Carvalho - Novus et methodicus tractatus - 1746

D.D. Ioannes de Carvalho: A New and Methodical Treatise on One or Another Fourth to be Deducted, or Not Legitimate, Falcidia, and Trebellianica, to Cap. Raynaldus, de Testamentis, Divided into Four Parts
Coloniae Allobrogum (Genf)
1746

The 1746 Cologne-published work by Joannes Carvalho is a systematic instructional text on canon and civil (common) law of inheritance, dealing with the central hereditary shares of the Roman-canonical legal system. The focus is on four related legal institutes: the Quarta Legitime (the compulsory portion), the Quarta Deducenda (the deduction quota), the Quarta Falcidia, and the Quarta Trebellianica. The Quarta Falcidia, named after the tribune Falcidius and introduced by the eponymous Lex of 41 BCE, guaranteed the heir an unencumbered quarter of the estate by preventing the testator from disposing of more than three-quarters of his wealth by bequests. The Quarta Trebellianica, on the other hand, derived from the Senatusconsultum Trebellianum and likewise secured a quarter of the estate for an heir encumbered with a fideicommiss. Carvalho unfolds this matter in four methodically arranged parts (in quatuor partes divisus) and aligns himself with the canonical reference point of the chapter Raynaldus de Testamentis, thereby bringing the ecclesiastical dimension of testamentary law into view. The work is addressed to lawyers and canonists of the 18th century who worked at the intersection of Roman law, canon law, and early modern legal practice, and offers a methodological treatment of the question of when and to what extent these quotas are to be applied or deducted.

36.5 x 22 cm. 308 pp. Contemporary full leather binding of the period. Interior browned, partly water-stained. Half-title page detached.