modes of proof (trial by ordeal and combat), to a modern system of criminal penalties, judges and other judicial officials, and the use of witnesses and documents as evidence. The Code was also significant in introducing or confirming a document-based system of litigation.
The fourth section, starting at article 46, contains miscellaneous rules of substantive versus
1495
procedural law, the most famous of which is article 57, which requires a peasant to pay his lord a certain fee in the week before or the week after St. George’s day if he is to have the right to move elsewhere. There are also various provisions on inheritance, manumission of slaves, loans, and boundaries. The fourth section, however, does not contain all of the substantive rules of law that would be necessary to administer justice. For example, most of the reported cases of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries deal with title to and ownership of land, but the Code contains virtually no rules or standards for deciding such cases.
Because the Code is primarily a procedural statute and contains only an incomplete listing of substantive rules of law, one might ask where the judges would look to find the substantive rules. Commentators have suggested that the judges would look to customary law or to certain Byzantine law manuals. Another possibility is that, in most cases, judges simply applied their own rough sense of justice, and that litigation was not generally conceived as the application of published or even customary rules. See also: IVAN III; LAW CODE OF 1649; LEGAL SYSTEMS; MUSCOVY; OKOLNICHY; SUDEBNIK OF 1550; SUDEBNIK OF 1589
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dewey, Horace W. (1956). “The 1497 Sudebnik: Muscovite Russia’s First National Law Code.” The American Slavic and East European Review 15:325-338. Dewey, Horace W., ed. (1966). Muscovite Judicial Texts, 1488-1556. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literature.
The 1550 Sudebnik was a law code compiled by Ivan IV (the Terrible) and his boyars. In 1551 it was submitted for confirmation to the Hundred Chapters Church Council (Stoglav), on which sat the highest clerical officials. It proclaims that it is to govern all criminal and civil litigation. While the protograph is not extant, forty- three remarkably consistent copies survive. In all copies the text is divided into ninety-nine or one hundred articles.
The structure of the text closely follows that of the 1497 Code: the first section (articles 1-44)
1496
deals with the central courts, held before the grand prince, his boyars, and his okolnichy; the second (articles 45-61) deals with judicial documents and the duties of bailiffs; the third (articles 62-75) deals with the provincial and rural courts held before the tsar’s vicegerents; and the fourth (starting with article 76) contains provisions of substantive law on such subjects as slavery, disputes over land, inheritance, and the sale of chattels and other goods.
Like the 1497 Code, the 1550 Sudebnik is primarily a procedural statute, and a large number of its provisions deal with the financial side of litigation: fees, penalties, amounts to be recovered in civil disputes. The 1550 Code is, however, more than twice the length of the 1497 Code. Its additional and different provisions probably reflect what its draftsmen thought was in need of amendment: that is, where the previous statute was perceived as not working or in need of clarification. While the 1497 Code simply prohibits bribery and favoritism, the 1550 Code provides specific penalties for these offenses, including fines and knouting. One new set of provisions (articles 22-24) deals with bringing suit in the central courts against vicegerents, which probably indicates that corruption and misfeasance by rural officials was perceived as an important problem. Procedure in the provincial and rural courts was also regulated in much more detail. One of the obvious goals of the 1550 amendments was thus to strengthen the provisions designed to counter corruption and favoritism. Another provision prohibits the issuance of new immunity charters, under which landholders, usually monasteries, had received jurisdiction over all legal cases except major crimes. The prohibition of further immunity charters increased the centralization of the administration of justice and reduced the legal rights of the monasteries.
Two other new provisions (25-26) provide that assault without robbery is to be treated as dishonor (beschestie), an offense that also included defamation. The amount to be recovered by the dishonored party is set forth. Various rational modes of proof, such as an inquest (obysk) in the community, are set forth in greater detail than in the earlier code. Some changes from the 1497 Code are, however, only as to form and provide additional detail. For example, articles 8-14 of the 1497 Code, which deal with prosecuting various crimes, were expanded and moved, somewhat illogically, to the second section of the 1550 Code (articles 53-60). The 1550 Code nevertheless represents a more advanced and complete transition from archaic law,
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
which was characterized by composition, irrational modes of proof, and the absence of judicial officials, to a relatively modern system of criminal penalties, rational modes of proof, and the use of judges to resolve disputes. It nonetheless still contains several provisions on judicial duels (although, in fact, such duels were seldom used).
There were several significant additions to the provisions on substantive law in the fourth section. Six sections on slavery describe in detail how one becomes a slave, such as by selling oneself to pay a debt; how a slave can be manumitted; the documents associated with slavery; and new provisions that create a rule of caveat emptor with respect to purchase of a fugitive slave. Section 85 codified the right to redemption by the seller’s clan as to land sold by any clan member. Such land could be redeemed by a clan member within forty years at the original purchase price. While the provisions of substantive law are set forth in more detail than in the 1497 Code, the 1550 Code still does not purport to set forth all principles of substantive law. Important rules, such as how to resolve disputes over the ownership of land, remained subject to customary rules or to the discretion of the judge.
In its attempt to deter corruption and its greater detail as to both procedural and substantive matters, the 1550 Code demonstrates the progress of the Muscovite legal systems to a system more predictable and rational. See also: CHURCH COUNCIL, HUNDRED CHAPTERS; IVAN IV; LAW CODE OF 1649; LEGAL SYSTEMS; SUDEBNIK OF 1497; SUDEBNIK OF 1589
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dewey, Horace W. (1962). “The 1550 Sudebnik as an Instrument of Reform.” Jahrbuecher fuer Geschichte Os-teuropas 10(2):161-180. Dewey, Horace W., ed. (1966). Muscovite Judicial Texts, 1488-1556. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literature.
The Sudebnik of 1589 was the third in a series of four Russian legal monuments by that name. They comprise the core of middle Muscovite jurisprudence. The first two Sudebniki were compiled in 1497 and 1550, the last in 1606. This series of legal compilations was crowned by the Ulozhenie of 1649, one of the greatest of all Russian legislative documents and one of the most impressive in the entire early modern world.
The codes of 1497, 1550, 1606, and 1649 were all promulgated by governments in Moscow, but the Sudebnik of 1589 was compiled anonymously in the Russian North, the Dvina Land, for unknown purposes. The 1550 Sudebnik remained the major operational legal code throughout Muscovy for the next ninety-nine years-to the extent that there was one during and after the Time of Troubles. Few copies of the 1589 document are extant, but it is known that it was occasionally cited by others- probably because it contained the 1550 Sudebnik and its seventy-three supplemental articles, as well as special laws of interest to the Dvina Land.
The Sudebnik of 1589 has been thoroughly studied, and it is known which of its 289 articles originated in which of the sixty-eight articles of the Sudebnik of 1497 and in which of the one hundred articles of the Sudebnik of 1550. About 64 percent of the 1589 code’s articles originated in 1550 (some of them were expanded), about 9 percent came from statutes of 1556, and about 27 percent were new.
