The Sudebnik of 1497 (''Судебник 1497 года'' in
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
, or
Code of Law
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 ...
) was a collection of
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
s introduced by
Ivan III
Ivan III Vasilyevich (russian: Иван III Васильевич; 22 January 1440 – 27 October 1505), also known as Ivan the Great, was a Grand Prince of Moscow and Grand Prince of all Rus'. Ivan served as the co-ruler and regent for his bl ...
in 1497. It played a big part in the
centralisation
Centralisation or centralization (see spelling differences) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, framing strategy and policies become concentrated within a particu ...
of the Russian
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
, creation of the nationwide
Russian Law
The primary and fundamental statement of laws in the Russian Federation is the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
Hierarchy
Constitutionism
Adopted by national referendum on 12 December 1993 with 54.5% of the vote, the Constitution took ...
and elimination of
feudal fragmentation
Feudal fragmentation being a stage in the development of certain feudal states, in which it is split into smaller regional state structures, each characterized by significant autonomy if not outright independence and ruled by a high-ranking noble ...
.
[Monuments of Russian Law. Vol. 3: Monuments of Law in the Period of Formation of Russian Centralized State in 14—15 centuries / ed. by Lev Cherepnin. Moscow, 1955. P. 419—420, 426—432, 438—457. (russian]
Памятники русского права. М.: Госюриздат, 1955. Вып. 3: Памятники права периода образования Русского централизованного государства XIV—XV вв.
/ под ред. Л.В. Черепнина. С. 341—416. Also full Old Russian text and translation into modern Russian).
It took its roots from
Old Russian Law
Rus' Law or Old Russian LawKaiser, Daniel H. The growth of the law in Medieval Russia. – Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. – 308 p. P. 151-209 was a legal system in Kievan Rus' (since the 9th century), in later Old Rus' states (kny ...
, including
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: ...
,
Legal Code of Pskov,
prince
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. Th ...
ly
decree
A decree is a legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state (such as the president of a republic or a monarch), according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used for ...
s, 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 ...
, the regulations of which had been upgraded with reference to social and economic changes. Basically, ''Sudebnik'' was a collection of
legal procedure
Procedural law, adjective law, in some jurisdictions referred to as remedial law, or rules of court, comprises the rules by which a court hears and determines what happens in civil, lawsuit, criminal or administrative proceedings. The rules are ...
s. It established a universal system of the
judicial
The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudication, adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and app ...
bodies of the state, defined their
competence and
subordination
Subordination may refer to
*Subordination in a hierarchy (in military, society, etc.)
** Insubordination, disobedience
*Subordination (linguistics)
* Subordination (finance)
* Subordination agreement, a legal document used to deprecate the claim ...
, and regulated
legal fees
Attorney's fee is a chiefly United States term for compensation for legal services performed by an attorney ( lawyer or law firm) for a client, in or out of court. It may be an hourly, flat-rate or contingent fee. Recent studies suggest that when ...
. ''Sudebnik'' expanded the range of acts, considered punishable by the standards of
criminal justice
Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the Rehabilitation (penology), rehabilitation of o ...
(e.g.,
sedition
Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, estab ...
,
sacrilege
Sacrilege is the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object, site or person. This can take the form of irreverence to sacred persons, places, and things. When the sacrilegious offence is verbal, it is called blasphemy, and when physica ...
,
slander
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
). It also renewed the concept of different kinds of a
crime
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definit ...
. ''Sudebnik'' established the investigative nature of legal proceedings. It provided different kinds of
punishment
Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon a group or individual, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a response and deterrent to a particular acti ...
, such as
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 ...
,
flagellation
Flagellation (Latin , 'whip'), flogging or whipping is the act of beating the human body with special implements such as whips, rods, switches, the cat o' nine tails, the sjambok, the knout, etc. Typically, flogging has been imposed on ...
etc. In order to protect the
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
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, land, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant (also a ''lessee'' or ''renter''). When a juristic person is in this position, the te ...
, ''Sudebnik'' introduced certain limitations in the
law of estate
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
, increased the
term of limitation of
legal action
In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of action) that the filing party or parties (the plaintiff(s)) believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party ...
s with regards to princely lands, introduced flagellation for the violation of
property
Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
boundaries of princely,
boyar
A boyar or bolyar was a member of the highest rank of the Feudalism, feudal nobility in many Eastern European states, including Kievan Rus', Bulgarian Empire, Bulgaria, Russian nobility, Russia, Boyars of Moldavia and Wallachia, Wallachia and ...
and
monastic
Monasticism (from Ancient Greek , , from , , 'alone'), also referred to as monachism, or monkhood, is a religion, religious way of life in which one renounces world (theology), worldly pursuits to devote oneself fully to spiritual work. Monastic ...
lands - violation of
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 ...
land boundaries entailed a
fine
Fine may refer to:
Characters
* Sylvia Fine (''The Nanny''), Fran's mother on ''The Nanny''
* Officer Fine, a character in ''Tales from the Crypt'', played by Vincent Spano
Legal terms
* Fine (penalty), money to be paid as punishment for an offe ...
. ''Sudebnik'' also introduced a
fee
A fee is the price one pays as remuneration for rights or services. Fees usually allow for overhead, wages, costs, and markup. Traditionally, professionals in the United Kingdom (and previously the Republic of Ireland) receive a fee in cont ...
(''пожилое'', or pozhiloye) for peasants who wanted to leave their feudal lord (''Крестьянский выход'', or Krestiyansky vykhod), and also established a universal day (November 26) across the Russian state for peasants, who wanted to switch their masters (''Юрьев день'', or
Yuri's Day).
English translation by H. W. Dewey
See also
* Old Russian Law
Rus' Law or Old Russian LawKaiser, Daniel H. The growth of the law in Medieval Russia. – Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. – 308 p. P. 151-209 was a legal system in Kievan Rus' (since the 9th century), in later Old Rus' states (kny ...
* 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: ...
* Sudebnik of 1550 Sudebnik of Tsar Ivan IV (russian: Судебник) was an expansion and revision of the Sudebnik of 1497, a code of laws instituted by Ivan the Great, his grandfather. It is considered the result of the first Russian parliament of feudal Estat ...
* Stoglav
* Sobornoye Ulozheniye
The Sobornoe Ulozhenie ( rus, Соборное уложение, p=sɐˈbornəjə ʊlɐˈʐɛnʲɪjə, t=Council Code) was a legal code promulgated in 1649 by the Zemsky Sobor under Alexis of Russia as a replacement for the Sudebnik of 1550 intr ...
* Law of the Russian Federation
The primary and fundamental statement of laws in the Russian Federation is the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
Hierarchy
Constitutionism
Adopted by national referendum on 12 December 1993 with 54.5% of the vote, the Constitution took ...
* Law of the Soviet Union
The Law of the Soviet Union was the law as it developed in the Soviet Union (USSR) following the October Revolution of 1917. Modified versions of the Soviet legal system operated in many Communist states following the Second World War—including ...
Notes
{{reflist, 2
1490s in law
1497 in Europe
15th century in the Grand Duchy of Moscow
15th-century manuscripts
Cyrillic manuscripts
East Slavic manuscripts
Legal history of Russia
Medieval legal codes