Editing Pope Innocent IV (section)

===The concept of ''Persona ficta''===
Innocent IV is often credited with helping to create the idea of [[legal personality]], ''persona ficta'' as it was originally written, which has led to the idea of corporate personhood. At the time, this allowed monasteries, universities and other bodies to act as a single legal entity, facilitating continuity in their corporate existence. Monks and friars pledged individually to poverty could be part nonetheless of an organization that could own infrastructure. Such institutions, as "fictive persons", could not be excommunicated or considered guilty of delict, that is, negligence to action that is not contractually required. This meant that punishment of individuals within an organization would reflect less on the organization itself than if the person running such an organization was said to own it rather than be a constituent of it, and hence the concept was meant to provide institutional stability.<ref>{{cite journal |author=  Dewey, John  |author-link= John Dewey |title= The Historic Background of Corporate Legal Personality |journal= Yale Law Journal |volume= XXXV |date= April 1926  |pages= 655–673 |doi= 10.2307/788782 |jstor= 788782 |hdl= 20.500.13051/11955 |url=http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13051/11955 |accessdate= 28 January 2025}}</ref>