财产法对照阅读.docVIP

财产法对照阅读 The Law of Property财产法 　　The old common law1 was preeminently the law of real property; and the distinction between real property and personal property3 was a crucial one. 　　Generally speaking, real property means real estate -1and and buildings —— but it also includes such things as growing crops. Everything else —— money, stocks and bonds, jewelry, cars, carloads of lumber, IOUs, bank deposits- is personal property. We all have a stake in real estate, since we all live somewhere; and we work, study, and travel somewhere, too. Everyone is a renter or an owner, or lives with renters or owners. But for most of us, that as far as the law is concerned the word property means primarily real property; personal property is of minor importance. 　　Actually, personal property is legally a minor field. There is no single, special field of law devoted to personal property. Personal property is what contract law, commercial law, and bankruptcy law —— yes, and torts, too —— are all about. But there are so many special rilles about real estate that it makes sense to treat this as a separate field of law. 　　Property law is still one of the fundamental branches of law, and real estate is a significant branch of law practice. Yet property law is a mere shadow of its former self, legal speaking. In fact, one of the major developments in our system, if you take the long view, is the relative decline of real property law. In medieval England, it would have only been a slight exaggeration to say that land law was the law of the land. When Blackstone published his Commentaries“ midway through the eighteenth century, one whole volume was devoted to land law. A modern Blackstone would shrink the topic to a fraction of this bulk —— 5 or 10 percent, at most, of the total law. 　　Medieval England lived under a feudal system. Power and jurisdiction —— the cornerstones of wealth and position in society were based on land and land alone. The lord was a person who held an estate —— a perso