"The Origins of the edictalis-decretalis bonorum possessio
Distinction in a Renaissance Defense of Scholastic Hermeneutics," Quaderni
fiorentini per la storia del pensiero giuridico moderno, Vol. XXV,
1996.
Abstract
Bonorum possessio (bp) is a well-known form of inheritance in Roman
law developed under the Republic and Empire to supplement and make more
equitable the civil law of inheritance. Modern scholars of law have ascribed
to the Institutes, Digest and Codex of Justinian a
distinction between ordinary, edictalis bp and a decretalis
form in which a judicial official temporarily grants bp to an individual
or his/her guardian because the individual is unable to accept or reject
bp
for a variety of reasons. But this distinction was not recognized in the
medieval period. Indeed it was first "discovered" by a sixteenth century
jurist Nicolas Duchemin who developed the distinction to defend a set of
scholastic interpretive assumptions regarding another passage, D.1.16.9.1.
These assumptions were enunciated by Duchemin's professor at the University
of Orléans, Pierre de l'Estoile.