Oslash; Sources and main provisions of the Cathedral Code of 1649.

The Cathedral Code of 1649, summarizing the previous experience of creating legal norms, relied on:

Code of Laws;

Specified order books;

Royal decrees;

Duma sentences;

Decisions of Zemsky Sobors (most of the articles were drawn up on petitions from the councilors);

- "Stoglav";

Lithuanian and Byzantine legislation;

New-found articles about "robbery and murder" (1669), about estates and estates (1677), about trade (1653 and 1677), which were included in the Code after 1649.

State administrative system.

The head of state, the king, was defined as an autocratic and hereditary monarch. The provision on the approval (election) of the tsar at the Zemsky Assembly substantiated these principles. Any actions directed against the person of the monarch were considered criminal and subject to punishment.

Attaching the peasants to the land (chapter 11 "The court of the peasants").

The Posad reform, which changed the position of the “white settlements” (Chapter 14).

Change of status of fiefdom and estates (chapters 16 and 17).

Regulation of the work of local government bodies (Chapter 21).

The regime of entry and exit (Article 6) - all these measures formed the basis of the administrative and police reforms.

Legal proceedings.

The two main forms are the court and the search.

Court. The court procedure is described in Chapter 10 of the Code. The court was based on two processes - the "court" itself and "judgment", i.e. sentencing, decision. The court began with "submission", filing a petition. The court accepted and used various evidence:

Testimony (at least ten witnesses),

Written evidence (the most confidential of them are officially certified documents),

Cross kissing (in disputes for an amount not exceeding one ruble),

To obtain evidence, a “general” search was used - a survey of the population about the fact of a committed crime, and a “general” search - about a specific person suspected of a crime. The so-called "law" was introduced into the practice of the court, when the defendant (most often the insolvent debtor) was regularly subjected to corporal punishment (beating with rods) by the court. The number of such procedures should have been equivalent to the amount owed. So, for example, they flogged for a debt of one hundred rubles within a month. Pravezh was not just a punishment - it was also a measure to induce the defendant to fulfill the obligation (either on his own or through guarantors).

Search or "search" was used only in the most serious criminal cases, and a special place and attention in the search was given to crimes in which the state interest was affected (“the word and deed of the sovereign”).

Chapter 21 of the Cathedral Code of 1649 establishes for the first time such the procedural procedure is like torture. The grounds for its application could be the results of a “search”, when the testimony was divided: part in favor of the suspect, part against him. The use of torture was regulated: it could be used no more than three times, with a certain break; and the testimony given during the torture (“slip”) had to be cross-checked with the help of other procedural measures (interrogation, oath, search).

The law identified three stages of a criminal act:

Intention (which itself can be punishable)

Attempted crime

And committing a crime

And also the concept of recidivism, which in the Cathedral Code coincides with the concept of "dashing person", and the concept of extreme necessity, which is not punishable only if the proportionality of its real danger on the part of the criminal is observed.

The objects of the crime according to the Cathedral Code of 1649, the following were determined:

Church,

State,

Personality,

Property

And morality. The most dangerous crimes were considered crimes against the church and for the first time they were put in the first place. This is due to the fact that the church occupied a special place in public life, but the main thing is that it was taken under the protection of state institutions and laws.

Economic measures. In the Code of 1649, the procedure for granting land is especially considered. It was a complex set of legal actions that included:

Issuance of a Certificate of Merit;

Drawing up a certificate (i.e., an entry in the order book of certain information about the allotted person);

Ownership, which consisted in the public measurement of land.

Ø System of crimes.

The system of crimes according to the Cathedral Code of 1649 looked like this:

Crimes against the church: blasphemy, seducing the Orthodox into another faith, interrupting the liturgy in the church;

State crimes: any actions and even intent directed against the personality of the sovereign or his family, rebellion, conspiracy, treason. For these crimes, responsibility was borne not only by the persons who committed them, but also by their relatives and friends;

Crimes against the management order: deliberate failure of the defendant to appear in court and resistance to the bailiff, preparation of forged letters, acts and seals, unauthorized travel abroad, counterfeiting, keeping without permission of drinking establishments and moonshine brewing, taking a false oath in court, giving false testimony, "sneakiness ”Or false accusation;

Crimes against the deanery: maintenance of dens, harboring fugitives, illegal sale of property, illegal mortgage, imposition of duties on persons exempted from them;

Official crimes: covetousness (bribery, unlawful extortion, extortion), injustice (knowingly unfair decision of the case, due to self-interest or personal hostility), forgery at work (falsification of documents, information, distortions in money papers, etc.), military crimes ( damage to individuals, looting, escape from the unit);

Crimes against the person: murder, divided into simple and qualified (murder of parents by children, murder of a master as a slave), mutilation, beatings, insult to honor (insult, slander, spread of defamatory rumors). The murder of a traitor or a thief at the scene of the crime was not punished at all;

Property crimes: simple and qualified crime (church, service, horse theft committed in the sovereign's yard, theft of vegetables from the garden and fish from the cage), robbery (committed in the form of a trade) and ordinary or skilled robbery (committed by servants or children in relation to parents), fraud (theft associated with deception, but without the use of violence), set on fire (the caught arsonist was thrown into the fire), forcible seizure of other people's property (land, animals), damage to someone else's property;

Crimes against morality: disrespect for parents by children, refusal to support elderly parents, pandering, “fornication” of the wife (but not the husband), sexual intercourse between a master and a slave.

3 Punishment system.

In the system of punishments according to the Cathedral Code of 1649, the main emphasis was on physical intimidation (from beating with a whip to cutting off the hands and quartering with the death penalty). The imprisonment of the offender was a secondary task and an additional punishment.

For the same crime, several punishments could be established at once (multiple punishments) - whipping, cutting off the tongue, exile, confiscation of property. For theft, punishments were established on an increasing basis: for the first - whipping, cutting off the ear, two years in prison and exile; for the second - whipping, cutting off the ear and four years in prison; for the third - the death penalty.

In the Cathedral Code of 1649, the death penalty was provided for in almost sixty cases (even smoking tobacco was punishable by death). The death penalty was divided into simple (cutting off the head, hanging) and qualified (wheeling, quartering, burning, filling the throat with metal, burying alive in the ground),

In general, the system of punishments according to the Cathedral Code of 1649 was characterized by the following features:

1. Individualization of punishment. The wife and children of the offender were not responsible for the act he committed. However, the remnants of the archaic system of punishments remained in the institution of third-party liability: a landowner who killed a foreign peasant had to transfer another peasant to the injured landowner, the “right” procedure was preserved.

2. The estate character of the punishment. This sign was expressed in the fact that for the same crimes different subjects bore different responsibility (for example, for a similar act, a boyar was punished with deprivation of honor, and a commoner - with a whip. Chapter 10).

3. Uncertainty in establishing punishment. This sign was associated with the purpose of punishment - intimidation. In the verdict, not the type of punishment itself could be indicated and the formulations were used: "as the sovereign will indicate", "through fault" or "punish severely."

Even if the type of punishment was determined, the method of its execution remained unclear (similar formulations like “punish with death” or “throw in prison until the sovereign’s decree”), i.e. uncertainty of punishment.

Uncertainty in the establishment of punishment created an additional psychological impact on the offender. The purpose of intimidation was a special symbolism of punishment: pouring molten metal into the throat of the criminal; applying to him such a punishment that he would like for the person slandered by him. The publicity of punishments had a socio-psychological purpose, since many punishments (burning, drowning, wheeling) served as analogs of hellish torment.

4. Imprisonment, as a special type of punishment, could be established for a period from three days to four years, or for an indefinite period. As an additional type of punishment (and sometimes as the main one), exile was appointed (to remote monasteries, prison, fortresses or boyar estates).

Representatives of the privileged estates were subjected to such a type of punishment as deprivation of honor and rights, ranging from full surrender with the head (turning into a slave) to declaring “disgrace” (isolation, ostracism, sovereign disfavor). The accused could be deprived of his rank, the right to sit in the Duma or by order, deprived of the right to file a claim in court.

With the adoption of the Code of 1649, property sanctions began to be widely applied (Chapter 10 of the Code in seventy-four cases established a gradation of fines "for dishonor" depending on the social status of the victim). The highest sanction of this kind was the complete confiscation of the criminal's property. Finally, the system of sanctions included church punishments (repentance, excommunication, exile to a monastery, confinement in a solitary cell, etc.).

Ø The significance of the Cathedral Code for the social and political life of Russia.

With the adoption of the Cathedral Code in 1649, for the first time in the history of Russian statehood, an attempt was made to create a single set of all existing legal norms, to cover all aspects of the social, political and economic life of Russia, and not separate groups of social relations. - As a result of the codification, the Sobornoye Ulozhenie was consolidated into 25 chapters and 967 articles, there was a division of norms by industry and institution.

The Cathedral Code strengthened the judicial and legal system of Russia and was the foundation on which it subsequently developed and supplemented as a set of laws for feudal-serf Russia.

The adoption of the Cathedral Code (date of adoption - 1649) is one of the most significant events in the history of Russian law. For its time, this was the most important document that forced the Moscow state to evolve into a developed society.

Basic prerequisites

The adoption of the Cathedral Code did not take place from scratch. There were many reasons for creating a single document regulating human life in the Russian state.

Until 1649, Ivan the Terrible's Code of Laws, written in 1550, was a single set of laws. For a hundred years, the system of feudal government has changed dramatically, requiring the introduction of new norms for the leadership of the state. And they were accepted. True, in the form of decrees that are not added to the code of conduct.

The reasons for the adoption of the Cathedral Code lie in the need to bring all decrees and laws into a single system. Until 1649, they were all scattered across various sources. The situation often became absurd - the decree was issued and successfully forgotten, while the state continued to live according to the old concepts.

1649 year

Against the background of such an unorganized and poorly working system, the need for such a legal act as the adoption of the Cathedral Code became clear. Datej turned out to be far from accidental.

The final impetus for the much-needed reform was the events of 1648, which went down in history as the "Salt Riot". The shock in the form of an unexpectedly flared uprising forced Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich to act immediately. Fortunately, then Russia had an extremely intelligent leader who understood what the people expected from him. The convocation of the Zemsky Sobor, which ultimately led to the creation of the Code, was an extremely correct reaction to the revolt in Moscow. He allowed people to calm down and stabilize the situation. Who knows, perhaps if another person had sat in the place of the wise politician Alexei Mikhailovich, the adoption of the Cathedral Code in Russia would have taken place centuries later.

Document creation

Aleksey Mikhailovich entrusted the responsible mission of preparing the code of laws to a specially created commission, which consisted of princes and churchmen. They had to do hard work: to analyze and put together all the sources that contained decrees and norms written earlier, not in the year of the adoption of the Cathedral Code.

In fact, the entire top of the then Muscovy was involved in editing and hearing the document. The Boyar Duma considered every article that fell into the code. Another editorial committee was also created, consisting of specially selected people of different ranks.

After the proposal of the law and its consideration by the two above-mentioned instances, which also involved re-editing, the law was signed by each member of the Zemsky Sobor. The responsibility of each editor made the adoption of the Cathedral Code fully legal and legally justified.

Crime and Punishment

The system of punishment in the Cathedral Code is extremely interesting. For that time, such a view of justice seemed absolutely normal, but now it causes nothing but disgusting surprise.

The adoption of the Cathedral Code of 1649 brought in many different punishments, working on the principle of "an eye for an eye". Thus, a deliberately injured criminal was inflicted exactly the same injury as "education". Especially in this context, the punishment for perjury is interesting. The guilty person had to bear the punishment that provided for the crime that was not actually committed. If the atrocity actually took place, and the opposite was shown, the person was recorded as accomplices.

A lot of indicative and talkative about the society of that time is the frequent postscript that accompanied the punishment - "at the discretion of the king." Thus, Alexei Mikhailovich retained the institution of absolute monarchy, making the throne higher than any code and code and leaving the last word to the ruler.

Serfdom

The adoption of the Cathedral Code of Alexei Mikhailovich finally completely completed the formation of the institution of serfdom in Russia, forever tying the peasants to the land and the landowner and completely restricting their freedom of movement. For example, a serf from now on could not defend himself in court - he had to rely on the good deeds of his overlord.

Such decisions for a long time consolidated a solid and well-coordinated feudal system within Russia. The Cathedral Code itself was aimed precisely at this, so there is nothing surprising in the emergence of such norms that severely limited the lower strata of the population.

But even in this barrel of tar a spoonful of honey was found for the peasant: from now on he had the right to defend his life and personal property from the encroachments of his suzerain. Of course, this did not always work (especially with the postscript that the peasant cannot answer for himself before the court), but the very existence of such a norm in the code meant that the government was aware of the problem of abuse of power and was making attempts to eliminate this lack of feudalism.

Church and Cathedral Code

In connection with the policy of Alexei Mikhailovich regarding the church, in the Cathedral Code, the dominant role of the clergy in the state structure is clearly noticeable. The only thing that angered the church was the deprivation of the clergy of the right to be unified and absolute judges during the proceedings. Now officials were engaged in such things.

However, despite this, it cannot be denied - the adoption of the Cathedral Code only consolidated the power of the clergy in the country. It got to the point that there are almost more articles for "a crime against the church" in the code of laws than on other points taken together. Here you can find damage to the property of the church, and blasphemy, and insults to the priest, and heresy. In a word, the clergy have always found the opportunity to eliminate the "extra" person. The punishment for transgressions before the church was almost the same for almost all counts - burning at the stake.

Court

The year of the adoption of the Cathedral Code also forever and radically changed the judicial system in the Moscow state. Probably, it was he who got into the field of vision of most of the reforms.

First, a clear definition of the concept of "court" and "search" has finally appeared. They were divided among themselves and were different stages of the investigation, while until 1649 the search for the criminal was already (legally) a court.

Secondly, there was a legal background to the search. Now his organization by the authorities and the things found during it were considered full-fledged evidence during the trial.

Thirdly, the procedure for conducting interrogation through torture was regulated. Now they could be carried out no more than three times and after a clearly established period of time, which should have significantly reduced the number of false remorse.

Perhaps it was precisely because of the last point that Russia managed to do without its own inquisition.

A family

Oddly enough it sounds for our time, in the Cathedral Code a lot of space is devoted to family issues. Great importance was attached to the description and explanation of the structure of the smallest unit of society.

In fact, the adoption of the Cathedral Code did not bring any fundamental changes, but it fully consolidated the status of the family and its structure. Of course, the family was obliged to remain patriarchal - the man was the "house builder", he also made all the most important decisions. The status of a woman completely and completely depended on the status of a man, and this meant that a free woman would never marry a serf.

A family was a man and a woman who went through a wedding in a church. This was another important point related to the clergy.

However, there were still changes, and important ones. This is the emergence of divorce as a legal act. Of course, it happened extremely rarely, but now it was allowed: in the case of the infertility of the wife or the criminal actions of one of the spouses.

Meaning

The year of the adoption of the Cathedral Code became a new step in the evolution of Russian society. The full-fledged code of laws, according to which the whole world now lived, finally visited the Moscow state. This was an important step not only in development within the country, but also in strengthening its status in the international sense.

It would seem, what difference does it make to foreign merchants? But even they were more actively drawn to Muscovy, where, after the adoption of the Cathedral Code, written forms of agreement became mandatory for any trade transaction.

It is difficult to overestimate the significance of the Cathedral Code. Changing from time to time, it survived until the 19th century, being the main support for the legal life of Russia. It became unnecessary with the arrival of the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire, which marked a new round in the development of the Russian state.

Cathedral Code 1649. Page with the beginning of chapter 11

In July 1648, the tsar convened his boyar duma and the council of the patriarch ("the consecrated council") and consulted with them about what should be done to establish order and justice in the state, so that "all ranks of people, from great to a lesser rank, judgment and punishment were equal to all in all matters. " And it was decided to entrust the boyar Prince N.I. Odoevsky with four assistants to collect all the old laws, that is, the Code of Law of 1550, additional decrees to it (which have accumulated a lot over a hundred almost years) and articles from the Book of Kormcha (§12). All these laws had to be put in order and system, corrected and supplemented and thus compiled from them a new complete set. It was assumed that when the book. Odoevsky will finish collecting the old laws, the Zemsky Sobor will convene in Moscow and discuss his work with a "general council", supplement and approve it. The Zemsky Sobor was ordered to meet in Moscow by September 1, 1648.

Thus, the young sovereign wanted to establish justice and better order by giving the people a new set of laws. This thought was very reasonable and correct. The people then did not know the laws by which they had to live and be judged; This is what mainly helped the lawlessness of the clerks and governors. The old Code of Law was not published; he could only be written off, and therefore very few people knew him. Even fewer knew Pilot, which was so large that it was difficult to rewrite it. As for the decrees supplementary to the Code of Laws, no one knew them, except for officials, because the decrees were usually not announced to the people, but were only written into the “indicated books” of Moscow orders. Under such conditions, clerks and judges turned things around as they wanted, they concealed some laws, while others interpreted at random; no one had the opportunity to check them. The old caustic proverb referred to this order: "The law is like a drawbar: where you turn, there you go." It was very necessary to put in order the old laws, to make one collection of them and to publish it for general information. And besides, it was necessary to revise the laws in terms of their content, improve them and supplement them so that they better meet the needs and desires of the population. All this was decided to be done by the "general council" at the Zemsky Sobor.

The cathedral began to function around September 1, 1648. It was attended by elected representatives from 130 cities, both service people and taxing townspeople. They sat in one of the palace chambers, separate from the boyar duma and the clergy. Listening to the reports of Prince Odoevsky, who was collecting old laws and decrees on various branches of government (class structure, land tenure, court, etc.), elected people discussed them and went to the sovereign about them with petitions. In these petitions, they all by a council asked the sovereign to establish new laws to abolish outdated or inconvenient ones. The sovereign usually agreed, and the new law was thus approved and introduced to the assembly of Prince Odoevsky. The most important of the new statutes were the following: 1) The clergy were deprived of the right to acquire land for themselves in the future (§56) and lost some judicial privileges. 2) Boyars and clergy have lost the right to settle near cities, in "suburbs", their peasants and slaves and to accept "mortgages" (§79). 3) Posad communities received the right to return all the "mortgagers" who left them and to remove from the posad all people who do not belong to the communities. 4) The noblemen received the right to look for their fugitive peasants without "fixed years". Finally, 5) merchants ensured that foreigners were forbidden to trade within the Moscow state, anywhere except Arkhangelsk. Considering all these new decrees, we notice that they are all made in favor of service people (noblemen) and townspeople (townspeople). Service people secured for themselves the lands (which hitherto left them to the clergy) and peasants (who were still moving from place to place). The people of Posad destroyed mortgaging and closed the estates from strangers, who beat off their bargaining and trades and took away the mortgagers. Therefore, the nobles and townspeople were very pleased with the new laws and said that "now the sovereign is merciful, he is taking the strong out of the kingdom." But the clergy and boyars could not praise the new order, which deprived them of various privileges; they thought that these orders were allowed "for the sake of fear and civil strife from all black people, and not for the sake of the true truth." The mob was also dissatisfied: the mortgagers returned to a taxable state, the peasants, deprived of the opportunity to exit. They were worried and were inclined to leave for the Don. Thus, the new laws, established in favor of the middle classes of the population, irritated the upper classes and the common people.

Legislative work was completed already in 1649, and a new set of laws, called "Cathedral Code" (or simply "Code"), was published at that time in a huge number of copies (2 thousand) and distributed throughout the state.

Any frankly expressed thought, no matter how false, any clearly conveyed fantasy, no matter how absurd, cannot fail to find sympathy in some soul.

Lev Tolstoy

In this article, we will consider the Cathedral Code of 1649 briefly, as one of the first documents that systematized the legislation of Russia. In 1649, for the first time in the history of Russia, the codification of state law was carried out: the Zemsky Sobor developed the Cathedral Code. In this normative document, for the first time, not only were the basic laws of the state collected, they were classified by industry. This greatly simplified the system of Russian legislation and ensured its stability. This article describes the main reasons for the adoption of the Council Code of 1649, its main meaning and brief description, and also analyzes the main consequences of the adoption of the law on the development of Russian statehood.

Reasons for the adoption of the Cathedral Code of 1649

Between 1550 and 1648, about 800 decrees, laws and other regulations were issued. Especially a lot of them came out during the Troubles. Working with them required not only great knowledge, but also a lot of processing time. In addition, there were cases when some provisions of one decree could be in conflict with others, which caused great damage to the system of legislation of the Russian kingdom. These problems forced us to think about codifying existing laws, that is, processing them and compiling them into a single and integral set of laws. In 1648, the Salt Riot took place in Moscow, one of the demands of the rebels was a call for the convocation of the Zemsky Sobor to create a coherent and unified law.

Another reason pushing Alexei Mikhailovich to create the Cathedral Code of 1649 was the state's tendency towards an absolute monarchy, which required a clear consolidation in the laws. The tsar from the young Romanov dynasty actually concentrated all power in his hands, limiting the influence of the Zemsky Sobor, however, the new political system required consolidation in laws. Also, new estate relations, and especially the status of the nobility and the peasantry (tendencies towards the formation of serfdom) also needed a legal revision. All this set of reasons led to the fact that at the end of 1648 Alexei Mikhailovich convened the Zemsky Sobor, giving him the task to form a single set of laws, which went down in history as the Sobornoye Ulozhenie.

Sources of the Code and work on its creation

To create a code of laws, a special commission was created, consisting of those close to the tsar, headed by Prince Nikita Odoevsky. In addition to him, the commission included the hero of the Smolensk war, Prince Fyodor Volkonsky, as well as the clerk Fyodor Griboyedov. Tsar Alexei personally took part in the work of the commission. The basis for writing the Cathedral Code of 1649, in short, was the following legal sources:

1. Code of Laws of 1497 and 1550. The basis of the Russian legal system of the 16th century.
2. Specified books of orders, which collected the basic laws and orders that were published in the late 16th - first half of the 17th centuries.
3. Lithuanian statute 1588. The basic law of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of this period served as an example of legal technique. From here were taken legal formulations, phrases, rubrics, as well as ideas about the situation of the peasantry.
4. Complaints, submitted for consideration by the state authorities from the boyars. They indicated the main requests and wishes regarding the existing legal system. Also, during the work of the commission, petitions from various regions of the country were sent to its participants.
5. The feeding book (Nomokanon). These are collections of laws that dealt with church affairs. This tradition came from Byzantium. The feed book is used in church management, as well as in the organization of church courts.

Characteristics of the Code by industry

In 1649 the Cathedral Code was completely finished. It is interesting that it was not only the first collection of Russian laws, formed according to headings that were determined by areas of law. This was the first set of laws in Russia, which was in printed form. In total, the Cathedral Code consisted of 25 chapters, in which there were 967 articles. Historians of Russian law distinguish the following legal branches, which were disclosed in the Cathedral Code of 1649:

State law

The law fully determined the legal status of the monarch in Russia, as well as the mechanisms of inheritance of power. Articles from this branch of law removed questions from the point of view of the legality of the presence of the Romanov dynasty on the throne. In addition, these articles consolidated the process of the formation of an absolute monarchy in Russia.

Criminal law

First, the types of crimes were classified here. Secondly, all possible types of punishment are described. The following types of crimes were identified:

1. Crimes against the state. This type of crime first appeared in the Russian legal system. Insults and other illegal actions against the monarch, his family, as well as conspiracy and treason were considered a crime against the state. By the way, in cases where the relatives of the offender knew about the crime against the Russian state, they bore the same responsibility.
2. Crimes against government. This category included: counterfeiting coins, unauthorized crossing of the state border, giving false testimonies and accusations (recorded in the law by the term "sneaking").
3. Crimes against "deanery". These crimes meant sheltering fugitives and criminals, selling stolen goods and maintaining dens.
4. Official crimes: bribery, waste of public money, injustice, as well as war crimes (primarily looting).
5. Crimes against the Church. This included blasphemy, conversion to another faith, interruption of church services, etc.
6. Crimes against the person: murder, mutilation, beatings, insult. By the way, killing a thief at the scene of a crime was not considered a violation of the law.
7. Property crimes: theft, robbery, fraud, horse stealing, etc.
8. Crimes against morality. In this category there was a wife's betrayal to her husband, "fornication" with a slave, disrespect for parents.

As for punishments for crimes, the Cathedral Code of 1649 distinguished several main types:

1. Death by hanging, quartering, beheading, burning. For counterfeiting, the criminal was poured molten iron down the throat.
2. Corporal punishment, such as branding or flogging.
3. Terem conclusion. The term was from three days to life imprisonment. By the way, the prisoners were supposed to be supported by the relatives of the prisoners.
4. Link. Initially it was used for high officials who fell into disfavor ("disgrace") to the king.
5. Disgraceful Punishments. Also applied to the upper classes, it consisted of deprivation of rights and privileges through demotion.
6. Fines and confiscation of property.

Civil law

For the first time in the history of Russia, attempts were made to describe the institution of private property, as well as to highlight the legal capacity of subjects. So, a 15-year-old boy could be endowed with an estate. The types of contracts for the transfer of property rights were also described: oral and written. The cathedral code defined the concept of "acquisitive prescription" - the right to receive a thing in private ownership, after using it for a certain time. In 1649 this period was 40 years. The basis of the civil branch of the new set of laws was the consolidation of the estate character of Russian society. All estates of Russia were regulated, the nobility became the main support of the absolute monarchy.

In addition, the Sobornoye Code of 1649 briefly but finally completed the enslavement of the peasants: the landowner had the right, any time after his escape, to look for fugitive peasants. Thus, the peasants were finally "attached" to the land, becoming the property of the landowner.

Family law

The cathedral code did not directly concern family law, since it was within the competence of the church court. However, individual articles of the code of laws dealt with family life, describing the basic principles of family relations. So, the parents had great power over the children, for example, if a daughter killed one of the parents, then she was executed, and if the parent killed the child, then he received a year in prison. Parents had the right to beat their children, and they were forbidden to complain about their parents.

In the case of married couples, the husband had de facto ownership over his wife. The marriageable age for a man was 15 years, and for a woman - 12. Divorce was strictly regulated, allowed only in certain cases (leaving a monastery, the wife's inability to give birth to children, etc.).

In addition to the above provisions, the Cathedral Code concerned the procedural component of law. So, the following procedures were fixed, the purpose of which was to obtain evidence:

1. "Search". Inspection of things, as well as communication with possible witnesses.
2. "Pravezh". Flogging of the insolvent debtor with a rod for a certain period of time, in exchange for a fine. If the debtor had money before the expiration of the term of "right", then the beating stopped.
3. "Search". The use of various means to find a criminal, as well as to conduct interrogations to obtain the necessary information. The Code described the right to use torture (no more than two or three times, using breaks).

Additions to the law in the 17th century

During the second half of the 17th century, additional laws were adopted that made changes or additions to the Code. For example, in 1669 a law was passed to increase the penalties for criminals. He was associated with an increase in crime in Russia during this period. In 1675-1677, additions were made about the status of the fiefdom. This was due to an increase in the number of disputes over land rights. In 1667, the "New Trade Charter" was adopted, which was intended to support the Russian manufacturer in the fight against foreign goods.

Historical meaning

Thus, the Cathedral Code of 1649 has several meanings in the history of the development of the Russian state and law:

1. It was the first code of laws to be printed with a typographic method.
2. The cathedral code eliminated most of the contradictions that existed in the laws of the late 16th - first half of the 17th century. At the same time, the Code took into account the previous achievements of the Russian legislative system, as well as the best practices of neighboring states in the field of lawmaking and codification.
3. It formed the main features of the future absolute monarchy, the support of which was the nobility.
4. Serfdom in Russia finally formed.

The Cathedral Code of 1649 was in effect until 1832, when Speransky developed the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire.

MINSK INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT

ON THE HISTORY OF THE STATE AND LAW

SLAVIC PEOPLES

ON THE TOPIC: "COLLECTIONAL CODE OF 1649"

PERFORMED:

SACHILOVICH OLGA

JURISPRUDENCE

GROUP 60205

Cathedral Code of 1649- the source of the law of the Russian centralized state during the estate-representative monarchy

The dominant place among the sources of Russian feudal law during the period of the estate-representative monarchy is occupied by the Cathedral Code of 1649. It should be noted that this code largely predetermined the development of the legal system of the Russian state in the following decades. The Code, first of all, expressed the interests of the nobility, legally enshrined serfdom in Russia.

Among prerequisites, which led to the adoption of the Cathedral Code, can be distinguished:

General exacerbation of the class struggle;

Contradictions among the class of feudal lords;

Contradictions between the feudal lords and the urban population;

The interest of the nobles in expanding the rights to local land tenure and enslavement of the peasants;

The need to streamline legislation and formalize it in a single code;

A special commission was formed to develop the draft code of laws. The project was discussed in detail by the Zemsky Sobor, after which it was the first printed code of laws of Russia, sent out to guide all orders and to the localities.

The Code consists of 25 chapters and 967 articles, the content of which reflects the most important changes in the social and political life of Russia that took place in the 17th century.

Chapter XI "The Court of the Peasants" establishes the complete and general enslavement of the peasants. Chapters XVI-XVII reflects the changes that have taken place in the position of the posad.

The norms of state, criminal and civil law, judicial system and legal proceedings are being developed.

The main attention, as in the previous sources of feudal law, is given to the code of criminal law and legal proceedings.

In the development of the Cathedral Code were used:

~ previous judicial codes,

~ indicated order books,

~ royal legislation,

~ boyar sentences,

~ Lithuanian status articles,

~ Byzantine legal sources.

Code of practice secured the privileges of the ruling class and the unequal position of the dependent population.

The cathedral code did not completely eliminate the contradictions in the legislation, although a certain systematization was carried out by chapters.

Civil law reflects the further development of commodity-money relations, especially in terms of property rights and law of obligations. The main forms of land holdings during this period were royal palace lands, estates and estates. The black-grained lands in the possession of rural communities were the property of the state. In accordance with the Code, the palace lands belonged to the tsar and his family, the state (black-grained, black-moss) lands belonged to the tsar as the head of state. The fund of these lands by this time had significantly decreased due to distribution for service.

Patrimonial land tenure, in accordance with Chapter XVII of the Cathedral Code, was divided into clan, purchased and granted. The landowners had privileged rights to dispose of their lands than landowners, since they had the right to sell (with mandatory registration in the Local Order), mortgage or inherit.

Code established generic foreclosure(in the case of sale, pledging or exchange) for 40 years, moreover, by persons precisely defined by the Code. The right of generic redemption did not apply to the acquired estates.

Ancestral and favored estates could not be passed on by will to outsiders if the testator had children or side relatives. It was forbidden to donate patrimonial and favored estates to the church.

The estates bought from third-party people, after their transfer by inheritance, became generic.

Chapter XVI of the Cathedral Code summarized all the existing changes in the legal status of local land tenure:

»The owners of the local could be both boyars and nobles;

»The estate was inherited in accordance with the established procedure (for the service of the heir);

»Part of the land after the death of the owner was received by his wife and daughters (" for subsistence ");

»It was allowed to give the estate as a dowry;

»It was allowed to exchange an estate for an estate or patrimony, including more for a smaller one (Article 3).

The landowners did not have the right to freely sell land without a royal decree or to mortgage it.

The Code confirmed the decrees of the beginning of the 17th century prohibiting the imposition of layouts for the service and granting estates to "priest's and men's children, serfs of boyars and monastic servants." This position turned the nobility into a closed class.

Considering land ownership, it should be noted the development of such an institution of law as pledge law. The Code of Law regulates the following provisions:

The mortgaged land may remain in the hands of the mortgagor or pass into the hands of the mortgagee;

The pledge of courtyards in the posad was allowed;

The mortgage of movable property was allowed;

The delay in redemption of the mortgaged thing entailed the transfer of rights to it to the mortgagee, with the exception of courtyards and shops in the posad.

Mortgages placed in yards and shops in the name of foreigners were considered invalid. If the pledged thing was stolen from the pledgee or perished without his fault, he reimbursed the cost in half.

Cathedral Code defines rights to someone else's thing(the so-called easements). For example:

The right to erect dams on the river within the limits of their possession without prejudice to the interests of neighbors,

The right to put on nights and cooking huts without harming a neighbor,

Fishing, hunting, mowing rights under the same conditions, etc.

The right to graze livestock in meadows or stop in places adjacent to the road until a certain time - Troicin of the day.)

Obligatory law... According to the Code, the debtor is responsible for the obligation not with his person, but only with his property. Even the Decree of 1558 forbade debtors to "go into complete slaves" to their creditor in case of non-payment of the debt. It was only allowed to give them "with the head until the expiration", ie. before working off the debt. If the defendant had property, then the penalty extended to movable property and courtyards, then to the patrimony and estate.

At the same time, during this period, the responsibility was not individual: the spouse was responsible for the spouse, the children for the parents, the servants for the masters and vice versa. The legislation made it possible to transfer rights under certain agreements (bondages) to former persons. The debtor could not transfer his obligations only by agreement with the creditor.

Real estate purchase and sale contracts were to be drawn up in writing and by a "deed of sale" (signed by witnesses and registered in orders). The purchase and sale of movable property was carried out by verbal agreement and the transfer of the thing to the buyer.

But the decree of 1655 instructed the judges not to accept petitions under loan agreements, payments and loans "without bribes", i.e. without written documents.

Thus, there has been a transition from the verbal form of the conclusion of contracts to the written one.

Loan agreement in the 16th - 17th centuries was drawn up only in writing. To smooth out social contradictions, the amount of interest on loans was limited to 20 percent. The Code of 1649 attempted to prohibit the charging of interest on loans, but in practice lenders continued to charge interest. The contract was accompanied by a pledge of property. The mortgaged land passed into the ownership of the creditor (with the right to use) or remained with the mortgagor with the condition of payment of interest until the debt was repaid. In case of non-payment of the debt, the land passed into the ownership of the creditor. Movable property with a pledge was also transferred to the creditor, but without the right to use.

With the development of crafts, manufacture and trade, it was widespread personal employment contract, which was drawn up in writing for a period not exceeding 5 years. Orally, personal employment was allowed for a period not exceeding 3 months.

Luggage agreement was made out only in writing. Warriors could transfer things for storage without a written contract.

Known work contracts artisans and property lease(rent).

Marriage and family relations in the Russian state were regulated by church law. Sources of ecclesiastical law permitted early marriage. According to Stoglav (1551), it was allowed to marry from the age of 15, to marry from the age of 12. The engagement (betrothal) took place at an even earlier age (conspiracy of parents and drawing up a row record). It was possible to terminate a row entry by paying a penalty (charge) or through a court, but for serious reasons. In practice, ordinary people did not make a row record and married at a later age. According to church laws, the first marriage was formalized by a wedding, the second and third - by a blessing, and the fourth marriage was not recognized by church law. In accordance with the Code of 1649, the fourth marriage did not give rise to legal consequences.

Divorce was carried out by mutual consent of the spouses or at the unilateral demand of the husband. Although in the 17th century the process of softening the rights of a husband in relation to his wife and father in relation to children began, until the end of the 17th century admission to bondage was not abolished altogether. The husband could give his wife into the service and put him in bondage with him. (The father had a similar right with regard to children.)

Intra-family relations were regulated by the so-called "Domostroi", drawn up in the 16th century. In accordance with it, the husband could punish his wife, and she had to be submissive to her husband. If the parents, while punishing their children, beat them to death, the Code prescribed only one year of imprisonment and church repentance. If the children killed their parents, they were punished with the death penalty.