THE HEREDITARY STATUS OF DAUGHTERS ACCORDING TO THE COMMUNAL STATUTES OF PIRAN - RECEPTION OR CONTINUITY OF ROMAN LAW

The reception of Roman law should be understood as a renewed and, in principle, subsidiary application of the Justinian's Codification as defined by methods of medieval and later on, modern legal science. The concept of continuity is, on the contrary, based on the notion that despite the fall of the Roman Empire, Roman law did not vanish but survived in certain territories and was continuously applied, particularly in large towns with a Romanised population. The issue of the continuity of Roman law should be addressed with a certain degree of scepticism, especially in the case of today's Slovenian coastal towns. Owing to questionable settlement continuity of the Slovenian coastal area, one can only discuss indirect impulses from nearby and remote centres that must have had an impact on the legal sphere even prior to the introduction of ius commune. Because of the fact that the first reliable legal sources related to the coast date back to the beginning of the 13th century when ius commune was becoming snore and snore influential, it is difficult to state with certainty what might have been a reflection of indirect continuity and what was the result of reception. The analysis of all four preserved versions of the Piran Statutes from the 14(th) century has revealed that the decedent's daughters were entirely equal in hereditary status to the decedent's sons: as first in the line of succession, they were entitled to inherit their father's property together with their brothers. In addition, female descendants were also entitled to the right of representation, compulsory inheritance, as well as subjected to dowry collation and disinheritance. Despite the conviction that the equal hereditary status of daughters and sons in Istrian and some Dalmatian towns should be viewed as a typical example of continuity of Roman law, this article argues that judging by the Piran Statutes such a status was most probably a result of the early reception of Roman law, which had been successful largely owing to the fact that Piran had been marked by a well-developed society and economy and, consequently, by loosened family ties. Furthermore, a sceptical attitude towards the theory of continuity is supported by some indications in the preserved legal documents and by the nomotechnics of the Statues. Namely, the sons and daughters are consistently mentioned together, and whenever only the son is referred to, the legislator always emphasises that the rule also applies to the daughter. Such persistency can be observed neither in the Justinian's Codification nor in Ecloga. On the basis of this observation, it can be concluded that such special emphases in early statute norms were indispensable as they pointed out the fact that the right of succession was granted also to daughters