The Cathedral Code of 1649 contained. Code of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich adopted

The most significant measure of the government of Alexei Mikhailovich was a new codification of laws - the publication of the Code of 1649, which replaced the outdated Sudebnik of 1550.

On July 16, 1648, the tsar, the Boyar Duma and the Holy Cathedral, “for the sake of fear and civil strife about all black people”, sentenced to create a commission of 5 boyars (boyars of princes Odoevsky and Prozorovsky, okolnichy - prince Volkonsky, clerks Leontiev and Griboyedov) to draw up a project collection of laws. By September 1, 1648, elected representatives from “all the people” of the Muscovite state were summoned to the capital to discuss and approve the Code of Laws.

During the work of the Zemsky Sobor in 1648-1649. the original draft was significantly modified taking into account the petitions that the elected representatives brought with them. Then the final text of the Code was read out and all the participants of the Council put their signatures under it.

1. The Cathedral Code interpreted royal power as the power of God's anointed on earth.

For the first time the concept of state crime was defined. Such were all acts directed against the power, health, honor of the king and his family. The death penalty was relied on for everything: only for actions that inflicted unintentional damage to the royal authority, for example, for typos in the title or name of the sovereign, could they be torn out with a whip or long sticks (batogs) or exiled to eternal life to Siberia.

Every inhabitant of the Moscow kingdom, having learned about the plans against the tsar, was obliged to inform. To do this, it was enough to shout in the street: “The Sovereign's Word and Deed!” The authorities immediately opened an investigation.

2. The state economy was also especially protected. For stealing royal goods, "royal wheat", catching fish in the royal pond, etc. the death penalty was imposed.

3. Crimes against the church and the patriarch were severely punished. “If anyone,” it was said in the Code, “begins to make obscene speeches to the priest in the church, he will be subjected to a commercial execution,” - flogged at the auction. For "blasphemy against God and the cross," burning was prescribed.

4. Many articles regulated the relations between the population and local authorities. The disobedience of ordinary people was punished, but punishments were also imposed for governors and other officials for extortion, bribes and other abuses.

5. The Code regulated the official duties and landownership rights of nobles and boyar children. The old custom was fixed. However, a new one was proclaimed with respect to the landowning peasants.

6. From the beginning of the XVII century. service people in the fatherland solicited an indefinite investigation of their fugitive peasants. Fearing the desolation of the central districts and the weakening of the army, even Mikhail Romanov went to meet the noble petitions. In 1637, the period of investigation was increased from 5 to 9 years. In 1641, the fixed years were extended to 10 years to search for peasants who had fled, and to 15 years to search for peasants taken out by other landowners.

The Code of 1649 allowed the owners to look for peasants forever, without a time limit, and return them to the estates. The last step was taken towards the establishment of serfdom in Russia. Nowhere now in the center of the country could a runaway man find shelter in order to wait out the predetermined summer. Lesson summers, like St. George's Day, have sunk into oblivion. (True, the custom was still in effect - “there is no extradition from the Don.” It was possible to hide in Siberia and other distant outskirts, from where neither the government nor the owners had the opportunity to return the fugitive).

7. The Code limited the sources of complete servility. Only a serf by birth was recognized as a free (full) serf. The rest of the serfs were temporary, serving under bondage (under a contract or working off a debt). It became impossible to turn a bonded serf into a white man (full).

The authorities hoped that now the discontent of the debtors turned into complete slaves would subside. The turning into slaves of ruined service people will also stop.

8. The Moscow uprising of 1648 and a number of other urban uprisings forced the voice of the townsman to heed. Cherny Posad was indignant at "competitors" - Belomests, residents of settlements belonging to monasteries and private individuals. They were craftsmen, traded in the city, but they did not bear burdens and expenses. Black taxpayers pledged their property to the owners of the white settlements, became white-towners, and their share of the tax had to be divided among the remaining black townspeople. The Code rewrote all Belomestsk residents into a black township, imposed a tax, and henceforth it was forbidden for private individuals and monasteries to have township courtyards and shops in the city.

Fighting the flight of the townspeople, the Code forever attached the townspeople to the settlement. The law of 1658 required the death penalty for escaping from the settlement.

8. The interests of wealthy citizens - merchants, guests (merchants), the Code protected by the fact that severe punishments were announced for infringement on their good, honor and life.

"NEED FOR SOMETHING NEW"

On the whole, the Code summed up the development of Russia in the middle of the 17th century. In addition, it was the basis for the further development of Russian legislation. As noted by V.O. Klyuchevsky, “completing the legislative work of the past, the Code served as the starting point for further legislative activity. Its shortcomings began to be felt soon after its entry into action. It was supplemented and corrected in parts by new decree articles that served as a direct continuation of it: such are the articles on tateb, robbery and murderous cases of 1669, on estates and estates in 1676 - 1677. etc. This detailed, often petty revision of individual articles of the Code, full of hesitation, now canceling, then restoring certain legalizations of the code of 1649, is very curious as a reflection of the moment in Moscow state life, when doubts about the suitability of the norms of law and management methods began to seize its leaders , in whose good quality they so believed, and they embarrassingly began to feel the need for something new, undergrown, "European".

The adoption of the Council Code was one of the main achievements of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. The nobles and the upper classes of the merchant class took advantage of the armed uprising of the city's lower classes and archers to present class demands to the government. guests and trading people sought to impose restrictions on the trade of foreigners. They also sought the confiscation of privileged urban settlements.

The demands of the nobility could be satisfied in each individual case, but the unrest led the ruling circles into confusion. It was necessary to solve the accumulated problems at once. Yielding to the harassment of the nobles and the top tenants, the government convened the Zemsky Sobor to develop a new code of law (code).

At the Zemsky Sobor on September 1, 1648, elected representatives from 121 cities and counties arrived in Moscow. Provincial nobles (153 people) and townspeople (94 people) ranked first in terms of the number of elected officials. The "Cathedral Code" as a new set of laws was drawn up by a special commission, discussed by the Zemsky Sobor and printed in 1649 in the amount of 2 thousand copies. At the time, it was an unheard-of circulation.

The main documents on the basis of which the Code was compiled were the Sudebnik of 1550, royal decrees and the Lithuanian Statute. 25 chapters in the Code were divided into articles. The introductory chapter to the "Code" established that "all ranks of people from the highest to the lowest rank, the court and reprisal should be equal in all matters to everyone." But in reality, the "Code" asserted the class privileges of the nobles and the tops of the township world.

The Code confirmed the right of owners to transfer the estate by inheritance, provided that the new landowner would bear military service. The further growth of church land ownership was prohibited. The peasants were finally assigned to the landowners, and the "lesson summer" was canceled. The nobles had the right to search for runaway peasants for an unlimited time.

The "Code" forbade the feudal lords and the clergy to arrange their so-called white settlements in the cities, where their dependent people lived. Since they were engaged in trade and craft, they were also required to have a land tax.

As we can see, these “articles of the Code” satisfied the demands of the townspeople, who were looking for ways to ban the white settlements, whose population, not burdened by the township tax, successfully competed with the taxpayers of the black settlements. The liquidation of privately owned settlements strengthened the city.

The "Cathedral Code" became the main legislative code of Russia for almost two centuries. True, after some time, many of his articles were canceled.

For the 17th century it was a grandiose code of laws. Attempts to adopt a new "Code" were made later under Peter I and Catherine II, but both times were unsuccessful. The meaning of the Code was well understood by both contemporaries and descendants. The words spoken by Prince Yakov Dolgoruky to Peter the Great are very revealing: “Sir, in another your father, in another you are more worthy of praise and thanksgiving. The main affairs of sovereigns are three: the first is internal reprisal and the main thing is justice; in this your father is greater than you have done."

The justice of such a high assessment will become clear if we recall that the legislative monument, which surpassed the “Code” of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in completeness and legal elaboration - the “Code of Laws of the Russian Empire” in fifteen volumes, appeared only in 1832, under Nicholas I. And before This Code for 180 years remained the complete set of Russian laws.

Compared with its predecessor, the Sudebnik of Ivan the Terrible (1550), the Cathedral Code, in addition to criminal law, also includes state and civil law, thus being an incomparably more complete code. Much more impressive is its total volume - the text of the Code includes a total of 967 articles, divided into 25 chapters.

Surprising is not only the completeness, but also the speed of adoption of the code. This entire extensive set was developed in the draft by a commission specially created by the royal decree of Prince Nikita Ivanovich Odoevsky, then, as already mentioned, it was discussed at a specially convened for this purpose. Zemsky Cathedral 1648, corrected in many articles, and already adopted on January 29.

The alarming atmosphere of the then life predetermined the speed of adoption of the Code. Patriarch Nikon said that the Council of 1648 "was not by will: fear for the sake of and civil strife from eight black people, and not for the sake of true truth."

There was another internal cause, which stimulated legislative activity in the middle of the 17th century. Since the time of the Sudebnik of 1550, many private decrees have been adopted on different cases. Each such case was considered as a precedent for future court decisions, since it did not find resolution in the old Sudebnik. Therefore, such decrees were collected in orders, each according to its type of activity, and then recorded in the "Decree Books". These last clerks were guided along with the Sudebnik in administrative and judicial cases. For a hundred years, a great many legal provisions have accumulated, scattered according to different orders, sometimes contradicting each other. This hampered the order administration and gave rise to a lot of abuses from which petitioners suffered. Instead of a mass of separate laws, it was required to have one code.

But the reason for the adoption of the Code was not only the need for systematization and codification of laws. Too much has changed, shifted from place in Russian society after the Time of Troubles. Therefore, not a simple update was required, but a reform of legislation, bringing it into line with the new conditions of life. This was directly asked by the Zemsky Sobor petitions from different cities and estates.

MINSK INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT

IN THE HISTORY OF STATE AND LAW

SLAVIC PEOPLES

ON THE TOPIC: "Cathedral Code of 1649"

PERFORMED:

SACHILOVICH OLGA

JURISPRUDENCE

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

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

Among prerequisites that led to the adoption of the Council Code, we can distinguish:

General aggravation of the class struggle;

Contradictions among the feudal class;

Contradictions between the feudal lords and the urban population;

The interest of the nobles in expanding the rights to landownership and the enslavement of peasants to them;

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

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

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

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

The norms of state, criminal and civil law, the judiciary and legal proceedings are developing.

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

In the development of the Cathedral Code were used:

~ previous lawsuits,

~ index books of orders,

~ royal legislation,

~ boyar sentences,

~ articles of the Lithuanian status,

~ Byzantine legal sources.

The code fixed the privileges of the ruling class and the unequal position of the dependent population.

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

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

In accordance with Chapter XVII of the Council Code, patrimonial land tenure was divided into ancestral, purchased and complained. Votchinniki had privileged rights to dispose of their lands than landlords, since they had the right to sell (with mandatory registration in the Local Order), mortgage or inherit.

The Code established ancestral right(in case of sale, pledge or exchange) for 40 years, moreover, by persons precisely defined by the Code. The right of tribal redemption did not extend to the purchased estates.

Family and merited estates could not be bequeathed to outsiders if the testator had children or lateral relatives. It was forbidden to donate patrimonial and served patrimonies to churches.

Bought from strangers estates after their transfer by inheritance became tribal.

Chapter XVI of the Council Code summarized all existing changes in legal status local landownership:

» the owners of the estate could be both boyars and nobles;

» the estate was inherited in in due course(for the service of the heir);

» part of the land after the death of the owner was received by his wife and daughters ("for a living");

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

» the exchange of an estate for an estate or patrimony was allowed, including a larger one for a smaller one (Article 3).

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

The Code confirmed the decrees of the beginning of the 17th century on the prohibition of making up for service and endowing with estates "priests' and peasants' children, boyars' lackeys and monastery servants." This position turned the nobility into a closed estate.

Considering land ownership, it should be noted the development of such an institution of law as a pledge right. The code of conduct regulates the following provisions:

Mortgaged land may remain in the hands of the pledgor or pass into the hands of the pledgee;

It was allowed to pledge yards in the suburbs;

Mortgage of movable property was allowed;

The delay in the redemption of the pledged thing entailed the transfer of rights to it to the pledgee, with the exception of yards and shops in the suburbs.

Mortgages placed on yards and shops in the name of foreigners were considered invalid. If a pledgee was stolen or destroyed without his fault, then he reimbursed the cost in half.

The Council Code defines rights to someone else's property(the so-called easements). For example:

The right to lay dams on the river within the limits of one's possession without prejudice to the interests of neighbors,

The right to set up nights and cookhouses without harming a neighbor,

The rights of fishing, hunting, mowing under the same conditions, etc.

The right to graze cattle in the meadows or stop in places adjacent to the road until a certain period - Trinity Day.)

Law of Obligations. According to the Code, the debtor is liable for the obligation not with his person, but only with his property. Even the Decree of 1558 forbade debtors "to act as complete slaves" to their creditor in case of non-payment of the debt. It was only allowed to give them away "with a head to redemption", i.e. before paying off the debt. If the defendant had property, then the penalty extended to movable property and yards, then to the patrimony and estate.

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

Contracts for the sale of real estate had to be drawn up in writing and "purchase fortress" (confirmed by the signatures of witnesses and registered in orders). The purchase and sale of movable property was carried out by verbal agreement and the transfer of the thing to the buyer.

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

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

Loan agreement in the XVI - XVII centuries. made only in writing. To smooth out social contradictions, interest rates on loans were limited to 20 percent. The Code of 1649 attempts to prohibit the collection of interest on loans, but in practice lenders continued to take interest. The contract was accompanied by a pledge of property. The pledged land passed into the possession of the creditor (with the right to use) or remained with the pledger with the condition of paying interest until the debt was repaid. If the debt was not paid, the land became the property of the creditor. Movable property, when pledged, was also transferred to the creditor, but without the right to use it.

With the development of crafts, manufactory and trade, it was widely distributed personal contract, which was drawn up in writing for a period of not more than 5 years. In oral form, personal hiring was allowed for a period of not more than 3 months.

Luggage agreement made only in writing. Military people could transfer things for storage without a written contract.

known work contracts artisans and property lease(rent).

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

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

Intra-family relations were regulated by the so-called "Domostroy", compiled in the 16th century. According to him, the husband could punish his wife, and she had to be submissive to her husband. In the event that parents, punishing children, beat them to death, the Code imposed a punishment of only one year in prison and church repentance. If the children killed their parents, then they were punished for their deeds by the death penalty.

Starts active legislative activity.

The intensive growth in the number of decrees over the period from the Code of Laws of 1550 to the Code of 1649 is evident from the following data:

1550-1600 - 80 decrees;
1601-1610 −17;
1611-1620 - 97;
1621-1630 - 90;
1631-1640 - 98;
1641-1648 - 63 decrees.

In total for 1611-1648. - 348, and for 1550-1648. - 445 decrees

As a result, by 1649 in Russian state there was a huge number of legislative acts that were not only outdated, but also contradicted each other.

The adoption of the Code was also prompted by the Salt Riot that broke out in the year in Moscow; one of the demands of the rebels was the convening of the Zemsky Sobor and the development of a new code. The rebellion was suppressed, but as one of the concessions to the rebels, the tsar went to convene the Zemsky Sobor, which continued its work until the adoption of the Council Code in the year.

Legislative work

He was intended to consider the draft Code. The cathedral was held in a wide format, with the participation of representatives of the township communities. The hearing of the draft Code took place at the cathedral in two chambers: in one were the tsar, the Boyar Duma and the Consecrated Cathedral; in the other - elected people of different ranks.

All the delegates of the Council with their signatures sealed the list of the Code, which in 1649 was sent to all Moscow orders to guide action. When compiling the code, the task was not set to draw up a code, it was only supposed to generalize the entire existing stock of legal acts, coordinating them with each other and abolishing obsolete norms.

The electors submitted their amendments and additions to the Duma in the form zemstvo petitions. Some decisions were made by the joint efforts of the elected, the Duma and the Sovereign.

Much attention was paid to procedural law.

Sources of the Code

Decree books of orders - in them, from the moment a particular order arose, the current legislation on specific issues was recorded.
years - was used as an example of legal technique (wording, construction of phrases, rubrication).

Branches of law according to the Cathedral Code

View of the Kremlin. 17th century

The Council Code only outlines the division of norms into branches of law. However, the trend towards division into branches, inherent in any modern legislation, has already been outlined.

State law

The Council Code determined the status of the head of state - the king, the autocratic and hereditary monarch.

Criminal law

The death penalty - hanging, beheading, quartering, burning (on religious matters and in relation to arsonists), as well as "pouring hot iron down the throat" for counterfeiting.

Corporal punishment - divided into malignant(cutting off a hand for theft, branding, cutting nostrils, etc.) and painful(beating with a whip or batogs).

Imprisonment - terms from three days up to life imprisonment. Prisons were made of earth, wood and stone. Prison inmates were fed at the expense of relatives or alms.

Link is a punishment for "noble" persons. It was the result of disgrace.

Disgraceful punishments were also applied to "noble" persons: "removal of honor", that is, deprivation of ranks or demotion. A mild punishment of this type was a "reprimand" in the presence of people of the circle to which the offender belonged.

Fines - called "sales" and were imposed for crimes that violate property relations, as well as for some crimes against human life and health (for injury), for "disgrace". They were also used for "extortion" as the main and additional punishment.

Confiscation of property - both movable and real estate(sometimes the property of the wife of the offender and his adult son). It was applied to state criminals, to "covetous men", to officials who abused their official position.

Purpose of punishment:

Intimidation.
State retribution.
Isolation of the offender (in case of exile or imprisonment).
Isolation of the criminal from the surrounding mass of people (cutting the nose, branding, cutting off the ear, etc.).

Civil law

The main ways of acquiring rights to any thing, including land, ( rights in rem), were considered:

The grant of land is a complex set of legal actions, which included the issuance of a letter of commendation, the entry in the order book of information about the endowed person, the establishment of the fact that the transferred land was unoccupied, and taking possession in the presence of third parties.
Acquisition of rights to a thing by concluding a contract of sale (both oral and written).
Acquisitive prescription. A person must in good faith (that is, without violating anyone's rights) own any property for a certain period of time. After a certain period this property (for example, a house) becomes the property of a bona fide owner. The Code fixed this period at 40 years.
Finding a thing (provided that its owner is not found).

Law of Obligations in the 17th century, it continued to develop along the line of gradual replacement of personal liability (transition for debts into slaves, etc.) under contracts with property liability.

The oral form of the contract is increasingly being replaced by the written one. Certain transactions are mandatory. state registration- "serf" form (purchase and sale and other transactions with real estate).

Legislators paid special attention to the problem patrimonial land tenure. The following were legally fixed: a complicated procedure for alienation and the hereditary nature of patrimonial property.

During this period, there are 3 types of feudal land tenure: the property of the sovereign, patrimonial land tenure and estate. Votchina - conditional land ownership, but they could be inherited. Since feudal legislation was on the side of land owners (feudal lords), and the state was also interested in ensuring that the number of ancestral patrimonies did not decrease, the right to buy out the sold ancestral patrimonial lands was provided. Estates were given for service, the size of the estate was determined by the official position of the person. The feudal lord could use the estate only during the service, it could not be inherited. 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. The Cathedral Code established that if the landowner left the service due to old age or illness, his wife 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 when following conditions: the parties, concluding between themselves an exchange record, undertook to submit this record to the Local Order with a petition addressed to the king.

Family law

Scenes of Russian life. 17th century

year - Order on city deanery (on measures to combat crime).
year - New trade charter (on the protection of domestic producers and sellers from foreign competition).
year - Scribal order (on the rules for surveying estates and estates, forests and wastelands).

An important role was played by the “verdict” of the Zemsky Sobor on the abolition of parochialism (that is, the system of distribution of official places in the country, taking into account the origin, official position of the person’s ancestors and, to a lesser extent, his personal merits.)

The meaning of the Council Code

The Cathedral Code summarized and summed up the main trends in the development of Russian law in the 17th centuries.
It consolidated new features and institutions inherent in new era, the era of the advancing Russian absolutism.
In the Code, for the first time, the systematization of domestic legislation was carried out; an attempt was made to distinguish between the rules of law by industry.

The Cathedral Code became the first printed monument of Russian law. Before him, the publication of laws was limited to announcing them in marketplaces and temples, which was usually specifically indicated in the documents themselves. The appearance of a printed law largely ruled out the possibility of abuses by governors and clerks who were in charge of legal proceedings. The Cathedral Code has no precedent in the history of Russian legislation. In terms of volume, it can only be compared with Stoglav, but in terms of the wealth of legal material it surpasses it many times over.

When compared with Western Europe, it is striking that the Cathedral Code relatively early, already in 1649, codified Russian civil law. The first Western European civil code was developed in Denmark (Danske Lov) in 1683; it was followed by the code of Sardinia (), Bavaria (), Prussia (), Austria (). Europe's most famous and influential civil code, the French Napoleonic Code, was adopted in -1804.

It should be noted that the adoption of European codes was hampered, probably, by the abundance of the legal base, which made it very difficult to systematize the available material into a single coherent readable document. For example, the Prussian codex of 1794 contained 19,187 articles, which made it too long and unreadable. For comparison, the Napoleonic code was developed for 4 years, contained 2,281 articles, and it took a personal Active participation emperor to push his acceptance. The cathedral code was developed within six months, consisted of 968 articles, but it was adopted in order to prevent the escalation of a series of city riots in 1648 (started by the Salt Riot in Moscow) into a full-scale uprising like the uprising of Bolotnikov in 1606-1607 or Stepan Razin - in 1670- 1671.

The Council Code of 1649 was in force until 1832, when, as part of the work on the codification of the laws of the Russian Empire, carried out under the leadership of M. M. Speransky, the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire was developed.

Notes

Literature

Klyuchevsky V. O. Russian history. Full course lectures. - M.: 1993.
Isaev I.A. History of the state and law of Russia. - M.: 2006.
Ed. Titova Yu.P. History of the state and law of Russia. - M.: 2006.
AND ABOUT. Chistyakov History of the domestic state and law .. - M .: 1996.
Grigory Kotoshikhin About Russia in the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. - Stockholm: 1667.

A.G. Mankov"The code of 1649 - the code of feudal law of Russia". - M.: 1980.

Vladimirsky-Budanov M.F."Review of the History of Russian Law", 6th ed. - St. Petersburg. ; Kyiv: Publishing house of the bookseller N.Ya.Ogloblin: 1909.

Yu.L. Protsenko"The estate-representative monarchy in Russia (mid-XVI - mid XVII century)", 6th ed. - Volgograd: 2003.

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

The Cathedral Code of 1649 is a set of laws of the Moscow kingdom, regulating various aspects of the life of Russian society. The fact is that after the end of the Troubles, the Romanovs began active legislative activity: in just 1611-1648. 348 decrees were issued, and after the last Sudebnik of 1550 - 445 legislative acts. Many of them were not only outdated, but also contradicted each other. All the regulations of that time were scattered among different departments, which further increased the chaos in law enforcement. The urgent need to regulate the legal foundations of the state was realized by the Cathedral Code of 1649. The reason for the adoption of the long overdue Code was the Salt Riot that broke out in Moscow in 1648, the participants of which demanded its development. In the Council Code, for the first time, one feels the desire not only to form a system of norms, but also to classify them according to branches of law.

At the beginning of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, riots began in Moscow, Pskov, Novgorod and other cities. On June 1, 1648, an uprising broke out in Moscow (the so-called “ salt riot”), during which the rebels held the city in their hands for several days. Following Moscow in the summer of the same year, the struggle of townsmen and small service people unfolded in Kozlov, Kursk, Solvychegodsk, Veliky Ustyug, Voronezh, Narym, Tomsk and other settlements. The socio-political crisis dictated the need to strengthen legislature countries. Therefore, it was during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich that the evolution of the estate-representative monarchy (“autocracy with the boyar duma and the boyar aristocracy”) began to absolutism, which was associated, among other things, with the completion of the formalization of serfdom.
Although the Code was drawn up hastily, it was based on the existing law-making tradition. The legal sources of the Council Code were: Decree books of orders, Sudebniks of 1497 and 1550, the Lithuanian Statute of 1588, the Pilot Book and various petitions of the nobility, which contained demands for the abolition of school years. At the Zemsky Sobor, convened on July 16, 1648, the nobles filed a petition for the preparation of the Code, so that they could do all sorts of things forward according to that Coded Book. To develop a draft Code, a special order was created, headed by Prince N.I. Odoevsky, which included two boyars, one okolnichiy and two clerks. The hearing of the draft Code took place at the Council in two chambers: in one the tsar, the Boyar Duma and the Consecrated Cathedral were present, in the other - elected people of various ranks. Deputies from nobles and towns had a great influence on the adoption of many norms of the Code. Characteristically, the Code began with a preface, which stated that it was drawn up “by the sovereign decree general advice so that the Muscovite state of all ranks to people, from the highest to the lowest rank, the court and reprisal in all matters would be equal to all the zemstvo great royal affairs.
The Cathedral Code, adopted in 1649, abolished St. George's Day and established an indefinite search for fugitives. A considerable fine was also introduced (10 rubles for each fugitive) for their reception and harboring. But at the same time, the possessing peasants have not yet completely lost their personal rights: according to the Code, they could own property and make transactions on their own behalf, be plaintiffs, defendants and witnesses in court, and also be hired to work for other persons. It was forbidden to turn serfs into serfs, and transfer local peasants to patrimony. A special article of the Code established a fine of 1 ruble for the "disgrace" of both the black-haired and the "boyar" peasant. It was, of course, 50 times less than the fine for insulting the boyar. But still, the legislation officially recognized the "honor" of the serf, which would no longer be possible for the noble state in the next century, when all the personal rights of the peasants were eliminated.
The Regulations fixed norms that reflected the beginning process of convergence of conditional landownership with hereditary patrimony: on the inheritance of estates, the permission to sell estates to a patrimony, the allocation of part of the estates for living, etc. This process of convergence of estates and patrimonies found its legal development in the decrees of 1667 and 1672 on mass transfers of estates to the patrimony of Duma Moscow and district officials for participation in the campaign of 1654, for the "Lithuanian" service and the Smolensk campaign. Edicts in the 1670s allowed the exchange and purchase of estates, which brought the estate as close as possible to the fiefdom.
It is significant that the first chapter "On blasphemers and church rebels" provided for liability for crimes against religion and the church. The next most important regulated provision is the protection of the honor and security of the sovereign. The Council Code determined his status as an autocratic and hereditary monarch. That is, his approval (election) at the Zemsky Sobor did not violate established principles but, on the contrary, legitimized them. Even criminal intent directed against the person of the monarch was severely punished. These provisions are developed in the third chapter "On the sovereign's court", which refers to the protection of the royal residence and personal property of the king.
The Code referred to criminal acts:
crimes against the Church: blasphemy, "seduction" to another faith, interruption of the course of the liturgy in the church, etc.;
state crimes: any actions directed against the person of the sovereign or his family, rebellion, conspiracy, treason;
crimes against the order of government: unauthorized travel abroad, counterfeiting, giving false witness testimony, false accusation, maintenance of drinking establishments without permission, etc.;
crimes against decency: maintenance of brothels, harboring fugitives, selling stolen or other people's property, etc.;
malfeasance: covetousness, injustice, forgery in service, military crimes, etc.;
crimes against a person: murder, mutilation, beatings, defamation;
property crimes: theft, horse theft, robbery, robbery, fraud, arson, damage to other people's property.
crimes against morality: “disrespect by children of parents”, pimping, “fornication” of a wife, sexual intercourse between a master and a “slave”.
This resulted in a system of punishments, including: death penalty, corporal punishment, imprisonment, exile, dishonorable punishments (deprivation of rank or demotion), confiscation of property, removal from office and fines.
Most of the "white" settlements were liquidated (the church was forbidden to expand its possessions without royal permission), and trade and fishing activities were declared a monopoly of the townspeople. Although the transition to the settlement for privately owned peasants freed them from personal dependence on the feudal lord, it did not mean full release from feudal dependence on the state, since the township man, like the black-haired peasant, was attached to the place.
If in the field of family law the principles of Domostroy continued to operate (the primacy of the husband over his wife and children, the actual community of property, the obligation of the wife to follow her husband, etc.), then in the field of civil law, the legal capacity of women increased. Now the widow was endowed with rights in the field of concluding transactions. The oral form of the contract is replaced by a written one, and for certain transactions (for example, the sale and purchase of real estate), state registration is mandatory.
That is, the Cathedral Code not only summarized the main trends in the development of Russian law in the 15th-17th centuries, but also consolidated new features and institutions characteristic of the era of the advancing Russian absolutism. In the Code, for the first time, the systematization of domestic legislation was carried out and an attempt was made to distinguish between the norms of law by industry. The Cathedral Code became the first printed monument of Russian law. Before him, the publication of laws was limited to announcing them in marketplaces and temples. The appearance of a printed law reduced the possibility of abuse by governors and orders.
In the economic sphere, the Code fixed the beginning of the formation of a single form of feudal landed property based on the merger of its two varieties - estates and estates. AT social sphere it reflected the process of consolidation of the main classes and the establishment of a system of serfdom. In the political sphere, the Code characterized the initial stage of the transition from a class-representative monarchy to absolutism. In the field of court and law, this monument of law was associated with the stage of centralization of the judicial and administrative apparatus, unification and universality of legal institutions.
The code had no precedent in the history of Russian legislation, many times surpassing the voluminous Stoglav in the wealth of legal material. The Code had no equal in the European practice of those years. The Cathedral Code of 1649 was in effect until 1832, when, under the leadership of M.M. Speransky, a code of laws was developed Russian Empire.