HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS OF THE VITALICIO CONTRACT IN THE ROMAN LAW: AN APPROACH TO ITS STUDY THROUGH AN EPISTOLAR DOCUMENT

Roman Law studied in detail maintenance inside of legacies and trusts, and accepted -at a later time- a flexibilization of the forms by admitting the mandatory formulation of maintenance through stipulatio. Thus, in Roman law, using a verbal contract such as the stipulation, a subject (generally a third party) turned out to be the owner of a right through which another person was obliged to provide everything necessary in order to maintain it. And by means of a legal transaction mortis causa, a subject destined to receive maintenance at the will of the deceased through legacy or trust, was the creditor of a right or obligation of maintenance -as long as the aditio hereditatis did not occur - consisting of the perception of products intended for sustenance or in an amount of money that must have had the same purpose, and that the heir was obliged to lend him. The inclusion of an epistolary document in the Digest, identifiable with vitalicio contract, raises reasonable doubts about the antecedents of the contract of the Galician Civil Law Act in the stipulative figure collected in the Triboniano's compilation.