Folia Theologica 11. (2000)

Szabolcs Anzelm Szuromi: The Character of Juridical Personality of Monastery as a Community of Persons up to the 13th Century

THE CHARACTER OF JURIDICAL PERSONALITY

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associations for a cultic aim,46 as for example the collegium funeraticia;47 later on the monastery would fall into this category in our opinion.

Apart from communities of persons there also developed the pia causa, which is a universitas rerum for certain devout intentions. These properties originally had fallen under the power of the competent bishop or - this is most important for us - of the superior of the religious community. The Code of Justin endowed these properties with “juridical personality”.48

III. Conclusion: The monastery as a juridical person

In view of the preceding considerations, we may regard the monastery as a particular juridical person. This is formed, on the one hand, by the association of members for the religious aims and collegial activity,49 on the other, as consequence of offerings, which donors have given to the monastery, when the confreres were asked for help in the saving of souls, and especially by praying for certain intentions.50

In this way the monastery is such a universitas, its aim is the realization of the evangelical life, making the Kingdom of God and the community of Saints a living reality. The monastery is formed to unify persons by a common aim, common life, and order-rules. Monastery (persona juridica) is represented in particular by the abbot, the prelate or other superior. This is not a one-man power of the superior, as we have seen it about organization of the Norbertine Order before 1238;51 it is the community (the juridical person) that which acts as a body, having the superior as its external forum. Thus, the monastery enjoys full use of its rights, by its own right, independently of the physical persons (confreres). This developing of the juridical person made possible the practice of poverty in the economic and political conditions of the high Middle Ages, because in such a case the goods of the institutionalized order are the property of the juridical person, not the private property of the confreres as physical persons.

46 Burdese, Manuale (nt. 39), 167.

47 D 47. 22. 1.

48 See C Lib. 3 tit. 41 cc. 11-20.

49 See I. Chelodi, Ius de personis iuxta Codicem Iuris Canonici. Praemissio tractatu de principiis et fontibus iuris canonici, [w. p.] 1926, 173—176.

50 See pia causa: Földi - Hamza, A római jog (nt. 15), 231.

51 See Mackin, Initia (nt. 22), 17-22, 25.