Servitude

Servitude (Lat. servitus, from servire, to serve), a right over the property of another. In Roman law, servitudes were classified into (I) personal, i.e. those given to a particular person, and (2) praedial, i.e. those enjoyed over something else (praedium serviens) by being owner or tenant of a piece of land or a house (praedium dominans). Personal servitudes were subdivided into (a) usus, the right of using property; (b) usufructus the right of using and enjoying the fruits of property; and (c) and (d) operas servorum sive animalium. Praedial servitudes were either (a) rustic, such as jus eundi, the right of walking or riding along the footpath of another; aquae ductus, the right of passage for water; pascendi, the right of pasture, &c; or (b) urban. Urban servitudes were of various kinds, as oneris ferendi, the right of using the wall of another to support a man's own wall; projiciendi, the right of building a structure, such as a balcony or verandah, so as to p roject over another's land; stillicidii, fume immittendi and several others. Servitudes were created by a disposition inter vivos, or by contract; by testamentary disposition; by the conveyance of land or by prescription They might be extinguished by destruction of either the res serviens or the res dominans; by release of the right, or by the vesting of the ownership of the res serviens and res dominans in the same person.

In English law there may be certain limited rights over the land of another, corresponding somewhat to servitudes, and termed easements (q.v.). In Scots law the term is still in use (see Easement).