La propriété et les propriétés dans l’officine de l’historien

With a point of departure in the relation from the civil law professor Pugliatti about property and properties, the article proposes to use the plural form in order to relativize the absolutist conception of property that has triumphed during the 19th century. The medieval experience is the one of another relationship between Man and Things, based on the possession and exploitation of land, and leading to the idea of a plurality of properties upon the same thing. Appeared during the early Middle Ages, this superposition of ownerships was theorized, thanks to the rediscovery of Justinian’s compilation, through the notions of dominium utile and divided domain. Although it was founded on a contradiction in the very terms of dominium utile, this juridical construction was anchored in mentalities during centuries. Finding its origin in the thought of theologians and of philosophers from the 14th century, the new anthropologic conception of the relationship of Man and Things gave birth to the possessive individualism and to the ‘modern’ property.