obligatio Praetoriae

/6blageysh(iy)ow pratoriyiy/ The Romans considered that obligations derived their validity solely from positive law. At first the only ones recognized were those established in special cases in accordance with the forms prescribed by the strict jus civile. In the course of time, however, the praetorian jurisdiction, in mitigation of the primitive rigor of the law, introduced new modes of contracting obligations and provided the means of enforcing them; hence the twofold division made by Justinian of obligationes civiles and obligationes prsetorix