The Pskov Judicial Charter (russian: Псковская судная грамота) was an

Old Russian Old East Slavic (traditionally also Old Russian; be, старажытнаруская мова; russian: древнерусский язык; uk, давньоруська мова) was a language used during the 9th–15th centuries by East ...

legal code A code of law, also called a law code or legal code, is a systematic collection of statutes. It is a type of legislation that purports to exhaustively cover a complete system of laws or a particular area of law as it existed at the time the cod ...

of the

Pskov Republic Pskov ( la, Plescoviae), known at various times as the Principality of Pskov (russian: Псковское княжество, ) or the Pskov Republic (russian: Псковская Республика, ), was a medieval state on the south shore of ...

. It was issued in various redactions between 1397 and 1467, and was based on certain resolutions of the Pskovian city assembly or

veche Veche ( rus, вече, véče, ˈvʲet͡ɕe; pl, wiec; uk, ві́че, víče, ; be, ве́ча, viéča, ; cu, вѣще, věšte) was a popular assembly in medieval Slavic countries. In Novgorod and in Pskov, where the veche acquired gre ...

, princely decrees, provisions of the

Russkaya Pravda The ''Russkaya Pravda'' (Rus' Justice, Rus' Truth, or Russian Justice; orv, Правда роусьскаꙗ, ''Pravda Rusĭskaya'' (13th century, 1280), Правда Руськая, ''Pravda Rus'kaya'' (second half of the 15th century); russian: ...

and

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...

. It, along with the Novgorod Judicial Charter, was an important source for the

Sudebnik of 1497 The Sudebnik of 1497 (''Судебник 1497 года'' in Russian, or Code of Law) was a collection of laws introduced by Ivan III in 1497. It played a big part in the centralisation of the Russian state, creation of the nationwide Russian Law a ...

. The Pskov Judicial Charter reflected the most important aspects of socio-economic and political life of the Pskovian land in the 14th - 15th century. It protected

private property Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property and personal property, which is owned by a state entity, and from collective or ...

, especially

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a wa ...

landownership, regulated procedures for official registration of landownership and court examination of land disputes, defined the status of the so-called ''izorniks'' (a category of feudally dependent

peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...

s). Many articles of the Charter were dedicated to trade relations, such as buying and selling, pawning, loans, hiring of workforce etc. The code provided for a

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

in case of a

political crime In criminology Criminology (from Latin , "accusation", and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'' meaning: "word, reason") is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the ...

or regular

criminal offense In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

.For the text of the charter, see Daniel H.Kaiser, trans. and ed. ''The Laws of Rus, Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries''. Salt Lake City: Charles Schlacks, Jr., 1992.); see also B. D. Grekov, ed., "Pskovskaia sudnaia gramota.” ''Istoricheskie zapiski'' 6 (1940): 237-54.

History of creation and enactment

PDC consist of two parts: * Chapter by Alexander Mikhailovich, Great Prince of Tver * Chapter of Konstantin Dmitrievich, Prince, who reign in

Pskov Pskov ( rus, Псков, a=pskov-ru.ogg, p=pskof; see also names in other languages) is a city in northwestern Russia and the administrative center of Pskov Oblast, located about east of the Estonian border, on the Velikaya River. Population ...

at 1407—1414. It was approved (with further additions) at veche at 1467. PDC had to determine judicial laws of Prince,

posadnik Posadnik (Cyrillic: посадник, (literally: по-садник - ''pre-sident'') was the mayor in some East Slavic cities or towns. Most notably, the posadnik (equivalent to a stadtholder, burgomeister, or podestà in the medieval west) was ...

(governor of medieval Russian city-state, appointed by prince or elected by citizens), vicar, church hierarch and other officials. It also established orders of legal proceedings, determinations of crimes, proprietary rights and violences of it, different kinds of obligations and inheritance law.

References

External links

Full text of the charter in English
*{{in lang, ru}
Full text of the charter

History of creation and enactment

References

External links

See also