Civil Law Tenure System

We have been regarding the system of possession as a knotty issue in the field of property law, because of its variety and complexity. Doubtlessly, further study on this institution has profound meanings, for instance, to perfect the structure, to expand our research in property law theory, to establish a code of property law and even a code of civil law. To sum up, in-depth study will benefit the economical development and social improvement in whole. Unfortunately, no enough work around this institution has been done in our country currently. Therefore, author of this dissertation is trying to illuminate it in detail.This dissertation is divided into three parts including thirteen chapters, and amounts to 420,000 words.Part I, Sources of the possession system. This part includes two chapters: the possession system of Roman law and the system of Germanic law.The legal status of the possession system was first affirmed by Twelve Tables of Roman law. Originating from the Roman citizens' occupation and utilization of public land, possession and ownership were not completely separated when Roman law first came into effect. After having discovered the differences between possession and ownership, Roman introduced the notion to separate them. Then, possession and ownership was clearly stated. Following on, interdica retinendae possessionis was applied, and furthermore, through the distinction of modes of acquisition, the ownership in civil law was acquired only via citizen law, i.e., obtaining ownership from jus gentium and judge law is not a right of 'ownership' but 'possession'. So, possession and ownership were separated thoroughly. Roman jurists never defined the concept of 'possession', but they definitely discovered the features of possession, viz. exclusive. They thought that possession was composed with 'corpus', which was factual control on things, and 'animus' that was mostly considered as the meaning of ownership in spite of different opinions about that. One of the most important features of possession was considered as factual control, but the categories of ownership were still not systemized. We should pay attention to the fact that scholars after the Roman period have input the types belongs to our modern times into the ancient Roman law. Except of representative possession, acquisition was based on corpus and animus in Roman Law. Only tangible things were regarded as the objects of possession in Roman Law, the control of which were generally respected by the public. After acquisition, the reservation to possession was greatly relevant with animus. As a result, except in some particular circumstances, the rights of possession continued even though the fact of occupancy disappeared. By contrast, possession would disappear if no animus. The protection to possession was realized in two ways, one was interdicta possessionis, and the other was procedure. Protection through interdicta possessionis was more prevalent and important than the latter, of which, function in protection of possessionis had played a complement role till the empire period. To get the protection of interdicta possessionis, the elements of nec vi, nec clam, nec precario were acquired. The protection of Interdicta includes interdicta retinendae possessionis which was composed with real property interdicta and personal property interdicta, and interdicta recuperrandae possessionis which involved...