Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 2, Page 27

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Volume 2, Page 27

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[001] all creatures, rational and irrational. There are some who say that neither will nor
[002] impulse may be called jus, jus naturale or jus gentium, for they exist in [the realm of]
[003] fact; will or impulse are the means by which natural law or justice disclose or manifest
[004] their effect, for virtues and jura exist in the soul.²⁴ This perhaps is said more clearly,
[005] that natural law is a certain due which nature allows to each man. Natural law is also
[006] said to be the most equitable law, since it is said that erring minors are to be restored
[007] in accordance with [natural] equity.²⁵

What the civil law is.

[009] ²⁶Civil law,²⁷ which may be called customary law, has several meanings. It may
[010] be taken to mean the statute law of a particular city. Or for that kind of law which
[011] is not praetorian; it sometimes detracts from or supplements natural law or the
[012] jus gentium, for law different from that outside sometimes prevails in cities by
[013] force of custom approved by those who use it, since such custom ought to be
[014] observed as law.³⁰³¹Civil law may also be called all the law used in a state [or the
[015] like], whether it is natural law, civil law or the jus gentium.³²

What the jus gentium is.

[017] ³³The jus gentium is the law which men of all nations use, which falls short of
[018] natural law since that is common to all animate things born on the earth in the
[019] sea or in the air. From it comes the union of man and woman, entered into by the
[020] mutual consent of both, which is called marriage. Mere physical union is [in the
[021] realm] of fact and cannot properly be called jus since it is corporeal and may be
[022] seen;³⁴ all jura are incorporeal and cannot be seen. From that same law there
[023] also³⁵ comes the procreation and rearing of children. The jus gentium is common
[024] to men alone, as religion observed toward God, the duty of submission to parents
[025] and country, or the right to repel violence and injuria. For it is by virtue of this
[026] law that whatever a man does in defence of his own person he is held to do lawfully;
[027] since nature makes us all in a sense akin to one another it follows that for one to
[028] attack another is forbidden.³⁶

What manumission is.

[030] ³⁷Manumissions also come from the jus gentium. Manumission is the giving of
[031] liberty, that is, the revelation of liberty, according to some, for liberty, which
[032] proceeds from the law of

Notes

24. Cortese, i, 54, 59, ii, 29-30; infra 282

25. Ibid., i, 47 ff.

26. Br. and Azo, 35-6, 39

26-27. Azo, Summa Inst. 1.2, no. 3

30. Inst. 1.2.9; Decretum: D. 12, ca. 6; supra 22, infra iii, 182

31-32. Azo, Summa Inst. 1.2, no. 3

33. Br. and Azo, 35, 37, 39, 41

33-36. Azo, Summa Inst. 1.2, nos. 4-5

34. Accursius, gl. on v. ‘coniunctio,’ Inst. 1.2: ‘animorum non corporum’; Cortese, i, 69-71

35. ‘etiam’ for ‘tamen,’ as Azo

37. Br. and Azo, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42. This portion should follow without interruption

37-40. Azo, Summa Inst., 1, 2, no. 6