REASONS FOR DISINHERITING DESCENDANTS ACCORDING TO EMPEROR JUSTINIANS NOVEL 115 (Powody wydziedziczenia descendentów wg Noweli 115. Cesarza Justyniana)

The Novel 115th, announced in 542, is a substantial element of the inheritance law reform undertaken by emperor Justinian. Innovations introduced in its third and fourth chapters focus on two catalogs of justified reasons for disinheriting. The former chapter contains a catalog of fourteen reasons for disinheriting descendants. The latter one gives eight reasons for disinheriting ancestors. Justinian derives all specified reasons for 'exheredationis' from the lack of gratitude from either descendants or ancestors. The article is a review of the catalog of the following justified reasons for disinheriting descendants: 1) raising one's hand to strike their ancestors; 2) causing a serious or humiliating insult at them; 3) accusing them of having committed a public law crime (crimen) that did not harm the emperor or the state; 4) using magic; 5) making an attempt to poison or kill ancestors in another way; 6) a real relationship of a sexual nature between a son and his stepmother or his father's concubine; 7) a denunciation of parents by their son and because of that putting them at risk of incurring serious costs; 8) a soulless refusal of male descendants to guarantee their arrested ancestors; 9) making an attempt to frustrate their ancestors' intentions to make a will; 10) joining a troupe of gladiators or mummers and doing these jobs against the ancestors' will; 11) a daughter's or granddaughter's refusal to get married connected with the choice of dissolute lifestyle despite the fact that parents or grandparents dowered her appropriately; 12) neglecting ancestor-care and assistance during their mental illness; 13) neglecting to pay ransom for their captured ancestors; 14) contempt for the ancestor's catholic beliefs by practicing heresy and not maintaining contacts with the Church.