civil law. A term which indicates the subjection of one person to another person, or of a person to a thing, or of a thing to a person, or of a thing to a thing. 2. Hence servitudes are divided into real, personal, and mixed. Lois des Bat. P. 1, c. 1. 3. A real or predial servitude is a charge laid on an estate for the use and utility of another estate belonging to another proprietor. Louis. Code, art. 643. When used without any adjunct, the word servitude means a real or predial servitude. Lois des Bat. P. 1, c. 1. 4. The subjection of one person to another is a purely personal servitude; if it exists in the right of property which a person exercises over another, it is slavery. When the subjection of one person to another is not slavery, it consists simply in the right of requiring of another what he is bound to do, or not to do; this right arises from all kinds of contracts or quasi con tracts. Lois des Bat. P. 1, c. 1, art. 1. 5. The subjection of persons to things or of things to persons, are mixed servitudes. Lois des Bat. P. 1, c. 1, art. 2. 6. Real servitudes are divided into rural and urban. Rural servitudes are those which are due by an estate to another estate, such as the right of passage over the serving estate, or that which owes the servitude, or to draw water from it, or to water cattle there, or to take coal, lime and wood from it, and the like. Urban servitudes are those which are established over a building fur the convenience of another, such as the right of resting the joists in the wall of the serving building, of opening windows which overlook the serving estate, and the like. Dict. de Jurisp. tit. Servitudes.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
1. The condition of being bound to service; the state of a person who Is subjected, voluntarily or otherwise, to another person as his servant Involuntary servitude. See Involuntary. Penal servitude. In English criminal law, a punishment which consists in keeping the offender in confinement and compelling him to labor. 2. A charge or burden resting upon one estate for the benefit or advantage of another ; a species of incorporeal right derived from the civil law (see Shbvjtus) and closely corresponding to the “easement” of the common law, except that “servitude” rather has relation to the burden or the estate burdened, while “easement” refers to the benefit or advantage or the estate to which it accrues. The term “servitude,” in its original and popular sense, signifies the duty of service, or rather the condition of one who is liable to the performance of services. The word, however, in its legal sense, is applied figuratively to things. When the freedom of ownership in land is fettered or restricted, by reason of some person, other than the owner thereof, having some right therein, the land is said to “serve” such person. The restricted condition of the ownership or the right which forms the subject matter of the restriction is termed a “servitude,” and the land so burdened with another’s right is termed a “servient tenement,” while the land belonging to the person enjoying the right is called the “dominant tenement. The word “servitude” may be said to have both a positive and a negative signification; in the former sense denoting the restrictive right belonging to the entitled party; in the latter, the restrictive duty entailed upon the proprietor or possessor of the servient land. Brown. Classification. All servitudes which affect lands may be divided into two kinds, personal and real. Personal servitudes are those attached to the person for whose benefit they are established, and terminate with his life. This kind of servitude is of three sorts,usufruct use, and habitation. Real servitudes, which are also called “predial” or “landed” servitudes, are those which the owner of an estate enjoys on a neighboring estate for the benefit of his own estate. They are called “predial” or “landed” servitudes because, being established for the benefit of an estate, they are rather due to the estate than to the owner personally. Civ. Code La. art 646. Real servitudes are divided, in the civil law, into rural and urban servitudes. Rural servitudes are such as are established for the benefit of a landed estate; such, for example, as a right of way over the servient tenement or of access to a spring, a coalmine, a sand pit or a wood that is upon it Urban servitudes are such as are established for the benefit of one building over another. (But the buildings need not be in the city, as the name would apparently imply.) They are such as the right of support, or of view, or of drip or sewer, or the like. See Mackeld. Rom. Law,