servitudo

Servitudo is a Latin noun meaning servitude or servanthood. In classical usage it could denote the state of being a slave or the act of serving, and it acquired specialized meanings in legal and social discourse. In Roman law, servitudo referred both to personal bondage and to a category of real rights restricting the use of land. Predial servitudes (servitutes praediorum) bind one estate for the benefit of another, for example rights of way, light, or water; these are burdens that run with the land to new owners. Personal servitudes, by contrast, concerned the obligations or status of a person (for instance, the use rights of a usufructuary or a client).

The term remained influential in medieval and early modern European law, where Roman-law-inspired concepts shaped property doctrine. In contemporary civil-law systems, the functional idea survives under terms such as easement or predial servitude, even if the Latin word servitudo itself is less common in everyday usage. In social history, servitudo can describe the condition of bondage or serfdom in various periods, including slavery in antiquity and feudal servitude, though the exact meaning depends on historical context.

Today, scholarly discussions typically treat servitudo as a historical or linguistic term, used to explain the legal structure of servitudes in Roman law and their later transplantations in European property law.