Court on Peasants of the Council Code of 1649 identification and analysis of sources

The appearance of the Council 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, since the causal nature inherent in previous legislation became ineffective. Clarity and accuracy of the wording of the law was required

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. 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. In Moscow in the summer of 1648 there was a major uprising. 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. 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.

Thus, the creation of the Cathedral Code from a socio-historical point of view was the result of an acute and complex class struggle and the direct result of the uprising of 1648. In such difficult conditions, the Zemsky Sobor was convened, which decided to develop a new set of laws - the Cathedral Code.

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.

Sources The following served as the Cathedral Code: Sudebniks of 1497 and 1550. Decree books of orders, royal decrees, sentences of the Boyar Duma, decisions of Zemsky sobors, Lithuanian and Byzantine legislation.

A special codification commission of 5 people was entrusted with drafting the Code, 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, which means that this “order of Prince Odoevsky and his comrades,” as it is called in the documents, can be considered a Duma commission, it was established on July 16. At the same time, they decided to assemble the Zemsky Sobor for consideration of the adoption of the project by September 1. 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. By September 1, 1648, elected “from all the ranks” of the state, service and commercial and industrial townsmen, were convened in Moscow; elected from rural or district inhabitants, as from a special curia, were not called. From October 3, the tsar with the clergy and Duma people listened to the draft Code drawn up by the commission. 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 Council in 1649, was printed and sent to all Moscow orders and cities to the voivodeship offices in order to “do all sorts of things according to that Code."

The speed with which the code was adopted is amazing. The whole discussion and adoption of the Code in 967 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, different in time, not agreed, 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. 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, listened to and approved in the Duma by the end of January 1649, when the commission and the entire council ended their activities 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 for a new code. Therefore, they were in a hurry to draw up the Code.

Structure of the Code

The Cathedral Code of 1649 was a new stage in the development of legal technique. The appearance of a printed law to a large extent excluded the possibility of committing abuses by governors and orders officials,

The Cathedral Code had no precedent in the history of Russian legislation. The Cathedral Code is the first systematized law in the history of Russia.

In the literature, it is often, therefore, called the code, but this is not legally true, since the Code contains material relating not to one, but to many branches of law of that time. This is not a code, but rather a set of laws

Unlike previous legislative acts, the Cathedral Code differs not only in its large volume ( 25 chapters divided into 967 articles), but also more purposeful 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. 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.

Local and patrimonial land tenure

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 ( st.13,33,38,41,42,45 chapter 17) and estates ( Articles 1-3,5-8,13,34,51 chapter 16). The Code takes a serious step towards equating the legal regime of estates with the regime of estates; this applied to 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 the right to own land (this was the case 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, the so-called subsistence estate was given according to a certain norm - a kind pension. The landowner's widow and his children up to a certain age received the same pension.

During this period, the previously established three main types of feudal landownership were legally consolidated. The first kind - state property or directly the king (palace lands, lands of black volosts). The second kind - patrimony. Being a conditional property on the land, the estates nevertheless had a different legal status than the estates. They were inherited. There were three types: generic, retired (complained) and bought. The legislator took care that the number of patrimonial estates did not decrease. In this regard, the right to buy out the sold patrimonial estates was provided. The third type of feudal tenure is estates, which were given for service, mainly military. The size of the estate was determined by the official position of the person. The estate could not be inherited. The feudal lord used it as long as he served.

The difference in legal status between estates and estates was gradually erased. Although the estate was not inherited, it could be received by the son if he served. It was established that if the landowner died or left the service due to old age or illness, then he himself or his widow and young children could receive part of the estate for “living”. The Cathedral Code of 1649 permitted the exchange of estates for estates. Such transactions were considered valid under the following conditions: the parties, concluding an exchange record among themselves, were obliged to submit this record to the Local Order with a petition addressed to the king.

Criminal law according to the Code

In the field of criminal law, the Council Code clarifies the concept of “dashing deed” - an act dangerous for feudal societies; developed in the Code of Laws. The perpetrators of the crime could be individuals, and group of people. The law divided them into major and minor, understanding the latter as accomplices. On the other hand, participation can be as physical(assistance, practical assistance, etc.) and intellectual(for example, incitement to murder- chapter 22). In connection with this, even a serf who committed a crime at the direction of his master began to be recognized as a subject. The law distinguished persons from accomplices, only involved in the crime: accomplices (who created the conditions for the commission of a crime), conniving, non-informers, harborers. The subjective side of the crime is determined by the degree of guilt: The Code knows the division of crimes into deliberate, careless and random. For careless actions, those who committed them are punished in the same way as for intentional criminal acts. The law allocates softening 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. stand out separate stages of a criminal act: intent (which itself may be punishable), attempted crime and commission of a crime. The law knows concept of relapse(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.

Crime system

1) Crimes against the church, 2) state crimes, 3) crimes against the order of government (intentional failure of the defendant to appear in court, resistance to the bailiff, making false letters, acts and seals, counterfeiting, unauthorized travel abroad, home brewing, taking a false oath in court, false accusation), 4) crimes against decency (maintenance of brothels, harboring fugitives, illegal sale of property, taxation of persons released from them), 5) malfeasance (extortion (bribery, extortion, unlawful extortion), injustice, forgery in service, military crimes), 6) crimes against a person (murder, divided into simple and qualified, beatings, insults of honor. The murder of a traitor or a thief at the crime scene was not punished), 7) property crimes (simple and qualified crimes (church, in the service, horse theft, committed in the sovereign's court, stealing vegetables from the garden and fish from the garden), p robbery, committed in the form of fishing, robbery, ordinary and qualified (committed by service people 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 of 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

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 committed by him, 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 was like the responsibility of the guarantor for the actions of the offender (for whom he vouched), 2) nightingal nature of punishment, expressed in the difference in the responsibility of different subjects for the same punishment (for example , chapter 10), 3)uncertainty about 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) plurality of punishment- for the same crime, several punishments could be established at once: whipping, cutting the tongue, exile, confiscation of property.

Purposes of punishment:

Intimidation and retribution, isolation of the criminal 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. The publicity of punishments and executions had a socio-psychological significance: many punishments (burning, drowning, wheeling) served as if analogues of hellish torments.

The Council Code provided for the use of the death penalty 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 an 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 extradition of the head (turning into a slave) to the announcement of “disgrace” (isolation, sharpness, state disgrace). The accused could be deprived of his rank, the right to sit in the Duma or order, to deprive the right to file a claim in court. Property sanctions were widely used ( chapter 10 of the Code in 74 cases, it established a gradation of fines “for dishonor” depending on the social status of the victim). The highest sanction of this kind was the complete confiscation of the criminal's property. 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.).

Bodies administering justice

Central judicial bodies: the court of the tsar, the boyar duma, orders. Justice could be carried out both individually and collectively.

"Court" and "search" according to the Code

Judicial law in the Code constituted a special set of norms that regulated the organization of the court and the process. Even more definitely than in the Sudebniks, there was a division into two forms of process: "court" and "search ”. The legislation of that time still lacked a clear distinction between civil procedure and criminal procedure law. However, two forms of the process were distinguished - adversarial (trial) and investigative (search), and the latter was becoming increasingly important. Chapter 10 of the Code describes in detail the various procedures of the “court”: the process was divided into court and "accomplishment" those. sentencing. "Court" begins (Chapter X. Art. 100-104) with “introducing”, 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 good reasons (for example, illness), but after three failures to appear, he automatically lost the process ( Chapter X. Art. 108-123). The winning party was given a certificate.

Proof of, used and taken into account by the courts in the adversarial process, were diverse: witness's testimonies(practice required involvement in the process of at least 20 witnesses), written evidence (the most trustworthy of them were officially certified documents), kissing the cross (allowed in disputes for an amount not exceeding 1 ruble), lot. Procedural measures aimed at obtaining evidence were “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. special types of testimony were: “reference to the guilty” and a general reference. The first consisted in the reference of 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. General link 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 recorded in the “court list”. Each stage was decorated with a special diploma.

Search or “search” was used in the most serious criminal cases. Special attention was given to crimes in which the public interest was affected. 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 - “linguistic rumor”). After that, in business state bodies entered. 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. AT Chapter 21 of the Council Code for the first time such a procedural procedure as torture is regulated. 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 apply no more than three times, with a certain break. Testimony given on torture (“slander”), should have been rechecked through other procedural measures (interrogation, oath, “search”). The testimonies of the tortured were recorded.

Civil law according to the Council Code of 1649

Ownership is defined as the dominance of a person over property. Researchers agree that the right to property under the Code must be respected by all and the protection of this right is allowed only by the court, and not by one's own strength. In extreme cases, the Code allows the use of force to protect property. For the same purpose, unauthorized management of other people's property, unauthorized taking of other people's property and recognition of rights through the courts were prohibited.

The Cathedral Code protected the right of private ownership of land.

The Cathedral Code treated the serfs rather superficially: Article 3 of Chapter XI states that “according to the current sovereign’s decree, there were no sovereign commandments that no one should take peasants (we are talking about fugitives) for themselves,” while the decree of 1641 is clear says: "Do not accept other people's peasants and beans." Almost the entire XI chapter of the Code deals only with peasant escapes, without clarifying either the essence of the peasant fortress or the limits of the master's power, and is recruited with some additions from previous legalizations, without, however, exhausting its sources. When drawing up a scheme of a peasant fortress according to the casual articles of the Code, these legalizations help fill in the omissions of the faulty code. The law of 1641 distinguishes three claim parts in the composition of the peasant fortress: peasantry, peasant bellies and peasant property.

Since peasant ownership means the owner’s right to work as a serf, and peasant bellies are his agricultural implements with all movables, “arable and yard utensils”, then under peasantry it remains to understand the very belonging of the peasant to the owner, i.e., the right of the latter to the personality of the former, regardless of the economic situation and the use that the owner made of peasant labor. This right was strengthened primarily by scribes and census books, as well as “other fortresses”, where the peasant or his father was written for the owner.

The harmless use of these three components of a peasant fortress depended on the degree of accuracy and foresight with which the law determined the conditions for a peasant fortification. According to the Code, the serf peasant was hereditarily and hereditarily strong face, physical or legal, for which it was recorded by a scribe or a book similar to it; he was strong for that face on the ground according to the plot in that estate, estate or estate where the census found him; finally, he was strong in his fortune, the peasant tax, which he carried on his plot of land. None of these conditions is carried out consistently in the Code. It forbade the transfer of landed peasants to patrimonial lands, because it ruined state property, such as estates, forbade owners to take service bondage to their peasants and their children and release landed peasants to freedom, because both acts led the peasants out. from a difficult state, depriving the treasury of tax payers; but along with this, it allowed the dismissal of patrimonial peasants (Chapter XI, Article 30; Chapter XX, Article 113; Chapter XV, Article 3).

In addition, the Code tacitly allowed or directly approved the transactions made at that time between landowners, which separated the peasants from their plots, allowed alienation without land and, moreover, with the removal of their stomachs, even ordered the transfer of peasants from one owner to another without any excuse from the peasant side, according to the fault of the masters themselves. A nobleman who, after the census, sold his patrimony with fugitive peasants who were subject to return, was obliged instead of them to give to the buyer from his other patrimony “the same peasants”, who were innocent of the swindle of their master, or they took from the landowner who killed another peasant without intent “the best peasant with his family” was judged by her and the murdered was handed over to the owner (Chapter XI, Article 7; Chapter XXI, Article 71). 11 Historical and legal study of the Code published by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1649. Composed by Vladimir Stroev. St. Petersburg. At the Imperial Academy of Sciences. - 1883.

The law protected only the interests of the treasury or the landowner; the power of the landowner met a legitimate obstacle only in the event of a collision with state interests. The personal rights of the peasant were not taken into account; his personality disappeared into the petty casuistry of master relations; it, as an economic detail, the court threw on its scales to restore the disturbed balance of noble interests. For this, peasant families were even torn apart: a serf fugitive who married a widow, a peasant or a serf of a foreign master, was given out to her owner with her husband, but his children from his first wife remained with the former owner. Such an anti-church fragmentation of the family was allowed by law to be carried out indifferently over the peasant as well as over the serf (Chapter XI, Article 13).

One of the most serious oversights of the Code in its consequences was that it did not precisely define the legal essence of the peasant inventory: neither the compilers of the code, nor the conciliar elected representatives who supplemented it, among whom there were no landowning peasants, did not consider it necessary to clearly to decide how much the "bellies" of the peasant belong to him and how much to his owner. The unintentional murderer of a foreign peasant, a free man, paid the "bondage debts" of the murdered man, confirmed by borrowed letters (Chapter XXI, Art. 71). This means that the peasant seemed to be considered capable of entering into obligations on his property. But a peasant who married a fugitive peasant woman was handed over together with his wife to her former owner without the bellies, which were kept by the owner of her husband (Chapter XI, Art. 12). It turns out that the peasant's inventory was only his household property, as a peasant, and not his legal property, as a legally capable person, and the peasant lost it even when he married a runaway woman with the knowledge and even at the will of his owner.

Differences between peasantry and serfdom

Legislative recognition of the tax liability of landowners for their peasants was the final act in the legal construction of serf bondage of peasants. On this norm, the interests of the treasury and landowners, which differed significantly, reconciled. Private land ownership became the police and financial agents of the state treasury scattered throughout the state, from its rival turned into its employee. Reconciliation could take place only to the detriment of the interests of the peasantry. In that first formation of a peasant fortress, which was fixed by the Code of 1649, it has not yet been compared with the serfs, according to the norms of which it was built. Law and practice were still carried out, although there were pale features that separated them:

the serf remained a government tax-payer, retaining a certain guise of a civilian personality;

as such, the owner was obliged to provide him with a plot of land and agricultural implements;

3) he could not be deprived of land by taking into the yard, but by the estate and by release;

his bellies, although only in his servitude, could not be taken from him by "violence";

he could complain about the master's extortions "through force and robbery" and, through the court, return to himself a violent enumeration. 11 Klyuchevsky V.O. Russian history: A complete course of lectures. In three books. - Rostov-on-Don: publishing house "Phoenix", 1998. - p. 297.

The badly drawn up law helped to erase these separate features and drove the serfs in the direction of serfdom. We will see this when we study serfdom, the economic consequences of serfdom; hitherto we have studied its origin and composition. Now we will only note that with the establishment of this right, the Russian state embarked on a path that, under the cover of external order and even prosperity, led it to a breakdown of the people's forces, accompanied by a general decline in people's life, and from time to time, and deep upheavals. .

The Code of 1649 contains a set of legal norms on the peasantry that determine its place in the social structure of that time. Chapter XI is entirely devoted to the peasants - “The Court of the Peasants”, it contains laws governing the legal relations of feudal lords on issues of ownership by peasants. Nevertheless, the legal norms relating to peasants are not limited in the Code only to the provisions of Chapter XI - to one degree or another, peasants are mentioned in 17 chapters out of 25. In total, 111 articles are devoted to peasants. First of all, this means that the role of the peasantry in the social life of Russia at that time was significant - many spheres of the life of the feudal system depended on its life. What did the Cathedral Code of 1649 establish with its norms regarding the peasants?

The largest and most radical norm of the Code was the law on hereditary (for feudal lords) and hereditary (for serfs) attachment of peasants, in fact, the abolition of contingent years was a natural condition and consequence of the implementation of this norm (XI, Art. 1, 2). The scribe books of 1626 (XI, Art. 1) became the basis for attaching both state and privately owned peasants. Another basis for serfdom was the census books of 1646-648, which took into account the male population of peasant and bobyl households of any age. A ban was introduced to transfer peasants from estates to patrimonies, even within the same possession, this ban was extended to peasants recorded in books behind estates (XI, 30). The law protected only the interests of the treasury or the landowner; the power of the landowner met a legitimate barrier only when it collided with state interests. The personal rights of the peasant were not taken into account. The law also allowed for anti-church splitting of a peasant's family: in the event of marrying a runaway peasant woman, the man and his wife returned to her owner, while his children, acquired from previous marriages, remained in the possessions of his master (XI, Art. 13). As for the protection of the peasant’s property, as evidence of his legal capacity, the peasant’s inventory belonged to him not as a legally capable person, but as a peasant, proving this by the fact that in the case of marrying a runaway peasant woman, a person returned with her to her owner, while leaving his property to his former landowner (XI, v. 13). The peasant's inventory was only his economic property, and not his legal property, and the peasant lost it even when he married a fugitive with the knowledge and even at the will of his owner.

Also in the Cathedral Code, the prohibition of St. George's Day was confirmed; there was a legally formalized mixing of the statuses of patrimony and estate (nobles received the right to transfer estates by inheritance, subject to the continuation of service by heirs); for sheltering runaway peasants, a fine of ten rubles was imposed; according to the chapter “On the townspeople”, the entire urban population had to bear the tax on the sovereign, the “white” settlements were liquidated, their population was included in the township; under pain of death, it was forbidden to move from one settlement to another and even marry a woman from another settlement, i.e. the population of the settlement was assigned to a certain city. Fugitive townspeople were punished with a whip or deportation to Siberia. Citizens received a monopoly on trade in cities. The peasants did not have the right to keep shops in the cities, but could only trade from carts and in the market stalls.

The Council Code still drew pale boundaries separating the peasantry and servility. Firstly, the serf was a state taxpayer, retaining a certain appearance of a civilian personality; secondly, the owner was obliged to provide the peasant with a land plot and agricultural equipment; thirdly, the peasant could not be deprived of land by taking into the yard, but by the estate and by setting free. However, a poorly drafted law helped eliminate these differences as well, driving the peasantry towards serfdom.

Thus, the entire taxable population of the country was attached either to the land or to the settlement. Serfdom received legal formalization.

Introduction.

The Cathedral Code of 1649 is a code of laws of the Russian state, adopted by the Zemsky Sobor in 1648-1649. after the uprisings in Moscow and other Russian cities. The adoption of the cathedral code was an important milestone in the development of autocracy and the serfdom. It met the interests of the ruling class of nobles and remained the basic law until the first half of the 19th century.

On September 1, 1648, the Zemsky Sobor began its work in Moscow, at which the Council Code was adopted in January 1649. It completed the long process of folding serfdom in Russia. Since the time of Kievan Rus, there have been categories of unfree peasants (zakupy, ryadovichi). The Sudebnik of 1447 also limited the transition of peasants to other lands to two weeks a year (before and after St. George's Day, i.e. December 10), introduced a fee for the "elderly", which the peasant had to pay to the feudal lord, leaving his land.

In 1581, the so-called "reserved years" were conducted, when the passage of peasants was prohibited. In 1592, the compilation of "scribe books" was completed, in 1597 a five-year period was introduced to search for fugitive peasants who fled after 1592. In 1607 it was increased to 15 years. Finally, in 1649, the Cathedral Code finally secured the peasants.

The Council Code consists of 25 chapters, divided into articles. The total number of articles is 967. For convenience, chapters are preceded by a detailed table of contents indicating the content of chapters and articles.

The Code begins with a preface, which states that it was drawn up by the sovereign's decree by the general council, so that the Muscovite state of all ranks to people from the highest to the lowest rank, the court and reprisal would be equal in all matters. The drawing up of the Code was entrusted to the boyar Nikita Ivanovich Odoevsky "and for that of his sovereign and zemstvo great royal business" it was decided to choose "kind intelligent people" On October 3, 1649, the tsar, together with the Duma and the clergy, listened to the Code, and it was "read" to the elected people. From the list of the Code, it was "written off into a book, word for word, and this book was printed in that book."

Cathedral code in historical literature.

The Cathedral Code of 1649 is one of the most important historical monuments of feudal Russia. Adopted at the Zemsky Sobor in 1648-1649, it was also printed in Moscow in a circulation of one thousand two hundred copies, after which it was not republished and was included in the complete collection of laws as early as the 30s of the 19th century. Russian Empire. Thus, for almost two hundred years, the Cathedral Code, of course supplemented and changed by new legislative acts, the autocracy, was officially considered as the current legislation.

§one. Convocation of the Zemsky Sobor in 1648 - 649, discussion and adoption of the Code of 1649.

In July 1648, residents of Moscow nobles, as well as nobles and children of the boyars of other cities, foreigners, guests, merchants of cloth and living hundreds, merchants of hundreds and settlements filed a petition to the tsar, in which they asked to convene the Zemsky Sobor. In the petition, they proposed to include in the cathedral representatives of the clergy, the boyars, the nobility, not only in Moscow, but also in other cities of the country. At the council, these representatives wanted to "boat the sovereign about all his affairs" and propose the publication of a new "Uzhnaya Book". The service people of the Russian state demanded a revision of the existing legislation, primarily on the issue of service, land ownership and legal proceedings.

On July 16, 1648, a state meeting was held, at which it was decided to draw up a new set of laws of the Russian state called the Code, with its subsequent consideration and approval at the Zemsky Sobor. Having brutally dealt with the leaders of the city uprising, the tsar published a decree that he "postponed" the collection of arrears and rights and on September 1, 1648, at the request of the nobility and merchants, convenes the Zemsky Sobor.

The creation of the Cathedral Code was entrusted to a special commission headed by N.I. Odoevsky and its members - Prince S.V. The commission in a very short time collected from various sources - two and a half months - systematized them in a certain order and attached to them some articles written anew on the basis of the petitions. So the draft Code was created.

January 29, 1649 is the day the new code comes into force. This is evidenced by the final entry in the Cathedral Code on the completion of work on the law of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich "in the summer of 7157 (1649) (January) on the 29th day."

1. V.I. Lenin, essay volume No. 3, page 329.

2. "Cathedral Code of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich of 1649", Moscow, 1957, Preface.

3. P.P. Smirnov. Posad people and the class struggle in the 17th century, volume No. 1, 1947.

4. K.A. Sofronenko “Cathedral Code of 1649 - a code of Russian feudal law. Moscow - 1958.

Cathedral Code in historical literature, and the legal status of classes according to the code.

Almost simultaneously with the Council Code of 1649, the government of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich publishes a significant circulation for those times (printed military charter) - “The Teaching and Cunning of the Military Structure of Infantrymen”.

Following the Council Code, it puts into effect the so-called Trade Charter of 1653, and then the New Trade Charter of 1667.

Chapter XIX of the Code "On townspeople" is of great importance.

With the liquidation of privately owned settlements, the return of pawnbrokers and “belomests” to tax and the subsequent massive search for fugitive townspeople, the prohibition of peasants from keeping shops for trade in cities (they were allowed to trade from wagons and plows), the government satisfied the basic requirement of petitions. The orders of the head of the "four" also met the interests of the merchants.

Each order, as a government body, had its own book, in which all newly issued laws and regulations related to the range of activities of its department were entered. Ready-made regulations were written in the books with a detailed indication of the repealed and amended laws, as well as reports of orders that had not yet been submitted to the consideration of the boyar duma, but included cases not provided for by law and therefore necessary for writing new articles.

VN Storozhev5 proved that the content of this book of the Local Order was almost entirely, without changes, included in the XVI-XVII chapters of the Code.

Legal status of classes according to the code

class of feudal serfs.

The class of feudal-dependent people.

Landlords: the tsarist government secured the right of landowners to monopoly ownership of land and serfs, their rights and privileges in service in state authorities and administration.

As already mentioned, the king himself was the largest landowner. In the 17th century, the royal domain numbered many tens of thousands of acres of land with palace and black-tax villages and villages.

The tsarist government allowed the landlords to change the estate to the estate, but for this it was necessary "to strike the sovereign with the brow, and file petitions about that in the Local Order." The barter deal was sanctioned by the king. The principle of the exchange of estates is established - “a quarter for a quarter”, “residential for residential”, “empty for empty”, “non-residential for empty”.

Landowners who were in captivity from 10 to 20 or more years, upon returning from captivity, had the right to ask the king for the return of their fathers' estates, if they had already been received in a local decree for distribution.

Estates owned by "foreigners" were allowed to be resold to people from other states. Estates belonging to Russian landowners were forbidden to be transferred to foreigners.

Votchinniki: The Code provides for a number of articles on the issue of patrimonial land ownership. The estate was, like the estate, a feudal land holding, the owner of which was associated with the service of the king, but unlike the estate, the estate was inherited, it could be bought. "The lands of the land" in the Moscow district were sold with the permission of the king to the estate. The same estates could be purchased in Dmitrov, in Ruza, in Zvenigorod at the expense of empty lands. Persons who acquired land under a contract of sale had the right to own the purchased estates by purchase deeds, and not only themselves, but also their wives and children.

Purchased estates could be sold, mortgaged and given as a dowry. The votchinniki could sell their ancestral, purchased and served votchinas by issuing a bill of sale to the new owner and writing it down in the litigation order for the acquirer. If the votchinnik did not write down the sold votchina in the Local Order for the new owner as “theft by his own”, and then they registered the sale of the same votchina a second time, but was subjected to severe punishment - “with many people at the order to beat with a whip mercilessly.”

The owner of the votchina was given the right to mortgage the earned or purchased votchina for a certain period "and to give a mortgage bondage on himself." However, he had to redeem it only on time; upon filing a claim for the redemption of the votchina, after the expiration of the term, the claim was denied to the votchinnik, and those pledged for redemption were not given to him. The pledged estates passed into the possession of the mortgagee - "who will have them in the mortgage."

The right to inherit the patrimony was granted to the sons of the deceased patrimony. But not a single son, without the consent of the brothers, could neither sell nor mortgage the patrimony, but if it was necessary to do this, then “all the same.”

The wife had the right to own patrimonial or meritorious estates if she had no sons, and then only until her death. She could not sell estates, mortgage or “give to her liking”. After her death, the estates passed into the clan of the estate owner.

In Chapter IX, "On Myty and on Transportation, and on Bridges," feudal ownership of land extends to their lands, which are part of the patrimony or estate.

Chapter XIX of the Code "On townspeople" is of great importance.

§2. Code of Russian feudal law. The reason for the creation of a new source of law and a brief description of the new source of law.

Economic and socio-political situation of the Russian state in the middle of the XVII century

The edition of the Cathedral Code of 1649 dates back to the time of the domination of the feudal-serfdom system. This period of strengthening and development of the Russian central multinational state is characterized, V.I. Lenin pointed out that by the 17th century there was a real merger of all regions, lands and principalities into one whole. “This merger was caused not by tribal ties ... and not even by their continuation and generalization: it was caused by the increasing exchange between regions, the gradually growing commodity circulation, the concentration of small local markets into one all-Russian market.”1.

By this time, the main features of the corvée economy had already taken shape. The whole land of a given unit of land economy, that is, a given patrimony, was divided into lordly and peasant; the latter was given as an allotment to the peasants, who (having other means of production, for example, timber, sometimes cattle, etc.) processed it with their labor and their inventory, receiving their maintenance from it.

V.I. Lenin noted that the following conditions were necessary for the existence of the corvée system:

First, the dominance of subsistence farming, the serf estate was supposed to be a self-sufficient, closed whole, located in a very weak connection with the rest of the world.

Secondly, for such an economy it is necessary that the direct producer be endowed with the means of production in general, land in particular; so that it is attached to the ground, since otherwise the landowner is not guaranteed working hands.

The third condition of this economic system was the personal dependence of the peasant on the landowner. If the landowner did not have direct power over the personality of the peasant, then he could not force a person endowed with land and leading his own economy to work for him.

And, finally, this economic system was based on extremely low routine technology, because the management of the economy was in the hands of small peasants, crushed by poverty, humbled by personal dependence and mental ignorance.

The economic system in the Russian state in the middle of the 17th century was distinguished by the dominance of large, medium and small landownership, headed by the palace estates of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Over 17,000 hectares of land of the royal estates located around Moscow gave about 35,000 a fourth of bread alone, which went to the maintenance of the court, the archery army, and the stable order. The patrimonial land holdings of one of the richest boyars, Morozov, located in the Nizhny Novgorod land and adjoining the main trade routes on the Volga, were closely connected with the market. Potash and salt, produced in the estates, went mainly to the market. Agricultural products sent from the patrimony to Moscow fully satisfied the needs of the lord's court.

In the first half of the 17th century, the large patrimonial estates of the boyars and monasteries were expanded, and in particular the estates of the nobility. This growth took place not only due to grants from the king, but mainly due to the seizure of peasant volost lands by landowners (in the North, South, in the Volga region). In the middle reaches of the Volga arose with a developed commercial economy. The votchinniks and landowners of the central part of the country sought to expand the lordly plowing, cutting off plots of allotment peasant land. Such an expansion by lordly plowing and an increase in land holdings entailed even greater exploitation of the peasants. The nobility during the period received the right to “allow” their sons to own the estate, provided that they are able to carry out public service.

At the same time, “small-sized”, “unplaced” and “empty” service people arose, who also sought to acquire land holdings in the form of an award for serving the tsar, but most of all at the expense of seizing the lands of the “black volosts” of peasant and township traction people.

This process of simultaneous growth of large and small land ownership of the feudal serfs was accompanied by a struggle to secure the right to inherit land ownership, on the one hand, and to enslave all sections of the peasantry, on the other.

The serfs were the main productive force of the economy. The landlords did not have a sufficient number of serfs, and the patrimonials often lured and hid runaway peasants. This caused a constant struggle by the landlords and estate owners for the serfs as a labor force. Many landowners, “sovereign service people”, monasteries, take advantage of the fact that they exempted from the tax (belomestsy), bought up the courtyards of merchants and artisans in the courtyards, seized the land of townspeople draft people, opened trading yards, crafts with the help of their serfs and, competing, thus, with urban people, they further burdened the life of the townspeople.

The development of commodity-money relations had an effect on the connection of patrimonials and landowners with cities and their influence on serfdom.

The combination of agriculture with craft, which found expression in its two forms, took place in Russia in the 17th century.

The growth of handicrafts and manufactories caused the further development of the internal market, but trade was not completely separated from handicrafts. Craftsmen were also sellers of their goods at the same time. In Moskovsky Posad, there were about 50 percent of such craftsmen. A large merchant class stood out from the urban townspeople - guests, merchants of the living room and cloth hundreds, who had trading yards, shops not only in Moscow, but also in Arkhangelsk, Nizhny Novgorod. Kazan, Astrakhan and other cities.

Small military "people": archers, gunners, collars, etc. - were also dissatisfied with the economic and financial policies of the government. For their service, these people received a small cash salary and a grain salary. Their main source of livelihood was fishing. Therefore, they are 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 holdings and the “poverty of state salaries”, “small service people” also expressed their dissatisfaction.

All this led to the fact that the townspeople of Moscow in 1649 raised an uprising against the exploitation and oppression of the local city administrative authorities, demanding the extradition of Pleshcheev, who led the zemstvo order, Trakhianotov, who was in charge of some categories of service people. The pure alleged initiator of the salt tax, and the boyar Morozov, who led all domestic and foreign policy.

According to chronicle material, the rebels "smashed" the courts of the boyars and merchants.

The Cathedral Code of 1649 is a code of feudal law. K.A. Sofronenko., Moscow 1958.

Text. Cathedral Code of 1649

Cathedral Code of 1649. Tikhomirov., and Epifanov.,

The class of feudal-dependent people.

Peasantry: Long before the approval of the Code, the right of the peasant transition or “exit” was abolished by tsarist legislation. In practice, this right could not always be applied, since there were “fixed” or “specified years” for presenting an investigation of fugitives, the investigation of fugitives was mainly the business of the owners themselves; there was an unresolved issue of the serf status of the peasant family; children, brothers, nephews. Large landowners in their estates sheltered the fugitives, and while the landowners filed a claim for the return of the peasant, the term of the "lesson years" expired. That is why the bulk of the people - the nobility - in their petitions to the king demanded the abolition of "lesson years".

This abolition was carried out by the Code of 1649. Issues related to the final enslavement of all strata of the peasantry and the complete deprivation of their socio-political and property rights were reflected in Chapter XI of the Code.

Article 1, Chapter 11 establishes a list of feudal feudal lords to whom the law grants the right to exploit the peasants: patriarchs, metropolitans, stolniks, solicitors, Moscow nobles, clerks, tenants and "for all sorts of patrimonials and landowners."

For the first time in the history of Russian legislation, the Code gives the right to feudal lords to enslave family members of a serf.

Serfs and bonded people: In the Code, this issue is mainly devoted to the XX chapter. From the contents of the articles of this chapter, as well as chapters 10, 12, 14 and others, it can be seen that the legal status of a serf and a bonded person is gradually being equalized. The legislation of 1649 recognizes only one type of servitude - bonded servitude. For example, in Chapter XX (Article 7) it is said that persons who “learn to beat the brow into servility”, while proving that they are free, must first be questioned, and then taken to the Kholopy order, and only here, after clarifying their social status persons, it was allowed to give them "service bondage". Some articles of Russkaya Pravda about the origin of servility are recorded in the Code of 1649. “And who will be written in such a fortress and servility: and those people are a serf by a slave and a slave by a serf” *. In a number of articles of the Code, it is said about "old serfs", bonded and simply serfs. However, it still distinguishes them.

The feudal lords were given the right to release serfs. If a serf-owner during his lifetime or under a will after death released “his old serf or slave”, the serf-owner’s heir – children, brothers, nephews – should not sue the serfs set free*. Slaves, freed from servitude with the death of their master, with holiday letters in their hands, in the Kholop order, after questioning and making a copy of the holiday letter, were allowed to “give service bondage”, but it was necessary to “glue” the holiday signed by the deacon to the bonded letter. In addition, it was required to indicate the “signs” of a bonded person or a serf in vacation letters, so that in case of disputes, the identity could be established.

A serf could free himself from servility even when he was captured in battle. After his release from captivity, according to the law, "the old boyar is not a serf." For the sake of “Polonsky patience”, his family, wife and children returned to him, with the exception of those cases when the children of the serf gave themselves bondage “and other fortresses”, obliging them to remain in the servitude of their masters. But if the serf voluntarily defected “to another state”, then returning back, he is “a serf to the old Boyar for the old servility. Liberation from servility could be in the years of famine, when the feudal lords drove them out of the yard, not giving them vacation pay. In these cases, the serfs could complain to the serfs or the Judgment Order, whose order judges conducted an investigation on the ground, and if all the materials were confirmed, then the law denied the feudal lords their claims against former serfs.

If the children of bonded people for many years lived without the conclusion of a bonded letter, their owners, regardless of their desire, had to “give bondage and captivity” to these serfs.

Free people could live "out of will", that is, they could be hired at will, having issued a written document indicating the term in it. The Code said that this document should not be a cable letter.

Posad taxable people: The legal status of the townspeople has also changed significantly. The compilers of the Code, forced after the uprising of 1648 to make concessions to the settlement, liquidated the so-called white settlements that belonged to the patriarch, metropolitan, lords, monasteries, roundabout, dumny and neighbor boyars, in which trade and craft people lived, in which trade and craft people lived , in which trade and craft people lived, they hunted and owned shops, but they did not pay taxes to the sovereign and did not serve “services”. All these settlements with their population were taken to the Sovereign as a tax, and the services were flightless and irrevocable, besides bonded people, that is, transferred to the settlement as a tax forever. The Code listed all categories of persons who have and do not have the right to be in the settlement, in the tax.

Serving people of "all ranks" in Moscow, having a monetary or grain salary, maintaining shops and engaged in all sorts of trades, remained according to the Code in their rank, but for trades they were attributed to "tax in hundreds and settlements and in a row with black people" and should were paying taxes. Otherwise, they were given a three-month period to sell their shops, barns, forges and other commercial and industrial establishments to the townspeople, since after the specified period these establishments were selected and transferred free of charge to the “Sovereign tax people”.

The landowners, who had taken the “old peasants” out of their distant estates and estates and settled them in settlements, had to take them back according to the code.

Posad people, such as gunners, gunners and collars, state-owned carpenters and blacksmiths, who “sit on benches” and trade in trade, were supposed to be in the town tax, pay customs duties and taxes to the tsar, serve like everyone else hard people.

Sagittarius, who came out of the "draft birth" and are themselves draft people, under the new legislation, partially returned to the settlement: out of every three archers, two remained in the "tax", and the third - in the archers.

The Cossacks who came out of the draft city people, but served with the old local Cossacks and were on a monthly salary and bread, were not given back to the township tax. The law required them to be "still in service." However, this condition was not absolute, because in subsequent articles it was pointed out that those who were enrolled in the Cossacks after the Smolensk service, but were not near Smolensk, returned back to the "tax". The soldiers who left the "black townspeople" and were previously in the "tax" - and returned back to the "tax".

However, the townspeople "black artisans" who left "from the tax lots" and live in Moscow in the Palace, or in the "Ruzhnichya" chamber, or other various orders, if they received complaints from the people of the "black" hundreds, back to the "tax "They did not return to the settlements, and their cases were resolved as the tsar indicated," and without a report they were not given in the hundreds.

The merchants of the living room and cloth hundreds, who lived in other cities with their yards and trade crafts, had to return to Moscow, and sell their tax yards and crafts to the taxable townspeople. Otherwise, they were obliged to bear the tax along with the townspeople.

By assigning the posad population to the posad, the tsarist government cancels the right of the posad population to move from city to city: “He does not transfer their posad tax-paying people from Moscow to the cities of old and from cities to Moscow, and from city to city.” The Code stipulates almost all cases of possible departure from the settlement or the influx of the population to the settlement. If a person belonging to the “free people” marries the daughter of a taxable person, then such a person cannot enter the “black settlements”. However, a “free” person who married the widow of a townsman taxable person, recorded in the cadastral books for the settlement “in tax”, “imati for the settlement”.

The girl of the township tax court, who married her husband "on the run" "for a bonded, or an old man, or a peasant, or a bean", returns back to the township with her husband and children.

Thus, the Code of 1649 attached the working population - the people of the "black" hundreds to the settlement, to the township tax in favor of the king and the royal execution, created all the conditions for the growth of the merchants - guests, living room and cloth hundreds and securing the privileged position of landowners associated with the royal service in cities.

The main points in the development of Russian feudal law. Civil law.

As a result of further strengthening, on the one hand, of commodity-money relations, as well as the formation of a single all-Russian market, institutions of civil law received a wider development compared to the legislation of the 15th-16th centuries.

In particular, the question of the right of feudal ownership of land was thoroughly developed by the Council Code in two specially marked chapters (XVI - "on local lands" and XVII - "On estates").

In them, the legislator, simultaneously with securing the right of feudal ownership of land for the feudal lords, secured the right to serfs.

Mandatory right. The concept of obligation in the Code has found its further development. Unlike previous legislative acts under the Code, obligations arising from contracts did not apply to the person himself, but to his actions, more precisely, to the property of the person.

In cases of non-payment of the debt, the recovery was first applied to the court, movable property, and then to the estates and estates. The Code provided for the extradition of the head, but for a period until the debtor pays the debt. Responsibility for obligations was not yet individual: spouses were responsible for each other, parents for children, and children for parents, and servants and serfs were responsible for masters.

The contract had to be drawn up in writing under pain of losing the right to go to court (Chapter Ten of Articles 246-249). Coercion to conclude a contract was condemned, and the contract was considered invalid.

Significantly expanded the system of contracts. In addition to the previously known contracts of exchange, sale, loan, luggage, the Code speaks of a property lease, contract, etc. Particular attention is paid to the procedure for drawing up contracts. Written contracts were serfs, drawing up mainly major transactions, such as barter or the purchase and sale of land. Smaller transactions were concluded at home: the document was drawn up and signed by the parties or on their behalf, the presence of witnesses was not necessary.

K.A. Sofronenko Cathedral Code of 1649 - the code of Russian feudal law. Moscow - 1958.

Conclusion:

The Code, as a code of Russian feudal law, legally formalized the right of ownership of the feudal lord to the land and incomplete ownership of the serf. This right was ensured and protected by the measures of a severe feudal regime, expressed in the norms of the Cathedral Code.

Serfdom lasted another 200 years, and only in the middle of the 19th century, in the new conditions of the economic and socio-political development of Russia, was it finally abolished.

The 17th century, especially the second half of it, in the history of Russia was marked by major shifts in the socio-economic development of the country. Along with the strengthening of landowner ownership of land and the expansion of the rights of the landowner to the serf labor of peasants and serfs, there was a significant increase in handicraft production in the cities, the first manufactory-type enterprises appeared; the deepening of the social division of labor inevitably led to an increase in commodity circulation in the country and foreign trade

The Cathedral Code of 1649 is the first systematized collection of legal norms in the history of feudal Russia concerning state, administrative, civil, criminal law and the procedure for legal proceedings.

The Cathedral Code also reflected serious changes in the organization of military affairs. It mentions "private people" - peasants who were drafted into the regiments of the "soldiers' system", and regulates the legal status of "foreigners" who served in the regiments of the "foreign system" (soldiers, reiters, etc.).

Bibliography

M.N.Tikhomirov P.P.Epifanov Cathedral Code of 1649, manual for higher education / publishing house of Moscow University 1961.

Cathedral Code of 1649 - the code of Russian feudal law K.A. Sofronenko / Moscow 1958.

V.I. Lenin, works volume No. 1.

P.P. Smirnov. Posad people and the class struggle in the 17th century, volume No. 1, 1947.

"Cathedral Code of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich of 1649", Moscow, 1957, Preface

P. Smirnov. Petitioned nobles and children of boyars of all cities in the first half of the 17th century. (Reading in the Society of Russian History and Antiquities, 1915, book No. 3).

Code of Laws of the XV - XVI centuries Under the general editorship of Academician B.D. Grekov, Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow, - L., 1952.

characteristic of the Cathedral Code.

The Cathedral Code of 1649 was a new stage in the development of legal technique. It became the first printed monument of Russian law.

Before him, the publication of the law was limited to their announcement in the marketplaces and temples.

The sources of the code were canon and secular law (preamble)

Charters, decree books of orders.
Decrees and boyar sentences.
Code of Laws
Lithuanian statute.

1) The legal status of peasants, townspeople, serfs.

The development of serfdom.

The first legislative measure aimed at the mass attachment of peasants to the land was the introduction of St. George's Day by the Sudebnik of 1497. Around 1580, reserved summers were introduced, the right to go on St. George's Day was canceled, immediately after that a census was carried out, completed in 1592. It recorded the peasant's belonging to one or another owner and estate. In order to streamline the search for fugitive peasants and disputes between the feudal lords about them, in 1597 a decree was issued from the fixed years, establishing a five-year prescription for the investigation of fugitives. In the first half of the 17th century this period is extended. In 1607, Vasily Shuisky issued a decree extending the period for the return of fugitives to 15 years. But this law was consigned to oblivion after its overthrow. During the period of restoration of the national economy after the Time of Troubles, the feudal lords repeatedly sought the abolition of fixed years, that is, the establishment of the right to search for fugitive peasants without any time limit (1614, the Trinity Monastery received permission to search for fugitives for 9 years). Only the Cathedral Code satisfied the demands of the feudal lords and fully satisfied the interests of the feudal lords. An indefinite search for fugitives was allowed

The peasant, in his legal status, approaches the serf. In a number of articles, peasants are mentioned on a par with serfs (XI, 13,16,19,33,34).

The legal status of a woman is determined by her husband (XI, 16)

The peasant also has no rights in regard to property. His property is essentially considered to belong to the landowner. Therefore, wherever the return of the peasants is mentioned, their property is also mentioned.

The legal status of the dependent population is noticeably deteriorating. So, for example, now it should have been:

1. to carry out military service (dacha people) (VII, 9) landowners sent them instead of themselves to military service, upon retirement, without having male relatives who had reached the age of service.

2. the burden of the costs of ransoming prisoners fell on the taxable population, to varying degrees, depending on the specific social. groups. (VIII, 1)

3. the burden of maintaining the weekly worker also fell on the peasants (X, 122)

if it is impossible to summon the defendant to court, his peasants and serfs must answer. These people, having given themselves a guarantee, are obliged to deliver their master to the court (X, 138-141).

4. XIII, 7 Peasants are incompetent before the court in the bulk of cases, and only in complex criminal cases do they remain the subject of a crime

5. XI, 9 - the principle of the final enslavement of the peasants is given in the most complete form. We are talking about all the peasants without distinguishing who they belong to.

6. If the children of a peasant were born after the 1626 census, then if they did not have time to separate, they follow the fate of their parents - returning to the previous owner.

The legal status of townspeople.

By the middle of the XVII century. finally formed a class group, which received the general name of the townspeople. It was the population living in the cities on the state. land, occupied by trade, crafts and trades and bearing certain duties (tax) in favor of the state. Posad had a monopoly on trade (XIX, 17)

The term "townspeople" has not received an unambiguous interpretation. Legal documents most often use it to refer to a trade profession.

Trade settlements arose, as a rule, near cities. The unit for calculating the township tax was the township yard. The main permanent taxes of the settlement were: direct sovereign tax, archery money, yamsky money, Polonyanochny money. In addition, extraordinary fees were charged (the fifth of the money, the tenth of the money)

The townspeople were also entrusted with the performance of various tax services (for example, underwater duty, living duty, construction and repair of city fortifications, pit chase, etc.)

Free people could turn into a tax, entering into family ties with the townspeople. But if the daughter married a free man on the side, the latter was not recorded in the tax (XIX, 21)

The townspeople and their children who returned from captivity could choose their place of residence and be exempt from the tax (XIX, 33).

The Council Code uses the terms "townspeople" and "tax" in different meanings. Art 34 Ch. XIX draws a distinction between the living room and cloth hundreds and townspeople. Some researchers of the township do not include guests and trading people of the living room and cloth hundreds in the number of townspeople. So, they were exempted from tax and duties from the court, from duties for drinking, intern duty and others.

Posad people were divided into the best, middle and young. Among the urban population, a rather large percentage was made up of service people (archers, Cossacks, gunners, and others). Archers settled in settlements, lived together with their families, received a salary, and, in addition to military affairs, were engaged in crafts, trade, gardening.

A significant part of the households and the population in the cities was on the lands belonging to individual feudal lords and monasteries. The population of these lands was exempted from the township tax and in connection with this was called "white". "White" settlements were constantly replenished with people from the black settlement, who sought to free themselves from city taxes. The townspeople, in their class interests, demanded the liquidation of the "white" settlements. The question of white settlements was raised as early as the 16th century. Legislation repeatedly put forward various prohibitions, seeking to limit the privileges of monasteries and boyars in trade and crafts, but white settlements continued to exist. Posad also opposed the right of the owners of estates and estates to impose duties on traveling merchants and their goods in their lands.

The general trend of the Cathedral Code is to protect the townspeople from the competition of Belomests. Washing and transportation on the lands of individual feudal lords are not included in the sources of income that are directly under the control of the state (IX, 6).

Settlements belonging to spiritual and secular feudal lords passed into the settlement without flying and irrevocably (XIX, 13). All trade and craft people of these settlements had to pay the state. tribute. An exception was made for ancient, eternally bonded people and for the yard people of the Patriarch, they were left to their former owners (XIX, 1-3,37).

White settlements were practically eliminated (XIX, 5-9)

Legal status of serfs (XX)

Types of serfs:

Full The issuance of charters for complete slaves was discontinued no later than the beginning of the 17th century. But full charters from the end of the 16th century and earlier could be by the time of laying in the hands of some part of the slave owners (101)

Reporting People who went into the service of other feudal lords and fell into servitude, if an agreement is essentially personal hiring, performing certain functions

Bonded(loan with self-mortgaging, not inherited, article 78 - they pay a salary, 63 - dependence until the death of the master, 61 - it was forbidden to include bonded serfs in letters, transfer them as a dowry or by will, but if the bonded record made a reservation that the serf should not serve only to the creditor, but also to his children -> it is inherited)

Sources of servility:

1/ Service without registration of bondage for more than 3 months (16-18.19)

Persons under 15 (20st) years old could not be the object of lulling.

Made and unmade boyar children could go to reporting slaves

2/ for a serf, a robe, for a robe a serf (85), excl (27) When a serf girl runs and marries a serviceman, pay compensation to the owner of the serf in the amount of 50 or 10 rubles

3/ borrowed bondage (39-40)

4/ residential records (43-45)

5/ birth in the family of a bonded serf (106)

Sources of exit from slavery:

1. A serf taken prisoner and released from captivity is released from servile dependence according to the old rule, along with his wife and children.

2. residential records (43-45) - during the famine they are released into the wild.

3. Receipt of a holiday letter from the master, thus the serf is released.

4. Return of debt by a bonded servant

At full of serfs there was no property, if the concept of “bellies” is associated with the peasants, then in relation to the serfs, a dress was provided in which the serf fled from the master (93)