Cessio bonorum (Latin for a "surrender of goods"), inRoman law, is a voluntary surrender of goods by adebtor to hiscreditors. It did not amount to a discharge unless the property ceded was sufficient for the purpose, but it secured the debtor from personal arrest. The creditors sold the goods as partial restoration of their claims. The procedure ofcessio bonorum avoidedinfamia, and the debtor, though his after-acquired property might be proceeded against, could not be deprived of the bare necessaries of life. The main features of the Roman law ofcessio bonorum were adopted inmedieval law,[1]Scots law,[2] and also inFrench law.[3] Asimilar concept of the same name exists inAnglo-American law,[4][5][6] although this is "used ... rather as a convenient than as a strictly technical term."[7]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cessio Bonorum".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 768.[In] the law ofcession, [...] if a debtorceded, or yielded up all his fortune to his creditors, he was secured from being dragged to a gaol [jail],omni quoque corporali cruciatu semoto.
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