LITERIS OBLIGATIO. In Roman Law. An obligation created by an entry made in one of the books kept by the head of a Roman family, called the codex accepti et expensi. The creditor made an entry to the effect that a certain sum had been paid by him to the debtor, and the debtor made a corresponding entry indicating such a pay ment to him by the creditor ; but it was sufficient if the creditor's entry was made 1 by direction of the debtor, in which case an entry by the debtor was unnecessary. The effect was to constitute an obligation under which the debtor was liable, whether 1 the money was actually paid or not. He was said to be bound literis, i. e. by the writing in the codex as such. The entry itself created the obligation to pay. It was immaterial whether it was based uptin an obligation to pay existing in fact.
The item in the coder was called the nomen, and this species of contract might either create an ob ligation or transform one, i. e. operate as a nova tion, in which case It was called nomen transcriptt cium. The literis obligati° was distinguished from the nomcn arcariam, another species of entry in the coder accepti et expensi. Thla has been termed a mere cash item. It was an entry of a concrete or existing ground of obligation, in which case the obligation continued to be based on the loan or de pot•aura, or whatever might be Its original char acter, and was not converted into literis obligati°.
In the time of the empire the literal contract !ell into disuse.
The three classes of books kept by the pater familias were: (1) the fiber patrimonii, or libellus familice, in which was kept lnventoiies of the prop erty, and fiber kalendarii, which was a list of capi tal sums let out at interest; (2) the coder ratio num, which was the regular account book in which were entered receipts and expenses ; (3) the coder accepti et expensi, designed not merely to afford evi dence of, but also to effect, changes in the state of a person's property.
Gaius, Inst. III, §g 128-31, describes the literis ob ligati° as being made in two ways : (1) A re in personam, where the obligation was entered in the form of a debt under the name of the original pur chaser or debtor ; (2) a persona in personcon, where a debt already standing under one nomen was trans ferred by novation from that one to another. Some writers lay great stress upon the fact that the obli gation a re in personam was first entered as a mem orandum in a day book or waste book (adversaria ephemeris), but it has been truly remarked that this fact, although indisputable, has no legal impor tance ; and this is apparent from the nature of the two transactions.
There is some difference in the statement of these obligations by different authors, but that which is here given is the result of the more recent investi gations, having been established by Voigt, Abhandl. der Koen. Saechs. Gesellschaft der Wlasenschaften, vol. 10, 515.
See Sohm., Inat. Rom. L. § 68 and note 1, where reference may be found to the authors on the sub ject.