Kwestia ceny – o różnicy między sprzedażą a zamianą

Abstract

The paper focuses on the ancient Roman legal controversy concerning the nature of the price in the contract of sale and its contemporary significance. The Sabinian school used to claim that the price could consist not only of money, but also of other goods. Thus the Sabinians recognised the barter as a variant of sale. The Proculians view that a price should consist only of money eventually prevailed and is now obvious for civil law codifications and the common law as well. However, the main argument raised by the Proculians has lost its importance, since they emphasised the differences in the mutual obligations of parties in the contracts of sale and barter. Today these differences do not exist anymore in the codified civil law, because both parties in both contracts are obliged to transfer ownership. The difference between both contracts is nowadays solely based on the monetary character of sale and non-monetary nature of barter. Taking this into consideration leads us to a conclusion that from the point of view of the Roman jurists our contemporary demarcation between sale and barter would not be significant. Nevertheless, it is important to distinguish between those contracts due to practical differences.