Verbs precede abstract nouns. David Daube has shown that in many situations the Roman jurists never got as far as creating abstract nouns , using instead verbal forms, or that they clearly preferred verbal forms to nominal. Obligatio, however, is a frequent occurrence in the texts, hardly less frequent in the Digest than the various forms of the verb. We can say that the development of the noun presupposes a sophistication of thought about the institution , an ability to treat an active relationship as a thing, and that at least by the time of Labeo, the first jurist known to have used the noun, Roman law had taken that step.

This then provides the shape for Gaius’ treatment of personal obligations: first contracts, then delicts or wrongs . The same duality is found in Gaius’ treatment of personal actions: these, he says, seek to enforce an obligation imposed by contract or delict; though we should observe that already in the Institutes he has referred to the personal action to enforce a legacy per damnationem. In truth, contract and wrongdoing are merely the two principal sources of obligatio, and in the Digest Gaius is seen to be giving a slightly expanded categorisation, adding an additional residuary group :

Dr Markus Gehring

David Ibbotson did not have a commercial pilot’s licence and the rating he needed to fly a single-piston engine had expired in November 2018. Professor Felix Steffek is Professor of Law; Director of International Strategy and Partnerships; Director of the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law (3CL); and University JM Keynes Fellow in Financial Economics. His interests include commercial law, company law, insolvency law, dispute resolution and LawTech. He has acted as expert for the European Commission, the European Parliament, the OECD, the World Bank and national ministries and parliaments. If the AAIB suggests there was a significant failure in the exhaust system which led to carbon monoxide poisoning, it did not occur in the initial flight. We are delighted to announce that Professor Helen Scott will join the Faculty of Law in October 2022 as the Regius Professor of Civil Law. The Regius Professorship of Civil Law was founded by Henry VIII in 1540 and was the University of Cambridge’s first Chair in Law. The Chair is currently held by Professor David Ibbetson, who will retire in September 2022; other recent holders of the Chair include Professor Peter Stein and Professor David Johnston. Ibbetson's legal historical scholarship is marked by its breadth, with publications spanning topics as varied as medieval contracts, wrongdoing in Mesopotamian codes, early modern natural law and modern tort. His early career was characterised by work on the development of the English law of obligations, exemplified by his book A Historical Introduction to the Law of Obligations, which remains a central point of reference for any account of how the modern law of tort and contract have taken their present shapes. Roman Law, a subject Ibbetson taught since his days as a PhD student, developed into a second focal point for his research, with a series of articles on the Roman law of obligations applying the methods of English legal history to the ancient sources. His more recent work has increasingly taken on a multi-jurisdictional approach, and further explored the way in which legal concepts were understood at an intellectual level as well as in the courtrooms.

Professor Okeoghene Odudu is University Senior Lecturer in Law and Co-Director of CELS. His expertise lie in EU and UK competition law. He has recently completed a major research project on the application of competition law to the National Health Service in England - funded by the British Academy - and he is engaged in a long-term project seeking to examine the competition law implications of the 'Open Public Services Agenda'.Professor David Ibbetson FBA is Regius Professor of Civil Law. As a legal historian he has particular expertise in comparative European legal history and co-edited with Professor John Bell the Comparative Studies in the Development of the Law of Torts in Europe (Cambridge University Press). A source from Cardiff City FC said the club “welcomed the verdict” and hoped it would “provide some closure” to the families of Emiliano Sala and David Ibbotson. The source said: “We are pleased that individuals’ responsibilities have been well established in court and Cardiff City FC’s actions have been appropriate. A lot of the misdirected allegations towards the club and suggestions of wrongdoing can end at this point. Kate Staples, General Counsel at the UK Civil Aviation Authority, said: “Our thoughts remain with the families and friends that were affected by this accident in January 2019. Aviation safety relies upon the integrity of everyone involved in the industry. Unlawful and unsafe activity such as Mr Henderson's is unacceptable and the UK Civil Aviation Authority will always look to prosecute illegal activity.” An action in personam is one in which we proceed against someone who is obliged to us either from contract or delict, an action, that is, in which we claim that he ought to give, do, or be responsible for something. Sequens divisio in quattuor species deducitur: aut enim ex contractu sunt aut quasi ex contractu aut ex maleficio aut quasi ex maleficio.

You said ‘Questions may be asked about his flying’, this all goes to your view of David Ibbotson’s competence.” As well, since it could be conceived of as a thing , an obligatio could be split into parts or divided up . It followed therefore that part of an obligatio could be released, leaving the remainder of the obligatio intact. It was easy to deal with co-heirs , since it could be said that an obligatio owed by or to the testator could be divided between them, each having or being liable for a share. Exactly the same applied to co-ownership ; when a promise was made to a co-owned slave , for example, the obligatio could be divided up among the co-owners. It is at this point that we can see the flexibility that is achieved by the use of the noun rather than the verb . No doubt it would have been possible to have reached the same results solely by using the verb, but it would hardly have been linguistically economical to do so. The Centre for English Legal History is delighted to host a valedictory lecture by David Ibbetson FBA, Regius Professor of Civil Law. The scene outside Cardiff City stadium as the concern grews about the missing plane (Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne) Although the obligatio was at its core a relationship between two parties, as a noun it was reified so that it was seen as an asset in the hands of the beneficiary. In his Institutes, Gaius places obligationes in his list of incorporeal things, alongside inheritances, usufructs and servitudes ; something that is repeated by Justinian. An obligatio therefore had a duration; it could be said to be born and to be extinguished or brought to an end . It could endure or remain, or it could be perpetuated. If a transaction was undone so that there was restitutio in integrum, a former obligatio could be restored. When a novation occurred it could be said that the obligatio had been changed, and as a thing it could be sold or transferred. Indeed, so proprietary was the obligatio that both Ulpian and Julian say that it can be made the subject of a condictio ; where a promise had been made without a causa the promisor could bring a condictio to reclaim the obligatio itself, not the sum of money that had been promised.I would like to make clear at no time did I have any reason to believe the aircraft was flight unworthy, I cannot and still don’t believe it necessarily was. Conventionis nomen generale est, ut eleganter dicat Pedius nullum esse contractum, nullam obligationem, quae non habeat in se conventionem, sive re sive verbis fiat: nam et stipulatio, quae verbis fit, nisi habeat consensum, nulla est.

Professor Catherine Barnard is Professor of EU and Employment Law. She is an expert on European labour law and is author of the leading text on EU single market law. It was his decision whether or not he flew the aircraft, whether the flight could be performed safely. Moreover, it is only an intimate relationship, not an equivalence . The obligatio gives rise to the actio, the actio is grounded on the obligatio. There is, therefore, a separation in time between the two; the purpose of the actio is to obtain performance of the obligatio and thereby to dissolve it . This is an important aspect of the relationship between the two ideas. While the obligatio exists, as well as the legal relationship between the parties there is a social relationship of dominance and subordination . The inevitable period of time between the creation of the obligatio and its dissolution (whether it be by actio or by performance) marks the continuance of this social relationship . The obligatio might continue indefinitely, it might never be dissolved, thereby stretching the duration of the power relationship . It may even be the case that the debtor might sometimes be expected not to perform, since it might not be appropriate for the person in the subordinate position to determine when the relationship should end . The rather rough and ready definition of obligatio as a vinculum iuris found in Justinian’s Institutes, a tie of law by which we are of necessity constrained to pay some thing according to the laws of our civitas , brings into the foreground the relationship between obligatio and actio. If the effect of the obligatio was that one person could be forced to pay (or do) something by the beneficiary, this would be achieved by the beneficiary bringing an action against the person under the obligatio. To that extent, therefore, there was an intimate connection between obligatio and actio , the one being a corollary of the other. He liaised directly with the engineers. During my exchanges he seemed confident and did not express any apprehensions about the aircraft.In personam actio est, qua agimus, quotiens litigamus cum aliquo, qui nobis vel ex contractu vel ex delicto obligatus est, id est, cum intendimus dare facere praestare oportere. Professor Kenneth Armstong is Professor of European Law. His research focuses on European Union law and, in particular, the constitutional and institutional dimensions of EU economic and social governance. He has given expert evidence to the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee and the Scottish Parliament's European and External Relations Committee on the EU dimension of the referendum on Scottish Independence. Prosecutor Mr Goudie said: “We do not seek to suggest that Mr Henderson did not know what he was doing or care about safety, you will see a lot of maintenance took place on the aircraft, but that he ignored certain requirements when it suited him and his business interests.”