SERVITUDES (serritutes). A servitus in the Roman law signifies that the owner of some particular property is bound in respect to some other person, simply as such person, or as being the owner of a par ticular property, either not to do certain acts to his property, or to allow that other person to do some particular acts to the property.
Servitutes were thus either a nght belonging to some particular person, which ceased with his life (unless they were granted to him and his heirs), and were called servitutes personarum or personales ; or they were attached to a piece of ground as the subject, and could be exercised by any person who was in the possession of the ground, and were celled Jura, ur etrvitutes pnedioruni or return, and sometimes Servitutes simply. Personal servitudes were comprehended under the heads of Ususfructus, UMW, llabitatio (a lodging in another person's house), and ()perm Servorum et Animalium (the use of another person's slaves or boasts).
Prialial Servitudes were either Servitittes Urbana; or Rustic:ie. They were Urbanite if the property which was entitled to the servi tude was a building ; they were Rusticie if it was a piece of ground. There was no limit to the number or kind of servitudes of this class which might be established. Those Scrvitutes Urbane which were of ordinary occurrence were such as follow :—Servitutes oneris ferendi, the right which a man hiss to let his building rest on the building, the wall, or the pillar which belongs to another ; Tigni immittendi, the right of fixing a man's, timbers in his neighbour's wall ; Lutuinutn, sive luminis excipiendi, the right of a man's making windows or openings in his neighbour's wall, or in a common wall, in order to get light for his own building, or to make holes or windows in a man's own wall, which holes or windows look into his neighbour's property, iu such cases as would be unlawful without the existence of the servitude ; Ne luininibua officiatur, the right to prevent a neighbour from obstructing the light that comes to a man's buildings, by raising any obstacle in the way; and others of a like kind. The Servitutes Rusticie were rights
of road over another man's property, which were of various kinds according to the kind of road, as Servitus itineris, actus, vile ; Paseendi sive pascui, right of pasturing a man's animals on another man's ground; and the various servitudes which have for their object the use of water, as servitus aqua ductus, wpm haustus, and others of a like kind. .
Servitudes might be established by contract, by testamentary dispo sition, by prescription in the Roman sense, and iu sonic other ways. They might cease by the party eutitled to them reuouncing them by express words or tacitly : in the case of prxdial servitude, by one person becoming owner of the servient and dominant properties; and in tame other ways.
The prxdial servitudes may bo compared with some of the easements and rights of the English system. The personal servitudes of the Roman law do not correspond, except in some few cases, with anything in the English law, except limited enjoyments of a thing, as, for instance, an estate in lauds for life.
The subject of the Roman servitudes would require a long exposition to be treated fully. A good outline is contained in Thibaut, ' System des Pandekten § 296, &c., 9th ed.; and in Mackeldey, Lehrbuch,' &c., § 274, 12th ed.