federation; - Business law of the Russian Federation; - Family law of the Russian Federation; - Labor law of the Russian Federation; - Private international law of the Russian Federation; - Comparative private law.

Learning Objectives

• • gain knowledge of Roman private law and its world-historical significance; • mastering legal phenomena, institutions of Roman private law, its conceptual framework, classifications of legal phenomena; • acquisition of skills in working with sources of Roman private law and romanistic literature; • develop the ability to offer legal solutions to social and economic problems, identify the advantages and disadvantages of management decisions from a legal point of view, and find legal ways to prevent the occurrence of problematic situations. Studying the discipline of veslma is important for developing these skills, since it is the example of Roman classical lawyers that is most indicative in this regard; • formation of the necessary base for mastering the skills of drafting legal (judicial, law enforcement) acts, preparing procedural documents, and compiling analytical documents.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Knows the concept of Roman private law, understands the meaning and purpose of its study. It is oriented in the system of Roman private law. Knows the periodization of Roman law and the characteristics of individual periods, is able to apply periodization in solving specific cases, dating them in accordance with the periodization and making appropriate conclusions relevant to the case.
• Knows the concept and types of sources of Roman law, understands the differences between them. He knows the peculiarities of the sources of law in different periods of Roman history and their conditionality by social, political, economic and cultural processes that took place in ancient Roman society.
• He knows the history of Justinian's codification of Roman law and its significance for modern law. Understands the generally accepted system of citation of Roman sources and is able to refer to them using this system.
• He knows the history of the formation of jurisdictional protection of rights and various historical forms of Roman civil procedure. Understands the essence and consequences of dividing the process into two stages in the legislative and formal process. Knows the types of claims and understands the differences between them.
• Knows the structural elements of the claim formula and understands the meaning of each of them, as well as the conditionality of the formula structure by the specific type of claim.
• Knows the concept of legal facts and their individual varieties, is guided in their system. Knows the types of acts (transactions) and understands the reasons for their classification and features of individual types. Knows the concept of the transaction content and its individual elements.
• Can practically qualify a particular element (condition) as essential, common, or random. Understands the practical implications of this classification.
• Knows the concept of invalidity of a legal act and the modern difference between nullity and disputability. Understands the specifics of the Roman system of invalidity of transactions, due to the interaction of civil and praetorian law. Knows the Roman doctrine of delusion and its effect on the strength of a deal.
• Knows the characteristics of individual actiones adiecticiae qualitatis and the differences between them. Understands the essence of the institution of representation and its features in Roman law, the meaning of the difference between direct and indirect representation. Knows when a particular construction was used in Roman law and what it was related to
• Knows the concept of things and their various classifications, understands the legal meaning of the latter. Knows the concept of property law and its difference from the law of obligations. Knows the concept of ownership, the grounds and conditions for its acquisition and loss. Navigates a variety of ownership situations. Understands the essence and meaning of legal ownership protection as a fact and the need for it
• Knows the concept of property rights, its difference from other property rights and from ownership. Understands the meaning of distinguishing between certain types (forms) of ownership. Knows what elements make up the content of the property right, and is able to distinguish the powers of ownership, use, and disposal from actual ownership, use, and disposal
• Knows the concept of the method of acquiring property rights and various types of methods. Understands the difference between derivatives and the original methods, as well as the essence of the principle of succession. Knows the individual ways of acquiring property rights, is able to determine in which practical situation which method will take place. Knows the concept of acquisition limitation, understands its meaning and scope in Roman law.
• Knows the concept and types of limited property rights (rights to someone else's thing), understands their connection with property rights. Understands the essence and distinctive features of certain limited real rights of use – predial easements, usufruct and similar real rights, superficies, rights of long-term hereditary lease of public land and emphyteusis, knows the procedure for their establishment, termination and protection.
• Knows the concept and principles of collateral and mortgages, as well as related institutions. In the event of competition between creditors, he is able to practically determine the procedure for foreclosure on pledged property and distribute the amount received from its sale among pledged and other creditors by applying the priority principle.
• Knows the concept and structure of the obligation and is able to distinguish the obligation from real and other absolute legal relations. It is guided by the system of sources (grounds) for the occurrence of obligations. Knows the essence of the distinction between civil and natural obligations, understands the legal significance of the latter.
• Knows the concept of the subject of an obligation and different types of obligations depending on the specifics of its subject: dare, facere and non-facere obligations; alternative and optional obligations; obligations with an individually defined subject and with a subject defined by generic characteristics.
• Understands the practical significance of assigning an obligation to a particular type. Knows the concept and types of obligations with a plurality of persons, understands the difference between shared and solidary obligations. Knows the principles of fulfilling obligations.
• Knows the concept and basis of liability for non-performance of obligations, criteria for imputation, the concept of guilt and its forms, the concept and consequences of delay of the debtor in performance and the creditor in accepting performance.
• Knows the grounds for termination of obligations and the specifics of each of them. Knows the mechanism of assignment of obligations( assignment of the right of claim), understands the formation and historical development of the institution.
• Knows the concept and system of contractual obligations, and has an idea of their history. Understands the meaning of distinguishing between verbal, literal, real and consensual contracts and obligations. Knows the concept and history of stipulation, understands the variety of its functions in Roman contractual practice, including its use for setting interest on loans, contractual penalty (fine), as well as for creating a plurality of persons in the obligation.
• Knows the concept of a stipulative guarantee and understands the mechanism of its security action. Has a general understanding of literal contracts and obligations
• Knows the concept and types of real contracts and obligations: loan, loan, storage, mortgage, as well as consensual contracts and obligations: purchase and sale, hiring, partnership, assignment. Has an understanding of nameless synallagmatic contracts and pacts. Knows how to properly qualify a particular contract in accordance with the specified types and types, understands the purposes that it serves, and knows the legal regulation related to each individual contract.
• Knows the concept and system of non-contractual obligations, and has an idea of their history. Understands the meaning of distinguishing obligations from a quasi-contract( as if from a contract), tort, and quasi-tort (as if from a tort). He knows the concept of an obligation as if from a contract and its varieties: an obligation from conducting other people's affairs without instructions, an obligation from unjust enrichment, obligations from a public promise and vow
• Knows the concept of obligations from a tort, the essence of punitive liability and certain types of tort: theft and robbery, personal injury, Aquilian damage. Knows the concept of obligation as if from a tort and its varieties. Knows how to correctly qualify a particular non-contractual action in accordance with the specified types and types, understands the purposes that each type of non-contractual obligation serves, and knows the legal regulation related to it.
• Knows the grounds for termination of a Roman marriage, the grounds, procedure, and consequences of divorce. Understands the legal regulation of relations between spouses, in particular property relations related to dowries and marriage gifts.
• Knows the concept and understands the essence of inheritance as a universal legal succession, its difference from singular legal succession. He knows the concept of inheritance and has an idea of different systems of inheritance: civil and praetorian.
• Knows the concept of subjects of hereditary succession, the requirements for them, and the concepts of hereditary legal capacity, capacitas, and unworthiness. Knows what constitutes the content of an inheritance, and is able to distinguish between property and non-property elements of an inheritance.
• Knows the concept of opening an inheritance and calling for inheritance, and understands the difference between them and accepting an inheritance. Knows what is the transfer of the right to accept inheritance, in which cases it takes place and how it differs from the transfer of division, as well as in which cases the latter could have taken place. I am familiar with the concept of lying inheritance. Knows the concept and methods of accepting and rejecting inheritance.
• Knows the individual inheritance bases and the differences between them. Knows the history of inheritance by law, its civil regime, praetorian innovations, novelties introduced by imperial constitutions. Understands the order of succession according to Justinian's novels. Understands the essence of inheritance under a will, the difference between an act and an order mortis causa.
• Knows the concept, history, and types of wills. Understands what a codicillum is and how it differs from a will. Knows individual testamentary dispositions and the legal regime related to them: appointment of an heir, substitution (sub-appointment) of an heir and its types, legates and their types, testamentary manumissions, appointment of a guardian. Has an idea of what a death gift is. Knows the concept and types of fideicommissions.
• Knows about the grounds for invalidity and the procedure for revoking wills and testamentary dispositions. Understands the essence of necessary inheritance and its historical variants-formal and material necessary inheritance. Knows what a claim for challenging a will valid under civil law is, and the conditions and procedure for its satisfaction.

Course Contents

• Topic 1. Introduction: the concept, meaning, system and periodization of Roman private law.
• Topic 2. Sources of Roman private law.
• Topic 3. Civil procedure.
• Topic 4. Persons (personae).
• Topic 5. Legal acts.
• Topic 6. The concept of property law. Things (res). Possession (possessio).
• Topic 7. Ownership rights.
• Topic 8. Limited property rights, or rights to someone else's thing (iura in re aliena).
• Topic 9. Obligations. The general part.
• Topic 10. Contractual obligations (obligationes ex contractu).
• Topic 11. Non-contractual obligations.
• Topic 12. Family law.
• Topic 13. Succession law (successiones). The general part.
• Topic 14. Succession law (successiones). Separate grounds for inheritance.

Assessment Elements

• Control works
  In the second module, two tests are performed, and in the third – one. Control tasks are performed in writing in one of the following forms: (a) test (execution involves answering individual independent questions); (b) test incident (execution involves solving the incident in the form of answers to the test questions posed to it); (c) an incident (implementation involves solving the incident in the form of free answers to the questions posed to it and their proper justification). Specific types of tests and their combination are selected by the lecturer. The purpose of the control work is to test students ' knowledge on the topics defined by the teacher and their skills in solving incidents.
• Exam
  The purpose of the exam is to test the knowledge gained by students based on the results of studying the subject, the skills of working with the sources of Roman law and the ability to apply them. The student is asked to complete a task in writing, which consists in solving incidents in Roman private law. The content of tasks is determined by the following focus:: 1) identification of legally significant circumstances of the incident, their differentiation from legally irrelevant circumstances; 2) legal qualification of relations that are the subject of the incident; 3) formulation of judgments about the content of legal relations that are significant for solving the incident, determining the rights and obligations of the subjects of the incident; 4) identification of appropriate methods of protection with indication of their characteristics; 5) identification of legally significant legal significant details of the incident described, and delineating on this basis various legal situations arising from the conditions contained in the questions; 6) formulation and detailed reasoning of conclusions separately for each issue. The duration of the exam paper is 90 minutes.
• Working on seminars
  The score received by the student is announced to him at the last seminar session and is taken into account when making the final assessment in the discipline

Interim Assessment

• 2026/2027 2nd module
  Onacop = 0.5 * Okr1 + 0.5*Okr2, where Onacop is the cumulative grade for the first semester (1-2 modules) (maximum grade – 10 points); Okr1 is the grade for the first control work (maximum grade-10 points); Okr2 is the grade for the second control work (maximum grade – 10 points points). 1. If, when checking students' written work, including examination papers, a complete or partial match in the text of the answer is revealed for different students, and this match is not caused by citing legal provisions or the judicial practice of higher courts, all students for whom a match is found will be assigned a grade of 0 for the work, without clarifying the reasons for such a match. 2. The duration of each assessment element, established by this program, includes the time of writing the assessment element and the time of its submission when written in paper form, and the time of its uploading when completed in the SmartLMS system. 3. When completing the specified assessment elements, students are allowed to use only those legal acts, the list and format of which were previously determined by the instructor, depending on the topic of the proposed assignments. During the course of completing the assessment and written examination papers, students are not allowed to use literature, legal acts not included in the list specified by the instructor, notes, personal computers, tablets, smartphones, and other auxiliary means unless specifically instructed by the instructor. 4. When mastering the discipline, the use of AI is allowed in preparation for seminars, test papers, and exams in order to obtain additional information that is not available in the textbook and other course materials used, as well as to translate fragments of additional Latin sources that are not translated in the textbook and other course materials used. The use of AI for solving problems for seminars, writing control and exam papers is not allowed.
• 2026/2027 3rd module
  The evaluation formula is: Orez = Osem + 0.2*Onakop + 0.1*Okr3 + 0.6*Okr, where Orez is the resulting score (maximum score – 10 points); Osem is the score for work at seminars (maximum score – 1 point); Onakop is the cumulative score; Okr3 is the score for the third control work (maximum score – 10 points); Ekz - score for the exam (maximum score-10 points). 1. If, when checking students' written work, including examination papers, a complete or partial match in the text of the answer is revealed for different students, and this match is not caused by citing legal provisions or the judicial practice of higher courts, all students for whom a match is found will be assigned a grade of 0 for the work, without clarifying the reasons for such a match. 2. The duration of each assessment element, established by this program, includes the time of writing the assessment element and the time of its submission when written in paper form, and the time of its uploading when completed in the SmartLMS system. 3. When completing the specified assessment elements, students are allowed to use only those legal acts, the list and format of which were previously determined by the instructor, depending on the topic of the proposed assignments. During the course of completing the assessment and written examination papers, students are not allowed to use literature, legal acts not included in the list specified by the instructor, notes, personal computers, tablets, smartphones, and other auxiliary means unless specifically instructed by the instructor. 4. When mastering the discipline, the use of AI is allowed in preparation for seminars, test papers, and exams in order to obtain additional information that is not available in the textbook and other course materials used, as well as to translate fragments of additional Latin sources that are not translated in the textbook and other course materials used. The use of AI for solving problems for seminars, writing control and exam papers is not allowed.

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Новицкий И.Б. - Основы римского гражданского права. Учебник - 978-5-392-16397-7 - Проспект - 2015 - http://ebs.prospekt.org/book/1451 - 1451 - PROSPECT

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Покровский, И. А.  История римского права / И. А. Покровский. — Москва : Издательство Юрайт, 2025. — 447 с. — (Антология мысли). — ISBN 978-5-534-17250-8. — Текст : электронный // Образовательная платформа Юрайт [сайт]. — URL: https://urait.ru/bcode/568607 (дата обращения: 02.07.2026).
• Санфилиппо Ч., Дождев Д. В., Маханьков И. И. - Курс римского частного права - 978-5-91768-994-4 - Юридическое издательство Норма - 2026 - https://znanium.ru/catalog/document?id=480544 - 480544 - ZNANIUM

Authors

• VOLKOVA YULIYA MIKHAYLOVNA