Roman cadastres, land registers and instrumentum venditionis: The elements of modern land registries

The reason for this research is the opinion of Civilists that Roman law did not make any contribution in the area of lend recording. It is true that during the Roman history registration was not a necessary condition of acquiring ownership, as was the case in the German system of land registers, neither did Roman law contain all the principles of modern land registers. Nevertheless, it cannot be claimed that the modern land registry system is completely original. Elements of modern land registries existed already in Roman times. These were: the cadastres, the public (censor's) books and the requirement for written documents in transactions related to immovable property, especially in sales contract. It is not easy to reconstruct the elements of modern land registries in ancient Rome as available sources are in fragments; however there is sufficient basis to claim that modern land registries have their predecessor in Roman law.