This article investigates the link between the Roman notion of fides and the contemporary notion of fiduciary duties. Etymologically, the word “fiduciary” derives from fides. The Roman fides was a very complex concept, blending religious, social, and legal valences. The religious and social fides entered Roman law in a substantive form, as bona fides, and as a standard of judgment, in the form of bonus vir. It is submitted that a close analogy can be drawn between bonus vir and the contemporary fiduciary standards.
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See Remus Valsan, “Understanding Fiduciary Duties: Conflict of Interest and Proper Exercise of Judgment in Private Law”, McGill University Doctoral Dissertation (2012) 16, available online at www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/thesescanada/index-e.html.
Cicero, On Duties 1.7.23, in John Higginbotham (trans.), On Moral Obligation: A New Translation of Cicero’s De officiis (1967), 46.
Cicero, Against Verres, 2.3.3 in Charles D. Yonge (trans.), The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, vol. 1 (1878), 297.
See generally Freyburger, supra note 11 at 99–228.
Freyburger, supra note 11 at 248.
Freyburger, supra note 11 at 43–66.
Freyburger, supra note 11 at 43.
Freyburger, supra note 11 at 49–74.
Freyburger, supra note 11 at 65–66.
Hellegouarc’h, supra note 24 at 23–27; Zeba A. Crook, Reconceptualising Conversion: Patronage, Loyalty, and Conversion in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean (2004), 207–208.
Clark, supra note 41 at 465–466.
See Berger, supra note 39, s.v. “sacer.”
Muirhead, supra note 39 at 15–18.
Schiller, supra note 29 at 151.
Dionysius, 1.40 in Cary, supra note 47 at 133.
Dionysius, 2.75 in Cary, supra note 47 at 536–537.
Jean Imbert, “Fides et Nexum” in Studi in onore di Vincenzo Arangio-Ruiz, vol. 2, (1953), 339, 352; Le Glay, supra note 16 at 280, note 5.
Muirhead, supra note 39 at 25.
Muirhead, supra note 39 at 18–21; DH Van Zyl, Justice and Equity in Cicero (1991), 96; Berger, supra note 39, s.v. “mores (mos);” “mores (mos) maiorum;” “boni mores.”
Felix Senn, “Des origines et du contenu de la notion de bonnes mœurs” in Recueil d’études sur les sources du droit en l’honneur de François Gény (1934) 53, 62.
Greenidge, supra note 54 at 66–67.
Cornelius Tacitus, Annals, 1.73 in Michael Grant (trans.), The Annals of Imperial Rome (1989), 74.
Greenidge, supra note 54 at 72.
Cicero, For Q. Roscius, the Actor 6.16, in Charles D. Yonge (trans.), The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, vol. 1 (1878), 92–93.
Greenidge, supra note 54 at 138–140.
Greenidge, supra note 54 at 66–67.
Clark, supra note 41 at 581–608.
Imbert, supra note 60 at 344.
Clark, supra note 41 at 618.
Muirhead, supra note 39 at 230.
Jolowicz and Nicholas, supra note 10 at 280–281.
Berger, supra note 39, s.v. “adpromissio”, “sponsio”; Reinhard Zimmermann, “Stipulatio” in Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (eds.), Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed., 1996), 1444–1445; Rudloph Sohm et al., The Institutes: A Textbook of the History and System of Roman Private Law, trans. by James C. Ledlie, (3rd ed., 1907), 298–299; Alan Watson, The Law of Obligations in the Later Roman Republic (1965), 1–10.
Kaser, supra note 56.
Berger, supra note 39, s.v. “vir bonus.” Cato the Elder defined the bonus vir as a skilled farmer: “And when they would praise a worthy man (bonus vir), their praise took this form: ‘good husbandman, good farmer’; one so praised was thought to have received the greatest commendation.” (Cato, On Agriculture, preface, in William D. Hooper (trans.), Marcus Porcius Cato, On agriculture (1934), 3).
Leist, supra note 22 at 485.
Roebuck and Fumichon, supra note 108 at 46–66.
Cato, On Agriculture 149.1, in William D. Hooper, supra note 106 at 135–136.
Cato, On Agriculture 144.2-3, 145.3 in William D. Hooper, supra note 106 at 127–131.
Cato, On Agriculture 148.1, in William D. Hooper, supra note 106 at 133–134.
See Scafuro, supra note 110 at 141–153.
Jolowicz and Nicholas, supra note 10 at 152. Similarly, Levy-Bruhl distinguished two manifestations of the legal bona fides. First, there is the social bona fides, introduced by the ex fide bona clause in the bonae fidei iudicia to provide legal support for the duty to contract fairly and to prevent further abuses caused by the rigidity of ius civile. This manifestation of bona fides requires the contracting parties to act fairly toward each other, as a bonus vir or bonus paterfamilias (an upright head of the family) would do. This type of bona fides is devoid of any moral content, imposing a reasonable behavior on the contracting parties, not too greedy but also not excessively scrupulous. The second manifestation is the moral bona fides, synonym of sincerity (Henri Lévy-Bruhl, “Book Review of Dalla ‘Fides’ alla ‘Bona Fides’ by Luigi Lombardi”, 39 Revue des Études Latines (1962) 438, 439).
Kaser, supra note 56 at 19.
Kaser, supra note 56 at 18–19, 33.
Jaluzot, supra note 130 at 75.
Cicero, On Duties 3.17.70, in Higginbotham, supra note 7 at 46.
Gaius, Institutes 4.62 in Francis de Zulueta (trans.), The Institutes of Gaius (1946).
Justinian, Institutes 4.6.28 in John B. Moyle (trans.), The Institutes of Justinian (2d ed., 1889) at 182. These enumerations do not exhaust the category of bonae fidei iudicia. See Jolowicz and Nicholas, supra note 10 at 211–212.
Turpin, supra note 130 at 266.
Schermaier, supra note 103 at 74–75.
Jolowicz and Nicholas, supra note 10 at 288.
Valsan, supra note 1, 44–47.
Cicero, supra note 125 at 3.19: “If a good man, then, should have this power, that by snapping his fingers his name could creep by stealth into the wills of the wealthy, he would not use this power, not even if he had it for certain that no one at all would ever suspect it… [T]he just man, and he whom we deem a good man, would take nothing from any man in order to transfer it wrongfully to himself.”
Valsan, supra note 1, 180–194.
Fiori, supra note 128 at 469–470.
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This article investigates the link between the Roman notion of fides and the contemporary notion of fiduciary duties. Etymologically, the word “fiduciary” derives from fides. The Roman fides was a very complex concept, blending religious, social, and legal valences. The religious and social fides entered Roman law in a substantive form, as bona fides, and as a standard of judgment, in the form of bonus vir. It is submitted that a close analogy can be drawn between bonus vir and the contemporary fiduciary standards.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 1677 | 332 | 66 |
Full Text Views | 348 | 22 | 1 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 246 | 48 | 0 |