Legal Definitions - property ratione privilegii

Property ratione privilegii refers to a historical legal concept, originating from common law, where a specific individual or entity was granted a special permission, often by a sovereign or government authority (known as a 'franchise'), to hunt, kill, and take wild animals on land owned by someone else. Under this unique privilege, any wild animals successfully taken by the holder of the franchise would become their absolute property, even though they were captured on another person's land. This right was an exception to the general rule that wild animals belonged to the landowner while on their property.

• Medieval Hunting Grant: Imagine a powerful Duke in medieval England who received a special charter from the King. This charter granted the Duke the exclusive right to hunt deer within a specific forest, even though parts of that forest were owned by several smaller landowners and local villagers. When the Duke's hunting party successfully took a deer within this designated area, the deer legally belonged to the Duke, not to the owner of the specific plot of land where it was caught.

  This illustrates "property ratione privilegii" because the Duke's right to hunt and own the wild animals (deer) stemmed from a special royal grant (the charter), allowing him to do so on land belonging to others.

• Colonial Trapping Rights: Consider a scenario in early colonial America where a fur trading company was granted a specific "privilege" by the colonial governor (acting on behalf of the Crown) to trap beaver within a vast wilderness region. This region included lands that were later settled and claimed by individual farmers. Despite these farmers owning the land, the fur company, by virtue of its special grant, retained the right to set traps and claim ownership of any beaver caught on those private lands.

  Here, the fur trading company's ability to take wild animals (beaver) on another's land and claim them as their property was due to a special governmental grant (the colonial governor's privilege), fitting the definition of "property ratione privilegii."

• Historical Fowling Rights: In 17th-century France, a nobleman might have been granted a specific royal privilege to practice falconry and take wild fowl (like pheasants or partridges) across certain agricultural estates belonging to commoners. Even though the commoners owned the fields where the birds nested or fed, the nobleman, by virtue of his royal grant, had the right to hunt these birds with his falcons and claim them as his own once caught.

  This demonstrates "property ratione privilegii" because the nobleman's right to hunt and own the wild fowl on another's land derived from a special royal permission, not from ownership of the land itself.