coemptio

Forms

coēmptiō f (genitive coēmptiōnis); third declension^[1] Glossaries have a contracted form comptiō.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin coemō + -tiō,^[3][2] from coemō (“to buy up”), a compound of con- and emō (“to buy”);^[1][4] Wiktionary analyses it as the same prefix and emptiō (“purchase”).^[1] The verb emō goes back to Proto-Italic *eme/o- (“to take”) and Proto-Indo-European *h1em-e/o- (“to take”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero is the first to use it,^[2][4] in the speech for Murena and elsewhere, as a legal term for a fictitious sale.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

In Roman law it was one of the three ways in which a wife passed into her husband's manus, a symbolic purchase made before five witnesses and a scale-holder.^[7][2] Lewis & Short take Cicero's use in the speech for Murena as a mock sale of an estate to free it from the sacred rites attached to it.^[6] A woman could also make a coemptio with a man who was not her husband, “for the sake of trust”, in order to change her guardian.^[3][7] The jurist Gaius describes it, but it is missing from the jurists excerpted in the Digest,^[2] and Servius says that Virgil alludes to it in the Aeneid.^[2]

In Late Latin it meant buying up: the Theodosian Code uses it of the compulsory purchase of grain for the state, the Vulgate of buying up slaves, and Boethius of a monopoly.^[7][8] Medieval Latin used it for a purchase, compulsory purveyance or requisition, forestalling, a feudal relief and the redemption of a due.^[9]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero mentions the mock sale in his speeches.^[6][2][4]
• 140–180 AD – Gaius describes the marriage by coemptio in his Institutes.^[2][4]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it of buying up slaves.^[7][4]
• c. 400 AD – Servius explains Virgil's allusion to it.^[2][4]
• Middle Ages – It means a purchase, a requisition and the redemption of a due.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. (law) A fictitious sale of a woman to a man, by which she passed into his power at marriage, or into the power of another man in order to change guardians.^[3][6]
2. (Late Latin) A buying up; a compulsory purchase of grain for the state; a monopoly.^[7][8]
3. (Medieval Latin) A purchase; a requisition; forestalling; a relief; the redemption of a due.^[9]

Word family

• coemptiōnātor
• comptiōnālis

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill