CANDO - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CANDOAuthored

The Law Mind • 749 words

Definition

In Roman law, a term derived from the Latin *caedo* (to cut), used to describe a provision attributed to the Twelve Tables (c. 450 BCE) governing the treatment of an insolvent debtor's body or property after judgment. The precise meaning of the provision is one of the most contested questions in ancient legal history. Two principal interpretations have persisted:

1. Literal interpretation: Creditors of an insolvent judgment debtor were legally entitled to divide his physical body among themselves in proportion to their claims, cutting him into pieces if multiple creditors were owed satisfaction.

2. Figurative interpretation: The language was metaphorical or referred to the division of the debtor's property or estate among creditors, not his person. On this reading, *cando* describes a form of pro-rata distribution of assets, not corporeal dismemberment.

Neither interpretation is conclusively settled. Whether the literal provision was ever enforced — or whether it represents rhetorical severity intended to compel payment rather than a practiced remedy — remains an open historical question.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A small city, the county seat of Towner County, North Dakota, United States; also a hamlet in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not listed as a common English word.

The gap here is complete: the legal term *cando* is a Latin term of art drawn from Roman law with no connection to the geographic place names that share its spelling. A researcher encountering *cando* in a legal or historical context should not expect any ordinary English meaning to be operative.

Common Confusion

*Cando* is occasionally confused with the broader Roman law concept of *bonorum venditio* (sale of a debtor's estate) or with *addictio* (assignment of an insolvent debtor to creditors as a form of bondage). These are related but distinct remedies in the Roman debt enforcement system. *Cando* specifically designates the extreme partition remedy described in the Twelve Tables; the other terms describe separate procedural mechanisms that preceded or substituted for it. Researchers should also take care not to conflate the Twelve Tables provision with later Roman law, which substantially reformed debtor-creditor relations and moved away from personal enforcement remedies.

Why It Matters in Research

*Cando* appears almost exclusively in historical and comparative law contexts — discussions of the Twelve Tables, Roman private law, and the development of insolvency doctrine. It will not surface in case reporters or modern statutory materials. Researchers using Law Mind sources should treat it as a terminus technicus of ancient Roman law rather than a term with any living legal application.

The interpretive controversy surrounding *cando* is itself historically significant: the dispute between the literal and figurative readings tracks broader debates about how to read archaic Roman legal texts and whether extreme provisions in the Twelve Tables were operative law or cautionary symbolism. Researchers working on the history of bankruptcy, creditor remedies, or comparative legal history will find the disagreement among commentators — not a settled definition — to be the substantive content.

Because Black's Law Dictionary transmits only a fragment of the original entry, researchers should treat its summary as a pointer to primary scholarship on the Twelve Tables rather than as an authoritative resolution of the interpretive question.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary provides the only dictionary entry among Law Mind shelf sources. It frames the controversy accurately: some commentators read the provision literally as authorizing physical dismemberment; others argue the language was figurative and referred to partition of the debtor's estate. Black's does not resolve the question, which is the correct scholarly posture — the debate among Roman law historians (including Mommsen and others) has not produced consensus.

What Black's does not supply: the broader procedural context of Roman debt enforcement under the Twelve Tables, the role of *manus iniectio* (the laying on of hands by a creditor that preceded harsher remedies), or any account of whether the *cando* provision was ever actually executed. Researchers needing that context will need to move beyond dictionary sources to treatises on Roman private law.

Jurisdictional Note

*Cando* has no jurisdiction-specific application in modern law. It is a historical term relevant only to Roman law scholarship and the comparative history of insolvency and creditor remedies.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Roman Law; Twelve Tables; History of Bankruptcy and Insolvency

CANDOmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

In Roman law. "Of cutting a debtor in pieces." This was the name of a law contained in the Twelve Tables, the meaning of which has occasioned much con- troversy. Some commentators have conclud- ed that it was literally the privilege of the creditors of an insolvent debtor (all other means failing) to cut his body into pieces and distribute it among them. Others con- tend that the language of this law must be taken figuratively, denoting a cutting up and apportionment of the debtor's estate. The latter view has been adopted by Montes- quieu, Bynkershoek, Heineccius, and Taylor. (Es- prit des Lois, liv. 29, c. 2; Bynk. Obs. Jur. Rom. 1. 1, c. 1; Heinecc. Ant. Rom. lib. 3, tit. 30, § 4; Tayl. Comm. in Leg. Decemv.) The literal meaning, on the other hand, is advocated by Aulus Gellius and other writers of antiquity, and receives support from an expression (semoto omni cruciatu) in the Roman code itself. (Aul. Gel. Noctes Atticæ, lib. 20, c. 1; Code, 7, 7, 8.) This is also the opin- ion of Gibbon, Gravina, Pothier, Hugo, and Nieh- buhr. (3 Gib. Rom. Emp., Am. Ed., p. 183; Grav. de Jur. Nat. Gent. et XII. Tab. § 72; Poth. Introd. Pand.; Hugo, Hist. du Droit Rom. tom. i., p. 233, § 149; 2 Niehb. Hist. Rom. p. 597; 1 Kent, Comm. 523, note.) Burrill