CESSIO in the civil and Scots law, is a process whereby persons who have become insolvent, by misfortune, may obtain their liberation from imprison ment, upon surrendering their whole estate, real and personal, to their creditors.
During the period of the Roman republic, the laws against insolvent persons were exceedingly severe ; in deed, so hardly were they dealt with, that they were left almost entirely to the mercy of their creditors. By a law of the twelve tables, it had been enacted, that debt ors, if they were not solvent within a specified time, should be delivered over to their creditors, to be kept in chains, and subjected to the harshest treatment. (Aul. Gell. .ArGet. Att. xx. I.) This law produced great dis content among the people, which necessarily occasioned the introduction of the Lex Poetelia, by which it was enacted, that the persons of debtors should not he given up to the creditors, but only their effects. As this law, however, provided no means of liberation from impri sonment, and the people were still clamorous for some new enactment on the subject, the cessio bonorum was at length introduced by Julius Gxsar, which, at first, was only intended for the benefit of Rome and Italy, but was afterwards, before the tune of Dioclesian, extended to the provinces. The provisions of this remedy are express ed in the following- law of the code : Qui bonis cesserint, nisi soliduin creditor rece/urit, nun stint liberati. In co
enint tantummodo hoc benefirizon cis prodrst, nc judicati detrahantur in carcereni. I,. i. Cod. Qui bonis cedcre nossunt. See also Digest. lib. xlii. tit. 3. This law was adopted, in substance, by those among the modern Eu ropean states, whose systems of jurisprudence were formed upon the model of the Roman code.
It would appear, however, that a certain degree of in famy was always attached to those who had recourse to this process. The Italian lawyers describe the ceremo ny of cession to consist in striking the bare breech three times against a stone, called lapis vituperii, in the pre sence of the judge. Formerly it consisted partly in giv ing up the girdles and keys in court ; as the ancients used to carry at their girdles the chief utensils wherewith they got their living. The following is said to have been the form of cession among the ancient Romans and Gauls : the cessionary gathered up dust in his left hand, from the four corners of the house, and standing on the threshold, holding the door-post in his right hand, threw the dust back over his shoulders ; then stripping to his shirt, and quitting his girdle and bags, he leapt with a pole over a hedge ; hereby giving the world to under stand that he had nothing left, and that when he jumped, all that he possessed was in the air along with him.