**POSTLIMINIO** – A characteristic institution of Roman law that, variously applied in medieval and canon law, still retains some reflections in modern law.
I. **Roman Law.** – A citizen who fell into enemy captivity or who went to another country not bound to the Romans by the bond of *amicitia* lost his freedom and all rights deriving therefrom, becoming a slave. However, since the captivity of a Roman citizen in war was not considered a cause of slavery (*v.*), if the *captivus* returned to his homeland with the intention of remaining there (*animus remanendi*), he immediately resumed, upon crossing the borders of the Roman State, his status as a citizen with all connected rights, *ac si captus ab hostibus non esset* (D. 49, 15, 5 § 1).
As to the nature of the institution, although the sources are rather ambiguous and uncertain, the more acceptable thesis is that it was not a true extinction and subsequent revival of rights, but rather a mere suspension or quiescence and subsequent restoration of them; in post-classical times, it was more simply spoken of as a *fictio iuris*, by virtue of which the *captivus*, upon returning to his homeland, was considered as if he had never lost his freedom and citizenship.
II. **Medieval and Modern Law.** – *Postliminio* passed into medieval law, undergoing accommodations and extensions not foreseen in classical Roman law, which were nevertheless inevitable following the decline of the Roman concept of *servitus* under the influence of the new Christian concept of legal capacity. It became consolidated mainly in the field of public law as a characteristic institution of *ius gentium* and most often took the form of a possessory action on the specific model of the *interdictum unde vi* and the *actio de spolio*.
In modern civil systems, *postliminio* is preserved as an institution proper to private international law, to which recourse is had, after a war, when, in the absence of precise norms in peace treaties, proceedings are initiated for the recovery, in favor of the legitimate owners, of those goods and rights that had undergone a change due to the event of war and of which the legitimate holders had been deprived as a result of enemy occupation. It rests on the natural principle, universally accepted either tacitly or by convention, that belligerent occupation is not in itself a transferable title of ownership.
III. **Canon Law.** – *Postliminio* has had and still retains particular applications in canon law, which, indeed, may be said to have been at the time the dominant factor that contributed to its renewal, Christianizing it and introducing it with new formulas into common law.
In the concept and use of *postliminio*, canon law doctrine for several centuries adhered to the principles and evolution of common law, but later gradually adapted these principles to ever more specific applications and forms proper to the canonical sphere, creating a *postliminio* *sui generis*, entirely its own within the ecclesiastical order. Thus, one spoke of *postliminio secundum canones* distinct from that *secundum leges*. The most characteristic feature was the gradual shift of the factual element, which constitutes its immediate title, from war captivity and capture by pirates, barbarians, and infidels, to the much broader field of unjust spoliation (forced exile, expulsion and unjust detention, etc.) and even to *vis maior* in general, even if fortuitous and non-dolosus (e.g., the burning of a cathedral or a chapter seat, the ruin of a monastery, etc.).
The basic texts on which canon law doctrine in this regard developed are provided in the *Decretum* at canons 13 and 14, C. 16, q. 3, and in the *Decretals* by c. 10, X, 2, 26. They establish, as the fundamental basis of the institution, the absolute and unlimited imprescriptibility of the rights of those who have been despoiled, regardless of the passage of time since the act of spoliation.
It is not easy to say, regarding the nature of canon *postliminio*, whether it is a true institution in itself or merely a *nomen*, linked to the more modern expressions of the *actio recuperandae possessionis*, also called *actio de spolio*, referred to in canons 1693–98, or even of the rescissory action and *restitutio in integrum* (canons 1648–89). The fact remains that *ius postliminii*, even when expressed in the aforementioned terms, arises from a combined and specific application of much broader and fundamental principles, such as that of the absolute juridical irrelevance of *vis iniusta* and the unlimited imprescriptibility of rights, for the entire duration of the *vis*, in the one who is its victim.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, recourse was had to the right of *postliminio* for the recovery of churches, chapter seats, and convents usurped by Protestants, as well as for the reclamation of Church property requisitioned and secularized, and for the restitution of Catholic princes. The same was done for the restoration of convents and monasteries abandoned by religious due to acts of war or *vis iniusta* in any form. The most recent applications of the right of *postliminio* concern the recovery and restoration of churches and convents usurped by secular governments in the religious suppressions that occurred from the French Revolution onward.
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