The Cathedral Code of 1649 considered. Cathedral Code

1. Historical and economic background of creation

Cathedral Code of 1649.

3. The system of crimes.

4. The system of punishments.

5. Significance of the Council Code of 1649 in the social and political life of Russia.

1. Historical and economic prerequisites for the creation

Cathedral Code of 1649.

The beginning of the 17th century is characterized by the political and economic decline of Russia. To a large extent, this was facilitated by the wars with Sweden and Poland, which ended in the defeat of Russia in 1617.

After the signing of a peace treaty in 1617 with Sweden, Russia lost part of its territories - the coast of the Gulf of Finland, the Karelian Isthmus, the course of the Neva and the cities on its coast. Russia's access to the Baltic Sea was closed.

In addition, after a campaign against Moscow in 1617-1618 by the Polish-Lithuanian army and the signing of a truce, Smolensk land and most of Northern Ukraine.

The consequences of the war, which resulted in the decline and ruin of the country's economy, required urgent measures to restore it, but the whole burden fell mainly on the black-haired peasants and townspeople. The government widely distributes land to the nobles, which leads to the continuous growth of serfdom. At first, given the ruin of the countryside, the government somewhat reduced direct taxes, but various kinds of extraordinary fees increased (“fifth money”, “tenth money”, “Cossack money”, “streltsy money”, etc.), most of which were introduced almost continuously sitting Zemsky Sobors.

However, the treasury remains empty and the government begins to deprive archers, gunners, city Cossacks and petty bureaucrats of their salaries, a ruinous tax on salt is introduced. Many townspeople begin to leave for "white places" (the lands of large feudal lords and monasteries exempted from state taxes), while the exploitation of the rest of the population increases.

In such a situation it was impossible to avoid major social conflicts and contradictions.

On June 1, 1648, an uprising broke out in Moscow (the so-called “salt riot”). The rebels held the city in their hands for several days, ruined the houses of the boyars and merchants.

Following Moscow in the summer of 1648, the struggle of townsmen and small service people unfolded in Kozlov, Kursk, Solvychegodsk, Veliky Ustyug, Voronezh, Narym, Tomsk and other cities of the country.

In practice, throughout the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (1645-1676), the country was engulfed in small and large uprisings of the urban population. It was necessary to strengthen the legislative power of the country and on September 1, 1648, the Zemsky Sobor opened in Moscow, the work of which ended with the adoption in early 1649 of a new set of laws - the Cathedral Code. The project was drawn up by a special commission, and the members of the Zemsky Sobor (“by chambers”) discussed it in whole and in parts. The printed text was sent to the orders and to the places.

2. Sources and main provisions of the Council Code

1649.

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

Code of Laws;

Decree books of orders;

Royal decrees;

Duma sentences;

Decisions of the Zemsky Sobors (most of the articles were compiled according to the petitions of the council's vowels);

- “Stoglav”;

Lithuanian and Byzantine legislation;

New decree articles on “robbery and murder” (1669), on estates and estates (1677), on trade (1653 and 1677), which were included in the Code after 1649.

In the Council Code, the head of state, the tsar, was defined as an autocratic and hereditary monarch. The regulation 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.

The Code contained a set of norms that regulated the most important branches of public administration. These norms can be conditionally referred to as administrative ones. Attachment of peasants to the land (ch. 11 "Court on the peasants"); township reform, which changed the position of the “white settlements” (ch. 14); change in the status of the patrimony and estate (Ch. 16 and 17); regulation of the work of local governments (ch. 21); the regime of entry and exit (Article 6) - all these measures formed the basis of administrative and police reforms.

With the adoption of the Council Code, changes occurred in the field of judicial law. A number of rules have been developed regarding the organization and work of the court. There is an even greater division into two forms compared to the Sudebniks: “trial” and “search”.

The court procedure is described in chapter 10 of the Code. sentencing, decision. The trial began with the “introduction”, the filing of a petition. The defendant was summoned to court by the bailiff, he could introduce guarantors, and also not appear in court twice, if there were good reasons for that. The court accepted and used various evidence: testimonies (at least ten witnesses), written evidence (the most reliable of them are officially certified documents), kissing the cross (in disputes for an amount not exceeding one ruble), drawing lots. To obtain evidence, a “general” search was used - a survey of the population about the fact of a crime committed, and a “general” search - about a specific person suspected of a crime. The so-called “pravezh” was introduced into the practice of the court, when the defendant (most often an insolvent debtor) was regularly subjected to the procedure of corporal punishment (beating with rods) by the court. The number of such procedures was to be equivalent to the amount owed. So, for example, for a debt of one hundred rubles, they were flogged for a month. Pravezh was not just a punishment - it was also a measure that prompted the defendant to fulfill the obligation (himself or through guarantors). Judgment was oral, but recorded in the "judicial list" and each stage was drawn up by a special letter.

The 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 sovereign’s word and deed”). The case in the search process could begin with the statement of the victim, with the discovery of the fact of the crime, or with the usual slander.

Chapter 21 of the Council Code of 1649 for the first time establishes such a procedural procedure as torture. The basis for its application could be the results of the “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 under torture (“slander”) had to be cross-checked with the help of other procedural measures (interrogation, oath, search).

The following changes were also made in the field of criminal law - the circle of subjects of the crime was determined: they could be either individuals or a group of persons. The law divided the subjects of the crime into main and secondary ones, understanding the latter as accomplices. In turn, complicity could be physical (assistance, practical assistance, committing the same actions as the main subject of the crime) and intellectual (for example, incitement to murder in Chapter 22). In this regard, even a slave who committed a crime at the direction of his master began to be recognized as the subject of a crime. At the same time, it should be noted that the law distinguished persons only involved in the commission of a crime from minor subjects of a crime (accomplices): accomplices (persons who created the conditions for the commission of a crime), conniving parties (persons obliged to prevent a crime and who did not do this), non-informers (persons who did not report the preparation and commission of a crime), concealers (persons who hid the criminal and the traces of the crime). The code also divided crimes into intentional, reckless and accidental. For a careless crime, the perpetrator was punished in the same way as for a deliberate criminal act (punishment followed not the motive of the crime, but its result). But the law also identified mitigating and aggravating circumstances. Mitigating circumstances included: state of intoxication; uncontrollability of actions caused by insult or threat (affect); and aggravating - the repetition of the crime, the amount of harm, the special status of the object and subject of the crime, the totality of several crimes.

The law singled out three stages of a criminal act: intent (which in itself may be punishable), attempted crime and commission of a crime, as well as the concept of recidivism, which in the Council Code coincides with the concept of “a dashing person”, and the concept of extreme necessity, which is not punishable. only if it is proportionate real danger by the perpetrator. Violation of proportionality meant exceeding the limits of necessary defense and was punished.

According to the Council Code of 1649, the objects of the crime were determined: church, state, family, person, property and morality. Crimes against the church were considered the most dangerous, 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 she was taken under protection state institutions and laws.

Major changes in the Council Code of 1649 concerned the area of ​​property, obligation and inheritance law. The scope of civil law relations was defined quite clearly. This was prompted by the development of commodity-money relations, the formation of new types and forms of ownership, and the quantitative growth of civil law transactions.

The subjects of civil law relations were both private (individual) and collective persons, and the legal rights of a private person gradually expanded due to concessions from the collective person. For legal relations that arose on the basis of norms regulating the sphere of property relations, the instability of the status of the subject of rights and obligations became characteristic. First of all, this was expressed in the division of several powers associated with one subject and one right (for example, conditional land ownership gave the subject the right to own and use, but not dispose of the object). With this, difficulties arose in determining the true full-fledged subject. The subjects of civil law had to meet certain requirements, such as gender (there was a significant increase in the legal capacity of a woman compared to the previous stage), age (the qualification of 15-20 years made it possible to independently accept the estate, bonded obligations, etc.), social and property position.

The Cathedral Code of 1649, having generalized and absorbed the previous experience of creating legal norms, had its own sources . Sources of the Code are:

Code of Laws;

Decree books of orders;

Royal decrees;

Duma sentences;

Decisions of the Zemsky Sobors (most of the articles were compiled according to the petitions of the council's vowels);

- “Stoglav”;

Lithuanian and Byzantine legislation;

New decree articles on “robbery and murder” (1669), on estates and estates (1677), on trade (1653 and 1677), which were included in the body of legal norms of the Code after 1649.

The Council Code defines head of state status- king, autocratic and hereditary monarch. The regulation on the approval (election) of the tsar at the Zemsky assembly did not at all shake the established principles, but, on the contrary, substantiated them. Even criminal intent (not to mention actions) directed against the person of the monarch was severely punished.

The code contained a set of norms that regulated the most important industries government controlled. These norms can be conditionally referred to as administrative ones. Attachment of peasants to the land (ch. 11 "Court on the peasants"); township reform, which changed the position of the “white settlements” (ch. 14); change in the status of the patrimony and estate (Ch. 16 and 17); regulation of the work of local governments (ch. 21); the regime of entry and exit (Article 6) - all these measures formed the basis of administrative and police reforms.

Important transformations with the adoption of the Cathedral Code took place in the region judicial rights. The Code constituted a whole complex of norms regulating the organization of the court and the process. There is an even greater differentiation of the process into two forms compared to the Sudebniks: “trial” and “search”.

Chapter 10 of the Code describes in detail the various procedures of the court: it was divided into two processes - the actual “judgment” and “execution”, i.e. sentencing, decision. The trial began with the “introduction”, the filing of a petition. The defendant was summoned to court by the bailiff, he could introduce guarantors, and also not appear in court twice, if there were good reasons for that. The court adopted and used various proof of: testimonies (at least ten witnesses), written evidence (the most reliable of them are officially certified documents), kissing the cross (in disputes for an amount not exceeding one ruble), lot. To obtain evidence, a “general” (survey of the population about the fact of a crime) and “general” (about a specific person suspected of a crime) search were used. A kind of procedural action in court was the so-called “pravezh”. The defendant (most often an insolvent debtor) was regularly subjected to corporal punishment by the court (beating with rods on bare calves). The number of such procedures was to be equivalent to the amount owed. So, for example, for a debt of one hundred rubles, they were flogged for a month). “Pravezh was not just a punishment - it was also a measure that prompted the defendant to fulfill the obligation (himself or through guarantors). Judgment was oral, but recorded in the “judicial list”, each stage was drawn up with a special letter.

Search or “search” was used in the most serious criminal cases. Special place and attention was given to crimes about which it was declared: “the word and deed of the sovereign”, i.e. in which the public interest is involved. The case in the search process could begin with the statement of the victim, with the discovery of the fact of the crime, or with the usual slander.

Chapter 21 of the Council Code of 1649 for the first time regulates such a procedural procedure as torture. The basis for its application could be the results of the “search”, when the testimony was divided: part in favor of the suspect, part against him. The use of torture was regulated as follows: firstly, it could be used no more than three times, with a certain break; secondly, the testimony given under torture (“slander”) had to be cross-checked with the help of other procedural measures (interrogation, oath, search).

In the area of criminal law the following changes have been made. First of all, the circle of subjects of the crime is determined: they can be either individuals or a group of persons. The law divides the subjects of the crime into main and secondary ones, understanding the latter as accomplices. In turn, complicity can be physical (assistance, practical assistance, committing the same actions as the main subject of the crime) and intellectual (for example, incitement to murder in Chapter 22). In connection with this, even a slave who committed a crime at the direction of his master began to be recognized as the subject of a crime. Along with this, it should be noted that the law distinguished from secondary subjects of a crime (accomplices) persons only involved in the commission of a crime: accomplices (persons who created the conditions for the commission of a crime), conniving parties (persons obliged to prevent a crime and who did not do this), non-informers ( persons who did not report the preparation and commission of a crime), concealers (persons who hid the criminal and the traces of the crime). The Code, among other things, knows the division of crimes into intentional, careless and accidental. For a careless crime, the perpetrator is punished in the same way as for a deliberate criminal act (punishment follows not the motive of the crime, but its result). The law also highlights mitigating and aggravating circumstances. Mitigating circumstances include the state of intoxication; uncontrollability of actions caused by insult or threat (affect); and aggravating - the repetition of the crime, the amount of harm, the special status of the object and subject of the crime, the totality of several crimes.

The law identifies separate stages of a criminal act: intent (which in itself may be punishable), attempted crime and commission of a crime. The law also knows the concept of recidivism, which in the Council Code coincides with the concept of “a 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. Violation of proportionality meant exceeding the limits of necessary defense and was punished.

According to the Council Code of 1649, the objects of the crime were: church, state, family, person, property and morality. Crimes against the church were considered the most dangerous and that is why they were put in the first place, which was done for the first time in the history of Russian secular codifications. This change had a double meaning. On the one hand, the church occupied a special place in public life, and on the other hand, the acceptance of the church under the protection of state institutions and laws indicated their priority in the political system.

The Cathedral Code of 1649 brought great changes to the region real, liability and inheritance law. The scope of civil law relations was defined quite clearly. The legislator was encouraged to do this by the development of commodity-money relations, the formation of new types and forms of ownership, and the quantitative growth of civil law transactions.

The subjects of civil law relations were both private (individual) and collective persons. In the 17th century, the legal rights of a private person gradually expanded due to concessions from a collective person. For the legal thinking of this era, it was characteristic to consider the established relations as eternal relations. For legal relations that arose on the basis of norms regulating the sphere of property relations, the instability of the status of the subject of rights and obligations became characteristic. First of all, this was expressed in the division of several powers associated with one subject and one right (for example, conditional land ownership gave the subject the right to own and use, but not dispose of the object). With this, difficulties arose in determining the true full-fledged subject. The subjects of civil law had to meet certain requirements, such as gender (there was a significant increase in the legal capacity of a woman compared to the previous stage), age (the qualification of 15-20 years made it possible to independently accept the estate, bonded obligations, etc.), social and property position.

Things according to the Council Code were the subject of a number of powers, relationships and obligations. The main ways of acquiring property were considered to be capture, prescription, discovery, award and direct acquisition in exchange or purchase.

In the Code of 1649, regulation acquires grant of land. It was a complex set of legal actions, including the issuance of letters of commendation; drawing up a certificate (i.e., recording certain information about the endowed person in the order book); putting into possession, which consisted in the public measurement of land. The distribution of land, along with the Local Order, was also carried out by other bodies - the Discharge Order, the Order of the Grand Palace, the Little Russian, Novgorod, Siberian and other orders. The contract in the 17th century remained the main way of acquiring ownership of property, and, in particular, land. Ritual ceremonies lose their significance in the contract, formalized actions (participation of witnesses at the conclusion of the contract) are replaced by written acts (“assaults” of witnesses without their personal participation).

For the first time in the Cathedral Code of 1649, it was regulated institution of easements(legal restriction of the right of ownership of one person in the interests of the right of use of another or other persons). The legislator knew personal easements (restrictions in favor of certain persons, specially stipulated in the law), for example, the destruction of meadows by warriors in the service. Easements in rem (restriction of property rights in the interests of an indefinite number of subjects) included: the right of the owner of a mill for production purposes to flood the underlying meadow owned by another person; the opportunity to build a stove near the wall of a neighbor's house or build a house on the boundary of someone else's plot (ch. 10). Along with this, the right to property was limited either by the direct prescription of the law, or by the establishment of a legal regime that did not guarantee “eternal property”.

Cathedral Code 1649 - a single code of laws of Russia, regulating all spheres of life of the state and citizens.

Reasons for the creation of the Cathedral Code

The last legislative document, adopted before the creation of the Cathedral Code, belonged to 1550 () and was undoubtedly outdated. Since the adoption of the last document, significant changes have taken place in the state and economic system: new state bodies have been created, decrees have been adopted, sometimes repeating the old ones with some clarifications, and sometimes contradicting them. It was impossible to work with an outdated document, so we decided to create a new one.

Existing legislative acts and new documents were not stored in one place, but were scattered throughout the country and belonged to the departments in which they were adopted. This resulted in the litigation different parts The country was conducted on the basis of different laws, since in more remote provinces they simply did not know about the orders from Moscow.

In 1648, the Salt Riot took place. The workers who rebelled demanded civil rights and the creation of a new regulatory document. The situation became critical, it was no longer possible to postpone, so it was assembled, which spent a whole year developing a new bill.

The process of creating the Cathedral Code

The creation of a new document was not carried out by one person, as was the case before, but by a whole commission headed by N.I. Odoevsky. The code went through several main stages before it was signed by the king:

• first, careful work was carried out with numerous sources of law (documents, judicial codes, etc.);
• then meetings were held on the topic of certain legal acts that raised any doubts;
• the drafted document was sent for consideration to, and then to the sovereign;
• after editing, there was another discussion of all the amendments;
• the bill was to come into force only after it was signed by all members of the commission.

This approach was innovative and made it possible to create a complete, well-organized document that compares favorably with its predecessors.

Sources of the Cathedral Code

The main sources of the Council Code were:

• Byzantine law;
• Lithuanian Statute of 1588 (used as a model);
• petitions to the king;
• ukazny books in which all issued acts and decrees were recorded.

In the Council Code, there has been a tendency to divide the norms of law into various branches and to systematize in accordance with this division. This approach is used in modern law.

Various branches of law in the Council Code of 1649

The Code determined the status of the state, the status of the king, and also contained a whole range of norms regulating all branches of state activity, from legal proceedings to the economy and the right to leave the country.

Criminal law replenished new classification crimes. Such types as crimes against the church, crimes against the state, crimes against the order of government, crimes against deanery, malfeasance, crimes against the person, against morality and property crimes have appeared. The classification became more detailed, which greatly facilitated the judicial proceedings and sentencing process, as there was no more confusion.

Types of punishment were also added: execution, exile, imprisonment, confiscation of property, a fine, dishonorable punishments.

The growth of commodity-money relations led to the transformation of civil law. There was a concept individual and collective. Women received more rights to make certain transactions with property. Purchase and sale agreements were now sealed not verbally, but in writing (a prototype of a modern agreement between the parties).

There have been only minor changes in family law. The principles of "Domostroy" were in effect.

The Council Code also determined the order of legal proceedings, criminal and civil. New types of evidence of guilt appeared (documents, kissing the cross), new types of search and procedural measures were identified. The court has become more fair.

A convenient system for describing laws and acts made it possible not only to quickly and efficiently use the new law, but also to supplement it if necessary - this was another difference from previous documents.

Enslavement of peasants

The Cathedral Code was of great importance for the peasants, since the issues of feudal property were described in it as fully as possible. The code did not give the peasants any freedom, moreover, it tied them even more to the land and the feudal lord, thereby enslaving them completely.

Now there was no right to exit, the peasant with his whole family and things completely became the property of the feudal lord, which can be sold, bought or inherited. The rules for searching for runaway peasants have also changed: now there was no time limit of ten years, they were looking for a person all his life. In fact, the peasant could not leave or run away from the feudal lord and was obliged to obey his master all the time.

The meaning of the Cathedral Code

The Council Code of 1649 outlined new trends in the development of law and jurisprudence, consolidated the new state order and new social norms. It became the prototype of the modern systematization and cataloging of legal documents, creating a restriction on the branches of law. The cathedral code was in effect until 1832.

Cathedral Code of 1649: briefly about the reasons and prerequisites for adoption, about the creation and content of laws, and about the role in history played by its approval during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich.

Reasons for the adoption of the Council Code

The main reason for the adoption of the Council Code was the chaos that existed in the legal system of Russia.

It consisted of the following points:

1. Over the past 100 years, 445 orders have been issued. Most of them are outdated or contradict each other.
2. Laws were scattered across departments. This was due to the existing system of passing laws. New legal provisions were adopted when a separate order had a need for it. But new decrees were recorded only in the book of this order. Therefore, officials did not know many laws.
3. After the Polish-Swedish war in Russia there was a decline in politics and economics. An immediate change in the situation in the country was required.

In the summer of 1648, the Salt Riot broke out in the capital. One of the conditions of the rebels was the adoption of new legislation. This event served as an impetus, and the king yielded to the rebels.

How the Cathedral Code of 1649 was created

After the uprising, the sovereign assembled the Zemsky Sobor. At the meeting, a directive was adopted to revise the legislation and the following plan of action was outlined: to compare the sources of law with the Code of Laws and agree on them, to supplement some points with new articles.

At the congress, a special commission was formed to implement this plan. Prince Odoevsky was appointed at the head of this commission.

In the fall, the activity of the Zemsky Sobor began. It consisted in designing the Code. The creation of a code of laws was carried out in 2 chambers. In the 1st were the Duma and the king, in the 2nd - the cathedral.

Stages of creating a legislative act in brief:

1. Work with all sources. Elected people took an active part here. They provided sources in the form of a petition.
2. Discussion of the petition.
3. Revision of the submitted bills by the king and the Duma.
4. Making legislative decisions about a particular item.
5. The signing of the resulting result by all representatives of the Council.

Revision and legislative decisions were made only by the tsar with the Duma. The task was completed in the shortest possible time. It took only six months to develop and implement the project.

General characteristics of the Code by industry

The adopted Code served as the basis of the law until 1832. It contained 25 chapters. There were 967 articles. In the main legislative provisions, for the first time in the history of Russia, a structure was outlined for the division of laws into branches.

Civil law

The main points touched upon in the branch of civil law are the points of property law and inheritance law. Much attention was paid to contracts.

According to the new rules, contracts concluded in writing and in the presence of several witnesses were valid. For failure to comply with the terms of the contract, the payment of a penalty was provided.

Inheritance law was divided into inheritance by law and by will. The will must be executed in the presence of witnesses and concerned only the purchased estates. The right to inherit property was given to wives and daughters.

A system of mortgage relations on property was introduced. Pledge relations terminated from the moment of full payment of the debt.

State law

The Code established the status of the leader of the state - the king, the autocratic monarch. Questions about peasants and land, the procedure for moving across the country's borders, and determining the status of estates were also determined.

Criminal law

Crimes were divided into several areas:

• against the Church;
• against the king and his family;
• against management - false evidence, false accusation, production of counterfeit money, willful travel abroad;
• against a person - murder, insults, beatings;
• against morality - fornication, disrespect for parents;
• official offenses;
• property offenses;
• against deanery - incorrect taxation, maintenance of brothels, sheltering the fugitives.

Family law

In this industry, the principles of housing construction were preserved. But a few rules have been added. The punishment of a wife who killed her husband was to bury the guilty one alive in the ground, leaving only her head.

Divorce was allowed only under the following conditions:

• departure of the spouse to the monastery;
• activities of the spouse against the state;
• wife's inability to bear children.

Introduction of procedures "search", "right" and "search"

The innovations of the Cathedral Code also affected the legal proceedings.

The following procedural steps were taken to obtain evidence:

1. A search is the questioning of potential witnesses to a crime. After that, their words were analyzed and a picture of the offense was drawn up.
2. Pravezh - punishment in the form of beating with rods. Applied to debtors who did not pay their debts. The punishment lasted for a month. If during this time the debt was returned or guarantors appeared, the right was terminated.
3. Search is a system of measures aimed at clarifying the circumstances of especially serious crimes.

The Code even regulated torture. It was allowed to use torture during the search, but not more than 3 and only with a break.

The historical significance of the Cathedral Code of Alexei Mikhailovich

The Cathedral Code is the first written set of laws. Prior to this, decrees were simply promulgated in crowded places. The adoption of the Cathedral Code was a consequence of the development of Russian law in the last 2 centuries.

In addition, as a result, the judicial and legal system of the state was strengthened, and the foundation of the legislative system of Russia was created.

At present, one can find both the old-style Cathedral Code and the text with a translation into modern Russian.

Introduction. The concept of historical source

Analysis of the historical reality of the 17th century

Reasons for the creation of the Council Code

Convocation of the Zemsky Sobor and preparation of the Council Code

Sources of the Cathedral Code

Structure of the Council Code

Brief analysis of the content of the Cathedral Code

Various branches of law in the Cathedral Code

a) Judicial law

b) Criminal law

c) Real, liability and inheritance law. d) Treaty in the 17th century. e) Law of obligations of the 17th century. f) The institution of easements. g) Inheritance law. h) Family law.

The value of the Council Code

Literature

1. Introduction. The concept of historical source

One of the most significant legal acts created in the long history of the Russian state is the Cathedral Code of 1649. a significant part of which are monuments of law.

It should be noted that a historical source is everything that reflects the development of human society and is the basis for its development. scientific knowledge, more precisely, everything created in the process of human activity and carrying information about the diverse aspects of social life.

A significant array of historical sources are various legislative acts, which are legal documents.

Law is the state will of the economically dominant class or the entire society expressed in the system of obligatory rules of conduct. The development of legal norms corresponds to the level of development of society and the state as a whole.

Legislative acts are legal documents emanating from the supreme state power, and have the highest legal force within a certain territory, state. All other acts are documents that fix in legal form transactions, agreements of an economic and political nature between individuals, individuals and the state, states, the state and the church. All acts are usually divided into 2 main groups:

public law, more precisely government origin;

private law, more precisely concluded between private individuals.

This division is conditional, since some public law and private law acts have common ground.

The main process characterizing the development of legislative acts in the 17th century is the codification of the norms of Russian law in the conditions of the emerging and developing Russian state. On the other hand, knowledge of the historical reality during which these acts were created helps to reveal the reasons for the creation acts, their relationship with specific historical events.

Analysis of the historical reality of the 17th century

Approximately from the 17th century, in the middle of which the Cathedral Code was created, as V.I. Lenin points out, a “new period of Russian history” began, characterized by a truly actual merger of individual regions, lands and principalities of the Russian Centralized State into a single whole. This merger was caused by the growing exchange between the regions, the growth of trade and the concentration of local markets into one all-Russian market. But still, despite the new conditions in the economy, the dominant form of management remains the subsistence corvée economy. As Lenin wrote in his work “The Development of Capitalism in Russia”: “For a natural, closed economy, which was corvée land ownership, it is necessary that the direct producer be endowed with the means of production and land, that he be attached to the land, since otherwise the landowner labor is not guaranteed. The peasant was personally dependent on the landowner and worked for him. The corvée system of economy was based on an extremely low routine technique, since the management of the economy was in the hands of small peasants, crushed by need, humbled by personal dependence and mental ignorance.”

In the 1st half of the 17th century, a large

patrimonial landownership of boyars, monasteries and, in particular, local authorities

nobility. This growth was not so much due to awards

king, how much due to the seizure of large volost lands by landowners. In the middle reaches of the Volga, large palace, boyar and monastic estates arose with a developed fishing economy. In the middle of the 17th century, the votchinniks and landlords of the central part of Russia sought to expand the plowing in their possessions by cutting back on plots of allotment peasant land. This entailed even greater exploitation of the peasants. In addition, in the first half of the 17th century, the nobility received the right to allow their sons to own the estate, provided that they were able to carry out public service, or rather, gradually the landowners' lands began to turn into hereditary ones. At the same time, “small-local”, “unplaced” and “empty” service people arose, who also sought to acquire land holdings in the form of an award for serving the tsar, but more by seizing the lands of “black volosts”, serfs and townspeople draft people.

This process of simultaneous growth of small and large landownership was accompanied by a struggle for the right to inherit landownership, on the one hand, and for the enslavement of the peasants, on the other hand, since the serfs were the main productive force of the large-scale local economy. The landlords did not have a sufficient number of serfs, and the votchinniks often lured away and sheltered the runaway peasants, in connection with which the intra-feudal struggle between the landlords and the patrimonials over the serfs intensified. Many landowners, “sovereign service people”, monasteries, taking advantage of the fact that they were exempt from tax, bought up yards and crafts in the cities and, competing with city people, further burdened the life of the township taxable population. The development of commodity-money relations affected the connection of estates and landowners with the city and vice versa. This process can be traced, for example, by analyzing the economic activities of the royal, boyar, monastery estates of the mid-17th century. This analysis indicates that, in addition to agriculture, the estates were also engaged in crafts (for example, the monastery of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra had salt pans in Pomorie, forestry developed in the estates of the boyars Morozov, Cherkassky and others). At the same time, there is a gradual separation of handicrafts from agriculture both in large land holdings and in peasant farms.

In the middle of the 17th century, entire villages were already engaged in a certain type of craft (the Nizhny Novgorod Territory, the village of Pavlovo, the center of the iron industry, the village of Murashkino, Arzamas land, made sheepskin coats, and so on). In such large cities as Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl and others, certain types of crafts grow in the suburbs, especially blacksmithing, cannon, copper, weapons and silver. Industry is moving to the manufacturing stage, with a division of labor, with the use of some mechanization of production under the dominance of manual labor, but labor is still serfdom. Manufactory mainly served the needs of the state; goods were released to the market only when they satisfied the orders of the treasury or the royal court.

The improvement of handicrafts and manufactory led to the further development of the internal market, but trade was not yet completely separated from handicraft. Craftsmen were at the same time sellers of their goods.

There were about 50% of such merchants in Moskovsky Posad. The largest ku-

bakery-guests-had 10-15 shops, and the peasant could only trade

on wagons (so that there is no competition with townspeople taxable people). Once-

trade also developed between industrial and agricultural areas

tyami (single all-Russian market). From the urban townspeople

a large merchant class stood out - guests, merchants of the living room and cloth hundreds,

having trading yards, shops not only in Moscow, but also in Arkhangelsk,

Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan and other cities (they were exempted from

city ​​tax). The whole burden of paying city taxes fell

on the working townspeople of the “black” settlements, while they were

garden lands were seized by nobles and “various service people” of the king

sky orders. “White” settlements arose, which were free from payments (direct state tax, archery tax, yam money) in favor of the “sovereign”. Freed from this tax, the inhabitants of these settlements built trading yards and shops, served by their own serfs, and thereby undermined the economic situation of the draft people of the settlement. Therefore, the townspeople repeatedly raised the question of returning to the settlement the departed people and the city property pledged by the "Belolists".

In addition, the tsarist government, not satisfied with the tax, raised indirect taxes on essentials, such as salt. The economic and financial policy of the government was not satisfied with the petty military "people", gunners, collars, etc., who received a small monetary and bread salary for their service. Since the main source of their livelihood is crafts, they were always ready to support the protests of the townspeople against fiscal policy and the administrative arbitrariness of local city authorities. In connection with the lack of land ownership and the "scarcity of the sovereign's salary," the "small service people" expressed their dissatisfaction.

Reasons for the creation of the Council Code

In connection with the above, we can say that the appearance of the Cathedral Code was a direct result of the popular uprisings of the first half of the 17th century, which were based on the movements of serfs, and the need to draw up a single all-Russian law.

At the beginning of the century, the foundations of the serf state were shaken by the peasant war under the leadership of Bolotnikov. In the future, anti-feudal movements did not stop. The peasants opposed the ever-increasing exploitation, the increase in service, and the deepening of their lack of rights. Their struggle, as already mentioned, was joined by “lesser” townspeople, supported by ordinary archers and other lower ranks of “serving” people, as well as the lower classes of church and monastery organizations. Slaves were also active participants in the popular, especially urban, movements of the 17th century. In the middle of the 17th century, the struggle reached a particular urgency. Already the census of 1646, according to which the christening became “strong and without fixed years” (the law determined the punishment for sheltering fugitive peasants), and the introduction of taxes on salt in February 1646 caused a violent protest. The government, which was looking for ways out of the financial impasse, but did not want to infringe on the interests of the ruling class, tried to cut the salaries of the “small service people”. As a result, “the mob stirred up against the boyars” and a major uprising took place in the summer of 1648 in Moscow (the uprising also occurred because of the hatred of the people for the “temporaries”. The rebels demanded the extradition of Pleshcheev, who was in charge of the Zemsky order and other officials. The uprising had strong action: they began to appease the capital’s army and the mob, they gave water to the archers by order of the king, the king himself during procession he made a speech to the people that sounded like an apology, he did not skimp on promises. This uprising was echoed by movements in Veliky Ustyug, Solikamsk, Kozlov, Kursk and other cities. Supported by the peasants, the uprisings were anti-feudal in nature. Among the most popular slogans was a protest against the arbitrariness and extortion of the administration, since the abuse of Moscow orders and "insults" on the part of "big people" fell on the shoulders of the peasants, the lower classes of the townspeople and ordinary archers. In the same slogans, the antagonism between the township as a whole and the highest bureaucratic bureaucracy, the clan boyars and the largest landownership was reflected. This later affected some features of the Code. But in general, the Code received a pronounced noble character. It is important to note that criticism of the current legislation was also heard from the ranks of the ruling class itself. This is explained by the struggle that went on between its various layers: between small and large landowners, between the serving nobility and the tribal land nobility, between secular and spiritual feudal lords. It was a struggle for land, for working hands, for political influence, and so on. Thus, the “service people” demanded that they be returned to the treasury and that certain categories of church property be distributed to them. Together with the representatives of the settlement, the nobles in a petition dated 10/30/48 demanded the destruction of private boyar and church settlements and arable land around Moscow. The nobles also complained about the arbitrariness that reigned in the orders, the confusion in the legislation, which indirectly affected their interests. This found its manifestation, for example, in the Petitions of 1637 and 1641, in which the nobles complained about the “insults” and “violence” inflicted on them in orders and insisted that the tsar “ordered them to be judged according to the law in all cases” , and in the petition of the Kadom and Kasimov Murzas of 1642 to the violence of “big people”.

Thus, the creation of the Council Code from a socio-historical point of view was the result of an acute and complex class struggle and the direct result of the 1648 uprising.

Convocation of the Zemsky Sobor and preparation of the Council Code

All this forced the tsar to announce that he had “postponed” the collection of arrears and was convening a Zemsky Sobor to prepare a new Code. In addition, by the beginning of the reign of Mikhailov's successor, a rather extensive stock of new laws had accumulated and a need was felt to sort it out. According to the established order of Moscow legislation, new laws were issued mainly at the request of one or another Moscow order, caused by the judicial and administrative practice of each, and turned to the leadership and execution of the order of the department of which they concerned.

The need for a new code of laws, reinforced by abuses of orders, can be considered the main motivation that caused the new code and even partly determined its character.

From the surviving “memory” of the convening of the Council, it can be seen that as early as June 10, the tops of the Moscow population (“Moscow nobles, archers and children of the boyar townsmen and foreigners, guests and living rooms of cloth merchants from various settlements”), frightened by the uprising, asked that “sovereign he complained to them, ordered them to hold a Council, and at the Council they will learn to beat with their foreheads about all their deeds. This initiative was aimed at appeasing the lower classes of the city and at the same time taking advantage of the government's plight to achieve their own estate goals. The government looked at the Council that was being convened as a means of appeasing the people. Later, Patriarch Nikon said that this Council was convened "for the sake of fear and civil strife from all black people, and not for the sake of true truth."

In the letters sent to the regions in the summer of 1648, it was announced that it was ordered to write the Laid Book by decree of the sovereign and the patriarch, by the verdict of the boyars and by the petition of the stewards and solicitors and all sorts of ranks of people. In July 1648, the tsar, after consulting with the Patriarch and All Russia Joseph, with the metropolitan, with the archbishops and “with all the illuminated cathedral”, “sovereign boyars”, with “roundabouts” and “thought people”, decided that it was necessary to write out those articles that written in the “rules of the holy apostolic and holy fathers” and the laws of the Greek kings, as well as to collect and “correct” with the old court orders the decrees of the former ruling kings and “boyar sentences on all kinds of state and zemstvo affairs”. The same articles for which in the courts “the decree is not allowed and there were no boyar sentences for those articles, and those articles would have been written and presented according to the same sovereign decree by the general council, so that the Moscow state of all ranks would be people, from the big and lesser rank, the court and reprisals were equal in all matters to everyone. (From the preface to the conciliar code). The draft Code was entrusted to a special codification commission of 5 people, from the boyars, Prince. Odoevsky and Prozorovsky, Prince Volkonsky and two clerks, Leontiev and Griboyedov. The three main members of this commission were Duma people. This means that this “order of Prince Odoevsky and his comrades,” as it is called in the documents, can be considered a commission of the Duma, it was established on July 16. At the same time, they decided to convene a Zemsky Sobor for consideration of the adoption of the project by September 1. The commission selected articles from the sources indicated to it in the verdict and compiled new ones, both of which were written “in a report” and submitted to the sovereign with a thought for consideration. It should be noted that the Zemsky Sobor of 1648-1649 was the largest of all that were convened during the existence of a class-representative monarchy in Russia. The fact that the most important political issues were resolved at the Zemsky Sobors testifies to their great significance and authority. On the advice of the patriarch and the boyar “sentence”, the tsar instructed, for consideration and approval of the Council Code, to elect to the Zemsky Sobor from stewards, solicitors, Moscow nobles and tenants, 2 people each, from all cities from nobles and boyar children, except Novgorod , 2 people each, and from the Novgorodians from the patch, 1 person each, from the guests, 3 people each, from the living room and the cloth hundreds, 2 people each, and from the “black” hundreds and settlements and cities from the suburbs, 1 person each. By September 1, 1648, elected “from all the ranks” of the state, servicemen and commercial and industrial townsmen were convened in Moscow; elected from rural or district inhabitants, as from a special curia, were not called. The Zemsky Sobor, both in its tasks and in composition, was feudal-serfdom. From October 3, the tsar with the clergy and duma people listened to the draft Code drawn up by the commission, which was discussed in 2 chambers: in the “Upper”, where the tsar, the Boyar Duma and the consecrated Cathedral, and in the response, where elected people of various ranks under the chairmanship prince Yu.A. Then the sovereign instructed the higher clergy, duma and elected people to fix the list of the Code with their own hands, after which it, with the signatures of the members of the Sobor, was printed in 1649 and sent to all Moscow orders and cities to the voivodeship offices in order to “all sorts of things de -Lat according to that Code.

The articles of the Council Code reflect the demands put forward in petitions filed before September 1 - on the abolition of school years, for example - and provisions (for example, on townspeople). Many articles are written with these requirements in mind.

Vladimirsky-Budanov, “Review of the history of Russian law”.

The speed with which the code was adopted is amazing. The entire discussion and adoption of the Code of almost 1000 articles took only a little more than six months. But it should be borne in mind that a huge task was entrusted to the commission: firstly, to collect, disassemble and process into a coherent set of laws in force, which are different in time, unagreed, scattered across departments, it was also necessary to normalize cases not provided for by these laws. In addition, it was necessary to know social needs and relations, to study the practice of judicial and administrative institutions. This work took many years. But they decided to draw up the Cathedral Code at an accelerated pace, according to a simplified program. The Code is divided into 25 chapters containing 967 articles. Already by October 1648, more precisely in 2.5 months, 12 first chapters were prepared for the report, almost half of the entire set. The remaining 13 chapters were compiled, heard and approved in the Duma by the end of January 1649, when the activities of the commission and the entire cathedral ended and the Code was completed in manuscript. The speed with which the Code was drawn up can be explained by the disturbing news of the riots that broke out after the June riot, in addition, there were rumors about the upcoming uprising in the capital, not to mention the need to create a new code. Therefore, they hurried with the preparation of the Code, so that the cathedral elected would spread the stories about the new course of the government and the Code, which promised everyone a “smooth”, fair reprisal, to the cities.

Sources of the Cathedral Code

Since the Council Code was drawn up hastily, the commission limited itself to the main sources indicated to it in the verdict on July 16. The original “column” of the Code has also been preserved, in the margins of which there are marks indicating where certain articles were borrowed from. These were the Pilot Book (part 2), which contained the codes and laws of the Greek kings (as for these laws, such a reference is caused only by the desire of the Moscow kings to give “authority to their legislative activity” (Yushkov S.V., “History State and Law of the USSR”, part 1), since the foundations of Byzantine law were known in Russia since the time of the Old Russian state), Moscow judicial records and additional decrees and sentences to them, i.e. decree books of orders, decrees of “the former, great sovereigns, tsars, and great princes of Russia”, boyar sentences, extracts from the Lithuanian statute of 1588, “rules of the holy apostles and holy fathers”, i.e. Church resolutions of ecumenical and local councils.

Decree books are the most abundant source of the Code. Each order, as a body of state administration, had a special book in which all newly issued laws and regulations that fell within its competence were entered. Ready-made codes were written to the books with a detailed indication of the repealed and amended laws, as well as reports of orders that had not yet been submitted for consideration by the Boyar Duma, but included cases not provided for by law and therefore necessary for writing a new article. A number of chapters of the collection were compiled from these books with verbatim or modified excerpts: for example, 2 chapters on estates and estates were compiled according to the book of the Local Order, the chapter “On the Serf Court” - according to the book of the order of the Serf Court, the sources of chapter 18 are the decree -th records of the Printed Order, etc.

A peculiar use was made by the commission from the Lithuanian Statute of 1588. In the surviving original scroll of the Code, we find repeated references to this source. The compilers of the Code, using this code, followed it, especially when compiling the first chapters, in the arrangement of objects, even in the order of articles, in posing legal questions, but all processed in "their own Moscow way". Thus, the Statute served not only as a legal source of the Code, but as a codification manual for its compilers. It should be noted that Professor S.V. Yushkov pointed out that the Lithuanian Statute itself was based on the beginnings of Russian Pravda, was written in Russian, which proves “the belonging of Lithuanian law to the system of Russian law”.

Structure of the Council Code

The Cathedral Code of 1649 was a new stage in the development of legal technology. it became the first printed monument of law. Before him, the publication of laws was limited to their pronouncement in trading areas and temples, which was usually indicated in the documents themselves. The appearance of a printed law to a large extent excluded the possibility of committing abuses by governors and clerks who were in charge of legal proceedings.

The Cathedral Code had no precedent in the history of Russian legislation. In terms of volume, it can only be compared with Stoglav *, but in terms of the richness of legal material it surpasses it many times over. Of the monuments of the law of other peoples of Russia, in terms of legal content, the Council Code can be compared with the Lithuanian Statute, but the Code also favorably differed from it. The Code had no equal in contemporary European practice.

The Cathedral Code is the 1st systematic law in the history of Russia.

In the literature, it is often therefore called a code, but this is not legally true. The Code contains material relating not to one, but to many branches of law of that time. It is rather not a code, but not a large set of laws. At the same time, the level of systematization in individual chapters devoted to individual branches of law is not yet so high that it can be called codification in the full sense of the word. Nevertheless, the systematization of legal norms in the Council Code should be recognized as very perfect for its time.

The original Cathedral Code is a column 309 meters long of 959 separate sections. This unique document allows us to judge the work on its compilation. On the front side of the column, the text of the Cathedral Code was written by several scribes. On the back - 315 signatures of the participants of the Council. According to the gluing of the front side of the bond of the Duma clerk I. Gavrenev. The braces of the Duma clerks F. Elizariev, M. Volosheninov, G. Leontiev and F. Griboyedov are also made on the reverse side by gluing together. Special marks on the column indicate the sources of a particular article. There are corrections in the manuscript, the places omitted during the correspondence have been restored. The “Inventory of amendments” is attached to the Code. At the same time, this column was not used in judicial practice. From the original column, a handwritten book-copy “word for word” was made, from which copies of the Cathedral Code were printed. It is not yet possible to set the number of printed books. One of the documents gives the figure - 1200 books. This is a colossal circulation for that time.

Unlike the previous legislative acts, the Council Code is distinguished not only by its large volume (25 chapters, divided into 967 articles), but also by its greater purposefulness and complex structure. A brief introduction contains a statement of the motives and history of the compilation of the Code. For the first time, the law was divided into thematic chapters devoted, if not to a certain branch of law, then in any case, having a specific object of regulation. The chapters are highlighted with special headings: for example, “On blasphemers and church rebels” (Chapter 1), “On the sovereign’s honor and how to protect the sovereign’s health” (Chapter 2), “On money masters who will learn how to make thieves' money” (Chapter 5), etc. Such a scheme for constructing chapters allowed their compilers to adhere to the usual sequence of presentation for that time from the initiation of a case to the execution of a court decision. This causes serious difficulties in the analysis of the Code both by industry and by object of law.

Even pre-revolutionary researchers noted that the Cathedral Code compares favorably with both the previous and subsequent legislation from a linguistic point of view. It no longer contains archaisms characteristic of Russian Pravda and even Code of Laws, and at the same time the Code is not yet littered with that mass of foreign words and terms that Peter the Great introduced into the laws.

The Cathedral Code summed up the long development of Russian law, relying on all previous legislation, especially on acts of the 18th century.

7. A brief analysis of the content of the Cathedral Code.

The first chapters (1 - 9) and the last 3 (23 - 25) cover relations related to the position of the church (chapter 1), the highest state authority (chapters 2-3) and the established order of government (chapters 4-9, 23- 25). The first chapter of the Code contains legal norms “on blasphemers and church rebels” - the most terrible crime, according to the legislators of the 17th century, since it is considered even earlier than an attempt on “sovereign honor” and “sovereign health” (chapter 2 ). For blasphemy against God and Mother of God, an honest cross or saints, according to Article 1 of Chapter 1 of the Code, the guilty, regardless of his nationality, were to be burned at the stake. Death also threatened any “outlaw” who interfered with the serving of the liturgy. Severe punishments were also due for any outrages and riots carried out in the temple, from commercial execution to imprisonment. But with Chapter 1 with its 9 articles, legalizations on church issues are not exhausted, they are scattered throughout the entire text of the Code. And in further chapters there are decrees on the oath for people of spiritual and secular rank, on limiting the rights of non-believers, on marriage, on protecting church property, on honoring holidays, etc. All these measures were designed to protect the honor and dignity of the church. But the Code also contained clauses that caused strong discontent church hierarchy. According to chapter 13, a special Monastic order was approved, on which judgment was imposed in relation to the clergy and people dependent on it. The clergy were deprived of judicial privileges, and this was done at the petition of elected people. Church land ownership was also subjected to significant restrictions. The settlements and estates that belonged to the church authorities in the cities, in the settlements and near the settlements were taken “for the sovereign as a tax and for services without flight and irrevocably” (ch.19, article 1). Further, all clergy and institutions were categorically forbidden to acquire patrimonies in any way and to give patrimonies to lay people in monasteries (ch.17, st.42). From the point of view of the state, this contributed to further centralization and strengthening of autocratic power. But the provisions of the new code aroused the resistance of the clergy, since the Code deprived him, with the exception of the patriarch, of judicial privileges. All church and monastery lands were transferred to the jurisdiction of the Monastic order.

Patriarch Nikon, unhappy with the Code, called it nothing more than a “lawless book”, but the first head of the Monastic order, Prince N.I. Odoevsky, “the new Luther”. As a result of a tense struggle, the spiritual power overcame the secular one: in 1667 the Monastic order was abolished.

For the first time in Russian legislation, the Code singles out a special chapter dedicated to the criminal law protection of the monarch's personality (ch. 2). At the same time, it is emphasized that even intent is punishable by death. Besides, structures of the state, political crimes are defined. The chapter rarely separates these crimes from other “dashing deeds”, being “the first codification in the history of Russian legislation, in which if not an exhaustive, then still a relatively complete system of state crimes is given.” The chapter establishes the composition of each crime, the subjective and objective sides of anti-state encroachments, the circumstances that eliminate punishability, and the procedural rules in these cases, fixing the dominant role of the search.

The next group of chapters is connected with the “court”, and these chapters are distinguished both by the subject of regulated relations (ch. 9 - the court for peasants, ch. 10 - the court for townspeople), and by object (ch. ch.16 - about local lands). Some authors believe that the first chapters refer to public law, 10-15 - to the process, 16-20 - to property law, 21-22 - to criminal law, 22-25 - an additional part: about archers, about Cossacks, about taverns, etc. (S.V. Yushkov, M.F. Vladimirs-Ky-Budanov). In its original form, the Code was provided with a list of articles, each with its own name. In subsequent years, the code was supplemented by “new decree articles”, the most important among them: “New decree articles on robbery and murderous cases” of 1669, “On estates” of 1676, “On estates and estates” of 1677, etc.

Articles of the Cathedral Code draw the legal status of various estates and social groups societies: important articles describing the legal status of peasants (for example, art. 1,5,12,16,32 chapter 11, art.13 chapter 2, art.94,235,262 chapter 10, art.7 chapter 13, art.9,15 ,37 chapter 19), etc. It can be seen from them that the Code finally consolidated the complete prohibition of the peasant exit - the “lesson summers” were canceled - the period for the search for fugitive peasants, after which the search stopped and in fact there was at least a small opportunity to exit the serfdom, albeit by flight. According to the Code, the search for fugitives became indefinite, and a fine of 10 rubles was imposed for harboring them. Thus, the peasants were finally attached to the land and the legal registration of serfdom was completed. The adoption of these norms was in the interests of the service people who actively participated in the third Council of 1648. But it is important to note that according to the Code, the peasants still had some class rights. Fugitive peasants were categorically ordered to be returned together with their property, thereby recognizing their property rights. The recognition of personal rights was the provision according to which the peasants who married on the run were subject to return to the owner only by their families. But in general, the peasants were almost completely deprived of rights both in private and in public life (Article 13 of Chapter 2, Article 6 of Chapter 9, Article 261 of Chapter 10), etc. It should be borne in mind that the Code, without interfering in many relations between the feudal lords and the peasants, leaves room for the arbitrariness of the patrimonials and landowners: the Code does not contain norms regulating the amount of peasant duties.

If the position of the patrimonial, and especially the landlord, peasants was much more difficult than the position of the state peasants, then at the very bottom of this ladder were serfs and bonded people (Art. 8,16,27,35,63,85 chapter 27). Kholops did not have personal and property rights, although in fact they more and more often turned into arable people and were included in the tax. If we compare the articles about the peasants and about the serfs, then it can be noted that the position of the serf has approached legal status ho-lop. In the Code, much attention was also paid to some social issues. In the Time of Troubles, the class of service people and residents of the settlements was the force that ensured the final victory over external and internal enemies. Chapters 16 and 17 were devoted to streamlining land relations, which were confused during the years of the “Moscow ruin”. Someone then lost the fortresses on their possessions, someone received them from impostors. The new legislative code established that only service people and guests had the right to own estates. Thus, land ownership became a class privilege of the nobility and the top of the merchant class. In the interests of the nobility, the Code smoothed out the difference between conditional ownership - an estate (on condition and for the duration of service) and hereditary possession - a fiefdom. From now on, estates can be changed to fiefdoms and vice versa. The petitions of the townspeople were satisfied by the 19th chapter specially dedicated to them. According to it, the township population was isolated into a closed estate and attached to the township (in addition, fighting attempts to evade the township tax, the Code deprived people of the “black hundreds” - the right to move from city to city (Art. 19,22,37,38 chapter 19). All residents of the settlement had to pay certain taxes and perform duties in favor of the state. It was now impossible to leave the settlement, but it was possible to enter only if you entered a tax community. This provision satisfied the demand of the townspeople to protect them from the competition of different ranks of people who, coming from the service, spiritual, peasants, traded and were engaged in various crafts near the towns, at the same time not incurring tax. Now everyone who was engaged in trading and crafts turned into an eternal township tax. previously tax-free “white settlements” (whitened, i.e. freed from taxes and duties to the state), which belonged to secular feudal lords and the church, free of charge replyalsya to the sovereign's quarters. All those who had previously left from there were subject to return to the settlements. They were instructed to “take them to their old townships, where someone lived before this, without flight and irrevocably.” But this provision, fixed by law, was not fully implemented in practice, and throughout the 18th century, townspeople continued to petition for the elimination of “white places”, the expansion of urban territories, and the prohibition of peasants from trading and crafts.

The Code pays the main attention to the feudal lords. It secured the privileged position of representatives of the ruling class (Art. 1, Chapter 9, Art. 27,30,90, Chapter 10, Art. 1, Chapter 11), etc. From the text of the Code, it is clear which groups of the population should be classified as feudal landowners (Article 1 of Chapter 9, Article 1 of Chapter 11, Articles 41-45,66 of Chapter 16). A number of articles confirm the monopoly right of the feudal lord to own land with peasants (Article 46 of Chapter 16), establish their privileges (Articles 5,12,92,133,135 of Chapter 10, Articles 16,56 of Chapters 18,9 and “state service” (Article 7,19 Chapter 7, Article 69 Chapter 16, Article 2 Chapter 20). The main part of the feudal lords was called "service people", although they included far from all feudal lords, and not only feudal lords, but also archers, Cossacks, gunners, etc., who had neither peasants, nor estates, nor estates, and received for service money and grain salary and some benefits. The Code, as a code of feudal law, protects the right of private property, and above all, ownership of land. The main types of land ownership of feudal lords were estates (Art. 13,33,38,41,42,45 of Chapter 17) and estates (Art. 1-3,5-8,13,34,51 of Chapter 16). The Code takes a serious step towards equating the legal regime of estates with the regime of estates; this concerned wide circles of feudal lords, especially small ones. It is no coincidence that the chapter on estates comes earlier in the law than the chapter on estates.

The equating of estates with estates proceeded mainly along the lines of granting landowners the right to dispose of land. Until now, in essence, only votchinniks had the right to own land (but their rights were somewhat limited, which was preserved in the Code), but in principle, the votchinnik had a necessary element of property right - the right to dispose of property. The situation is different with the estate: in previous years, the landowner was deprived of the right to dispose, and sometimes even the right to own land (this was if the landowner left the service). The Cathedral Code made significant changes to this matter: first of all, it expanded the right of the landowner to own land - now the retired landowner retained the right to land, and although he was not left with his former estate, he was given the so-called -vaemoe subsistence estate - a kind of pension. The landowner's widow and his children up to a certain age received the same pension.

The right to dispose of the estate according to the Cathedral Code was manifested in the permission of the so-called surrender of the subsistence estate, in the possibility of exchanging the estate, including for the patrimony. As for estates, they could be sold to an almost unlimited circle of feudal lords, and articles devoted to the "sovereign's palace and black" lands revealed the position of the king as a major feudal lord.

There are many articles in the Code that protect other numerous objects of economic management of the feudal lords, as well as the trade and craft population. Chapter 10 contains articles on other issues of civil law. All the law of obligations in the Code is closely connected with the criminal law, for the failure to fulfill many contracts, criminal punishment was threatened.

Much attention is paid to criminal law (Ch. 1-5, 10, 21, 22, etc.) and the process. Compared to previous legislation, the Code provides for more cases of public criminal prosecution (Article 31 Chapter 21, Article 14 Chapter 22). In the punitive policy, the features of the right-privilege clearly appear (Art. 90.92 of Chapter 10, Art. 10 of Chapter 22). The general concept of a crime remains the same, but one can note the development of ideas about its composition. The system of crimes becomes more complicated. The totality of the norms about them, provided for by the Code, for the first time acquires the character of a system. The most dangerous crimes for feudal society are put in the first place: against the church, state crimes, against the order of government (the first chapters of the Code). Next come crimes against the person, property crimes, although a clear distinction according to the object of the crime in the systematization is not always maintained. One of the circumstances excluding criminal liability was recognized as actions resembling necessary defense and extreme necessity (Articles 105,200,201,283 of Chapter 10, Articles 88-89 of Chapter 21, Article 21 of Chapter 22). The system of punishments is also becoming more complex. The punishment is increased in the presence of qualifying circumstances (Article 90 of Chapter 21, Articles 1,2,16 of Chapter 25).

In procedural law, there is a growing tendency to expand the scope of the search, although the court is still in the first place in terms of the amount of jurisdiction. The significance of judicial documents is affirmed, rules of conduct in court are established, etc.

The Code marks the development of all branches of law of that time. Entire chapters are devoted to administrative and financial law. Civil rights are widely interpreted - property, contracts, inheritance. The articles of the Council Code do not give a complete picture of issues related to the state structure, form of government, organization of the state apparatus, etc., but there are articles that allow one to judge the mechanism of the state of the 17th century. In addition, the Code consolidates the process of strengthening royal power, which is characteristic of a class-representative monarchy and reflects a tendency to develop into an absolute monarchy. Articles relating to the Boyar Duma give some idea of ​​its role in the state of the 17th century (Art. 2, Chapter 10).

The Code also contains information about administrative positions (voivods, clerks, clerks, kissers, heads, collectors, etc.), about individual local institutions, about administrative-territorial units, about the military (ch. 12), judicial and punitive (ch.11,12,13), financial (ch.9) system, about church and monastic apparatus (ch.1,12,13).

The Cathedral Code satisfied the main class requirements of the nobility and partly of its allies - the top tenants, marked the first systematized code of laws covering almost all branches of law, and was the final stage in the process of establishing a unified Russian state.

8. Various branches of law in the Cathedral Code.

a) Judicial law.

Judicial law in the Code amounted to special complex norms regulating the organization of the court and the process. Even more definitely than in the Sudebniks, there was a division into two forms of the process: “trial” and “search”. Chapter 10 of the Code describes in detail the various procedures of "court": the process was divided into court and "execution", i.e. sentencing. "Court" began with "introduction", filing a petition. Then the bailiff summoned the defendant to court. The defendant could provide guarantors. He was given the right not to appear in court twice for valid reasons (for example, illness), but after three failures to appear, he automatically lost the process. The winning side was given a corresponding certificate.

The evidence used and taken into account by the court in the adversarial process was diverse: witness testimony (practice required the involvement of at least 20 witnesses in the process), written evidence (the most trustworthy of them were officially certified documents), a cross kiss (allowed with -pax for an amount not exceeding 1 ruble), lot. The procedural measures aimed at obtaining evidence were a “general” and “general” search: in the first case, the population was surveyed about the fact of a crime, and in the second, about a specific person suspected of a crime. A special type of testimonies were: "reference to the guilty" and a general reference. The first consisted in referring the accused or the defendant to a witness, whose testimony must absolutely coincide with the testimony of the exile, in case of a discrepancy, the case was lost. There could be several such references, and in each case full confirmation was required. The common reference consisted in the appeal of both disputing parties to the same or several witnesses. Their testimony was decisive. The so-called “pravezh” became a kind of procedural action in court. The defendant (most often an insolvent debtor) was regularly subjected to corporal punishment by the court, the number of which was equal to the amount of debts (for a debt of 100 rubles, they were flogged for a month). "Pravezh" was not just a punishment - it was a measure that prompted the defendant to fulfill the obligation: he could find guarantors or he himself could decide to pay the debt.

Judgment in the adversarial process was oral, but was recorded in the “court list”. Each stage was made out by the special diploma. Search or “search” was used in the most serious criminal cases. A special place and attention was given to crimes about which it was declared: “the word and deed of the sovereign”, i.e. in which the public interest is involved. The case in the search process could begin with the statement of the victim, with the discovery of the fact of the crime (red-handed) or with the usual slander, unconfirmed by the facts of the prosecution 9 "lingual rumor"). After that, government agencies stepped in. The victim filed a “appearance” (statement), and the bailiff with witnesses went to the scene of the crime for an inquiry. The procedural actions were “search”, i.e. interrogation of all suspects and witnesses. Chapter 21 of the Council Code for the first time regulates such a procedural procedure as torture. The basis for its application could be the results of the “search”, when the testimony was divided: part in favor of the accused, part against him. In the event that the results of the “search” were favorable to the suspect, he could be taken on bail. The use of torture was regulated: it could be used no more than three times, with a certain break. The testimonies given at the torture (“slander”) had to be rechecked through other procedural measures (interrogation, oath, “search”). The testimonies of the tortured were recorded.

b) Criminal law.

In the field of criminal law, the Cathedral Code clarifies the concept of “dashing case”, developed back in the Code of Laws. The subjects of the crime could be either individuals or a group of persons. The law divided them into major and minor, understanding the latter as accomplices. In turn, complicity can be both physical (assistance, practical assistance, etc.) and intellectual (for example, incitement to murder - Chapter 22). In connection with this, even a slave who committed a crime at the direction of his master began to be recognized as a subject. From accomplices, the law distinguished persons only involved in the commission of a crime: accomplices (who created the conditions for the commission of a crime), conniving parties, non-informers, concealers. The subjective side of the crime is determined by the degree of guilt: The Code knows the division of crimes into intentional, careless and accidental. For careless actions, the one who committed them is punished in the same way as for intentional criminal actions. The law distinguishes between mitigating and aggravating circumstances. The former include: a state of intoxication, uncontrollability of actions caused by an insult or threat (affect), the latter - the repetition of a crime, a combination of several crimes. Separate stages of a criminal act are distinguished: intent (which in itself can be punishable), attempted crime and commission of a crime. The law knows the concept of recidivism (coinciding in the Code with the concept of “a dashing person”) and extreme necessity, which is not punishable, only if the proportionality of its real danger on the part of the criminal is observed. Violation of proportionality meant exceeding the necessary defense and was punished. The Cathedral Code considered the church, the state, the family, the person, property and morality to be the objects of the crime.

The system of crimes according to the Council Code:

1) crimes against the church, 2) state crimes,

3) crimes against the order of administration (deliberate non-appearance of the defendant in court, resistance to the bailiff, making false letters, acts and seals, counterfeiting, unauthorized travel abroad, moonshine-brewing, taking a false oath in court, false accusation), 4) crimes against deanery (maintenance of dens, harboring fugitives, illegal sale of property, imposition of duties on persons released from them), 5) malfeasance (extortion (bribery, extortion, unlawful requisitions), injustice, forgery in service, war crimes), 6) crimes against a person (murder, divided into simple and qualified, beatings, insults to honor. The murder of a traitor or a thief at the crime scene was not punished), 7) property crimes (simple and qualified tatba (church, in the service , horse stealing committed in the sovereign's court, theft of vegetables from the garden and fish from the garden), robbery committed in the form of industrial sla, ordinary and qualified robbery (committed by servicemen or children against parents), fraud (theft associated with deceit, but without violence), arson, forcible appropriation of other people's property, damage to other people's property), 8) crimes against morality ( disrespect by children to parents, refusal to support elderly parents, pandering, “fornication” of a wife, but not a husband, sexual intercourse between a master and a slave).

Punishments under the Council Code and their goals:

The system of punishments 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, but the institution of third-party liability was preserved - the landowner who killed the peasant had to transfer another peasant to the landowner who suffered damage , the “righteousness” procedure was preserved, to a large extent, the guarantee resembled the responsibility of the guarantor for the actions of the offender (for whom he vouched), 2) the sole nature of the punishment, expressed in the difference in the responsibility of different subjects for the same punishments (for example , chapter 10), 3) uncertainty in establishing punishment (this was due to the purpose of punishment - intimidation). The sentence might not have indicated the type of punishment, and if it was, the method of its execution (“punish by death”) or the measure (term) of punishment (throw “to prison until the sovereign’s decree”) was unclear, 4) the plurality of punishment - for the same crime, several punishments could be established at once: whipping, cutting the tongue, exile, confiscation of property.

Purpose of punishment:

Intimidation and retribution, isolation of the offender from society was a secondary goal. It should be noted that the uncertainty in establishing punishment created an additional psychological impact on the offender. To intimidate the criminal, they applied the punishment that he would have wished for the person he had slandered (in the case of "sneaking"). The publicity of punishments and executions had a socio-psychological significance: many punishments (burning, drowning, wheeling) served as if analogues of hellish torments.

In the Council Code, the use of the death penalty was provided for in almost 60 cases (even smoking tobacco was punishable by death). The death penalty was divided into qualified (wheeling, quartering, burning, filling the throat with metal, burying alive in the ground) and simple (hanging, beheading). Self-mutilating punishments included: cutting off an arm, leg, cutting the nose, ear, lips, tearing out the eye, nostrils. These punishments could be applied as additional or as main ones. Mutilating punishments, in addition to intimidation, performed the function of designating a criminal. Painful punishments included cutting with a whip or batogs in a public place (at the auction). Imprisonment, as a special type of punishment, could be established for a period of 3 days to 4 years or for an indefinite period. As an additional type of punishment (or as the main one), exile was assigned (to monasteries, fortresses, prisons, to boyar estates). Representatives of the privileged estates were subjected to such a type of punishment as deprivation of honor and rights (from complete surrender of the head (turning into a slave) to the announcement of “disgrace” (isolation, sharp-kism, state disfavor)). The accused could be deprived of his rank, the right to sit in the Duma or an order, or deprived of the right to file a lawsuit in court. Property sanctions were widely used (Chapter 10 of the Code in 74 cases established a gradation of fines “for dishonor” depending on social position victim). The highest sanction of this kind was the complete confiscation of the criminal's property. In addition, the system of sanctions included church punishments (repentance, penance, excommunication from the church, exile to a monastery, imprisonment in a solitary cell, etc.).

c) Real, liability and inheritance law.

The development of commodity-money relations, the formation of new types and forms of ownership, the quantitative growth of civil law transactions - all this prompted legislators to single out civil law relations regulated by special rules with sufficient certainty. It should be noted that in the Code the same legal source could give several not only alternative, but also mutually exclusive solutions on the same issue. The vagueness of the definition of one or another category often created a situation in which there was a confusion of heterogeneous norms and obligations. The subjects of civil relations were both private (individual) and collective persons. In the 17th century, there was a process of gradual expansion of the legal rights of a private person due to concessions from the rights of a collective person. Being released from the strict control of generic and family unions, a private person at the same time falls under the strong influence of other collective subjects, and above all, the state (especially in the field of property and inheritance law). subject of rights and obligations. First of all, this was expressed in the division of several powers associated with one subject and one right. Thus, conditional land ownership gave the subject the right to own and use, but not dispose of the object (enrollment of underage sons, marriage of a daughter to a person who assumes the official duties of her father). In addition, such a “split” nature of property did not give a complete picture of who was its full-fledged subject. The transfer of responsibility for obligations from one subject (father, landowner) to another (children, peasants) also complicated the situation and the subject's awareness of his status. Subjects of civil law had to meet certain requirements (gender, age, social and property status). The age limit was determined at 15-20 years old: from the age of 15, the children of service people could be endowed with estates, from the same age, the subjects had the right to independently assume enslaving obligations. Parents retained the right to enroll their children in bondage servitude when the latter reached the age of 15. 20 years of age was required to acquire the right to take the kiss of the cross (oath) at the trial (Ch. 14 of the Cathedral Code). At the same time, such norms as marriageable age, the legislator left to practice and custom. The fact of reaching a certain period (be it age or prescription) was not at all considered by him as decisive for the legal state of the subject: even upon reaching adulthood, children did not completely go out of the power of their father. As for the sexual qualification, in the 17th century there was a significant increase in the legal capacity of a woman compared to the previous period. So, the widow is endowed by law with a whole range of powers, procedural and obligation rights. There were also significant changes in the sphere and procedure for the inheritance of real estate by women.

The interaction of various subjects of civil relations in one area (especially in the field of property rights) inevitably gave rise to mutual restriction of subjective rights. When dividing tribal property, the clan as a collective entity, transferring its rights to collective entities, retained the right to dispose of property, which could be alienated only with the consent of all members of the clan. The genus retained the right to redeem the sold ancestral property within the period established by law. The grant of land on the estate (the act of transferring property by the state to the landowner) did not fundamentally change the subject of ownership - it remained the state. The landowner was assigned only the right of life-long possession. But if the land fell (during the performance of additional actions) into hereditary possession and use, then land ownership in its status was already close to patrimonial, i.e. took the form of full ownership. The separation of the powers of the owner and the owner also differed in the allocation of a land plot to a separate peasant family using it from the lands of the peasant community, which owned the ownership right to this allotment.

The grant of land was a complex set of legal actions, including the issuance of a letter of commendation, the preparation of a certificate, i.e. entry in the order book of certain information about the allotted person, on which his right to land is based, a search conducted at the request of the allotted person and consisting in establishing the fact of the actual unoccupied land to be transferred, putting into possession, which consisted in a public measurement of land, carried out in the presence local residents and outsiders. The distribution of land in the 17th century, along with the Local Order, was carried out by other bodies - the Discharge Order, the Order of the Grand Palace and other orders. In the act of awarding, subjective will gave rise to objective consequences (the appearance of a new subject and object of property), for the precise adjustment of which additional actions were required (registration, justification of a new right, ritualized actions for the actual allocation of land), with the help of which the new law "fit" into the system of already existing relations. Acquisitive prescription becomes legal basis for the possession of the right of ownership, in particular, to land, provided that this property was in legal possession during the period established by law. If in the decrees of the beginning of the 17th century the term of the statute of limitations was formulated rather vaguely, then according to the Council Code it is fixed as 40 years. It should be noted that the category of limitation was borrowed by Russian law of the 17th century from legal sources of various nature and time of occurrence.

d) Treaty in the 17th century.

The contract remained the main way of acquiring property rights to property, and in particular, to land; it appeared in this capacity earlier than the institution of awards. The development of this form took place against the backdrop of a gradual replacement of formalized actions (participation of witnesses when concluding an agreement) with written acts (“assaults” of witnesses without their personal participation in the transaction procedure). “Bassing” gradually lost its symbolic character and turned into a simple testimony of the parties to the contract. A contractual instrument drawn up by interested parties acquired legal force only after it was certified by an official authority, which was expressed in a resolution on a press certificate. But even an approved contractual instrument created a new legal relationship only under the condition of its actual legality. Sometimes, to ensure it, additional legal actions were required that were not directly related to the content of the main obligation. So, the Cathedral Code provided for the issuance, in addition to the contractual letters, securing the right to land, letters of refusal, which were sent to the area where the lands transferred under the contract are located.

Estates by law of the 16th-17th centuries were divided into several types in accordance with the nature of the subject and the method of their acquisition: palace, state, church and privately owned, and according to the methods of acquisition, patrimonial lands were divided into tribal, served and bought.

With regard to landownership, then, as already mentioned, the Cathedral Code allowed the exchange of estates for estates and vice versa, and Article 9 of Chapter 17 allowed the sale of estates. By the end of the 17th century, the practice of exchanging estates for cash salaries (“fodder books”) was established, which in a hidden form already meant the actual purchase and sale of estates. The official sale of estates (for debts) was allowed in the 17th century, while the leasing of estates for money was already permitted by Article 12 of Chapter 16 of the Cathedral Code.

e) Law of obligations of the 17th century.

The law of obligations continued to develop along the line of gradual replacement of personal liability under contracts with property liability of the debtor. The transfer of obligations to property turned out to be connected with the issue of their transfer by inheritance. The Cathedral Code allowed for such a transition in the event of inheritance by law, stipulating that the refusal to inherit also removes debt obligations (ch. 10, art. 245). One of the most important conditions for concluding a contract was the freedom of expression of the will of the contracting parties, but this condition was often not observed either in law or in practice. The Council Code (Article 190, Chapter 10) hints at the fact that the owners of the apartments where the military is stationed in the performance of their duties become the custodians of the belongings of these military men when the latter enter the campaign. In general, the conditions of free will were often violated in practice by acts of violence by one of the parties, although the law provided the other side with the opportunity to challenge such a deal within a week (Article 251, Chapter 10). As guarantees against violence and deceit, the legislator provided for the introduction of special procedural aspects, such as the presence of witnesses at the conclusion of a transaction, its written or “serf” (notarial) form. For the entry into force of the contract, the contractual act, drawn up by the square clerk, was sealed by the assault of witnesses (up to 6 people), and then registered in the writ's hut (Article 39 of Chapter 17 of the Cathedral Code).

f) The institution of easements.

For the first time in the Cathedral Code, the institution of easements was regulated (i.e., the legal restriction of the property right of one subject in the interests of the right to use another or others). The legislator knew personal servitudes (restrictions in favor of certain persons, specially stipulated in the law), for example, the destruction of meadows by warriors in the service, the right to their entry into forest lands owned by a private person (Chapter 7). Real servitudes (restriction of property rights in the interests of an indefinite number of subjects) included: the right of the owner of a mill to flood the underlying meadow belonging to another person for production purposes, the ability to build a stove against the wall of a neighbor's house or build a house on the boundary of someone else's plot (Chapter 10). The development of easement law testified to the formation of clear ideas about the right to private property, the emergence of a large number of individual owners and the clash of their interests. Along with this, the right to property was limited either by the direct prescriptions of the law (for example, widows were forbidden to mortgage well-deserved estates, employees were forbidden to accept a pledge from foreigners), or by the establishment of a legal regime that did not guarantee “eternal” property (maintaining a period of 40 years for redemption of the tribal community). Thus, the right to private property continued to be subject to restrictions.

g) Inheritance law.

Restrictions and regulation also passed into the sphere of inheritance law. The degree of freedom in the disposal of property was different in the case of inheritance by law or by will. The will of the testator was limited by class principles: testamentary dispositions concerned only purchased estates, ancestral and served ones passed to the heirs according to the law. Family estates were inherited by sons, in their absence - by daughters. The widow could inherit only a part of the patrimony she had earned - “for a living”, (ie for life use). Family and granted estates could be inherited only by members of the clan to which the testator belonged. Purchased estates could be inherited by the widow of the testator, who received a quarter of the movable property and her own dowry.

h) Family law.

The principles of house building continued to operate here - the primacy of the husband over his wife and children, the actual community of property, etc. They were also disclosed in legislative provisions. Only a church marriage was recognized as legally significant. The law allowed the conclusion of no more than 3 marriage unions by one person during a lifetime. The marriageable age for men is 15 years, for women - 12 years. The consent of the parents was required for marriage, and for serfs - the consent of the master. The legal status of the husband determined the legal status of the wife. The law obligated the wife to follow her husband - to the settlement, in exile, when moving. In relation to children, the father retained the rights of the head: he could, when the child reached 15 years old, give him “to the people”, “in service” or to work. The father could punish the children, but not excessively. For the murder of a child, imprisonment was threatened (but not the death penalty, as for the murder of an outsider). The law knows the concept of illegitimate, persons of this category could not be adopted, and therefore, take part in the inheritance of real estate.

Divorce was allowed in a limited number of cases: when one of the spouses left for a monastery, when the spouse was accused of “dashing business”, when the wife was unable to bear children.

Thus, the Council Code includes norms relating to all branches of law, demonstrating the existence of most modern branches of law.

The value of the Council Code

The adoption of the Council Code was one of the main achievements of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. This grandiose code of laws for the 17th century for a long time played the role of the All-Russian legal code. Attempts to adopt a new Code were made under Peter the Great and Catherine the Second, but both times were unsuccessful. The words spoken by Prince Yakov Dolgoruky to Peter the Great are very indicative: “Sir, in another your father, in another you are more worthy of praise and thanksgiving. The main affairs of sovereigns - 3: the first is internal reprisal and your main business is justice, in this your toy is more than you did. The Code, having fixed the main features of the political system and law of Russia, turned out to be quite stable for 200 years, despite all the reforms of the 18th century. It is no coincidence that in 1830 it opened the complete collection of laws of the Russian Empire and was used to a greater extent in compiling volume 15 of the Code of Laws and the Criminal Code of 1845. The use of the norms of the Council Code in the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century, during the development of capitalism and the decomposition of feudal relations, meant that the conservative regimes of that time were looking for support in the Code to strengthen the autocratic system. As V.O. Klyuchevsky wrote, “the desire to depict the political system in a vertical section, from the church and the sovereign with his court to the Cossacks and the tavern, breaks through in the arrangement of the subjects of legislation, as they say 2 recent chapters". And although in technical terms, as a monument of codification, it (the Cathedral Code) did not overtake the old Code of Laws, then as a monument to legislation, the Code took a significant step forward in comparison with them: the composition of society, determine the position and mutual relations of its classes, speaks of service people and service land tenure, peasants, townspeople, serfs, archers and Cossacks, but the main attention is paid to the nobility, as the dominant military service and landowning class: almost half of all articles of the Code directly or indirectly relate to its interests and relations.

Literature

Source study of the history of the USSR, M., 1981, edited by S.V. Voronkova

Manual on the history of the Fatherland, edited by A.S. Orlov,

Cathedral Code of 1649, M., 1958, edited by I.A. Grekov

Russian legislation of the 10th-20th centuries, volume 3,

I.A.Isaev, “History of the state and law of Russia”,

V.O.Klyuchevsky,”Course of Russian History”, 3rd volume,

Workshop on the history of the USSR (the period of feudalism), A.P. Pronshtein and

A.G. Zadera, 1969

Monuments of Russian law, edited by K.A. Sofronenko, 1957,

"Legal Bulletin", 1994 number 8.