During 1648-1649. It was adopted during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. The compilation of this document was carried out by a commission headed by Prince N.I. Odoevsky. As a basis for creating the code, the Code of Law of 1550, the books of Razboyny, Zemsky, collective petitions of townspeople, provincial and Moscow nobles, as well as the Pilot Book, the Lithuanian Statute were used. In general, the Council Code includes 25 chapters and 967 articles that are devoted to issues of state criminal and property process and law.

Several chapters deal with issues related to state law. The first chapters define the term "state crime", which meant an act that is directed against the power of the monarch and the person of the king. Participation in a criminal act and conspiracy against the king, governor, boyars and clerks was punishable by death without any mercy.

The Cathedral Code in the first chapter describes the protection of the interests of the church from the rebels, the protection of the nobles even when they kill peasants and serfs.

Russia’s defense of the interests of the ruling class is also evidenced by the difference in fines for insult: two rubles were supposed to be paid for insulting a peasant, drinking man- ruble, and persons belonging to the privileged class - up to 80-100 rubles.

The chapter "Court on the Peasants" includes articles that formalized the eternal hereditary dependence of the peasants, in this chapter there was abolition of contingent years for searching for runaway peasants, a large penalty was established for harboring a runaway. The Cathedral Code took away the right of the peasants of the landowner in relation to property disputes.

In accordance with the chapter "On townspeople" private settlements in cities were liquidated and returned to people who had previously been exempted from paying taxes. The judicial code provided for the search for fugitive townspeople, the population of the township was subject to taxes and taxes. Bonded serfs are described in the chapters "On patrimonies" and "On local lands", which are devoted to issues of land ownership by nobles.

The Cathedral Code contains an extensive chapter "On the Court", which deals with judicial issues. It regulated in detail the procedure for conducting an investigation and conducting legal proceedings, determined the amount of a court fee, fines, covered issues of premeditated and intentional crime, and regulated disputes regarding property.

The structure of the armed forces of the state is considered in the chapters "On the service of soldiers" On archers "," On the redemption of prisoners of war. "The cathedral code, briefly described in this article, has become milestone in the development of serfdom and autocracy. It was the basic law in Russian state until the middle of the 19th century.

The adoption of the Council Code was one of the main achievements of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. The armed uprisings of the urban lower classes and archers were taken advantage of by the nobility and the elite of the merchant class to present class demands to the government. guests and merchants sought the introduction of restrictions on the trade of foreigners. They also sought the confiscation of privileged urban settlements.

The demands of the nobles 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 Russian Empire"in fifteen volumes, appeared only in 1832, under Nicholas I. And before that, the Code" for 180 years remained a complete code 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 code 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 the Zemsky Sobor specially convened for this purpose in 1648, corrected in many articles, and on January 29 it was already adopted.

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 that stimulated legislative activity in mid-seventeenth in. 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 court cases. For a hundred years, a great many legal provisions have accumulated, scattered according to different orders, sometimes contradicting each other. This made it difficult for 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.

Cathedral Code of 1649: general characteristics and provisions

General characteristics of the Cathedral Code of 1649

Criminal law according to the Council Code

Court and process under the Council Code

Civil law according to the Council Code

Family law according to the Council Code

Serfdom according to the Council Code

At the beginning of the 17th century, Russia experienced a severe decline in the economy and politics. After the war with Sweden, the country lost a significant part of its former territories in northern regions, including access to important Baltic Sea. had a negative impact on political position and the campaign of the Poles, after which part of the Smolensk lands and territories in the north of Ukraine went to Poland.

The Russian treasury was empty, and the Cossacks did not receive salaries for a long time. The state introduced new fees and taxes, which were a heavy burden on the population of Russia. In this situation, one could expect major popular uprisings and serious social conflicts. Indeed, in the middle of the 17th century, several riots took place in a number of cities in the country.

Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich decided that it was time to strengthen the central government and amend the legislation. In September 1648, the Zemsky Sobor was held in Moscow. The result of his work was the adoption in 1649 of the Council Code, which became a new set of Russian laws. The arrangement included whole complex rules and regulations that were designed to regulate the most important aspects of public administration.

The meaning of the Cathedral Code

Prior to the adoption of the new code of laws in Russia, there was a legal practice that relied on the decrees of the tsar, judicial documents and Duma sentences, which made the legal proceedings ambiguous and extremely contradictory. The Code of 1649 is an attempt to form an integral set of legislative norms capable of covering the most important aspects of the social, political and economic life of Russia, and not just disparate groups of social relations.

In the new code of laws, an attempt was made to systematize legislative norms, dividing them into branches of law. Prior to the entry into force of the Council Code, printed sources relating to legal relations did not exist; Previously, laws were simply announced in in public places. The creation of a printed set of legal norms became an obstacle to abuses, which were often repaired by local governors.

The Cathedral Code significantly strengthened the judicial and legal system. The code of legal norms became the foundation on which, in the following decades, the legislative system was built and developed, aimed at strengthening feudal relations and the feudal system. The Cathedral Code was a kind of result of the development of Russian law in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

The Cathedral Code of 1649 has a complex and strict system of construction. It consists of 25 chapters divided into articles, total which is 967. Chapters are preceded by brief introduction, containing an official explanation of the motives and history behind the drafting of the code. According to one of the historians, the introduction is "a monument rather of journalistic dexterity than historical accuracy." The Code has the following chapters:

Chapter I. And it contains 9 articles about blasphemers and church rebels.

Chapter II. About the state honor, and how to protect his state health, and there are 22 articles in it.

Chapter III. About the sovereign's court, so that there would be no outrage and abuse from anyone at the sovereign's court.

Chapter IV. About subscribers, and which seals are forged.

Chapter V

Chapter VI. About travel letters to other states.

Chapter VII. About the service of all military people of the Moscow state.

Chapter VIII. About the redemption of the captives.

Chapter IX. About mines and transports, and about bridges.

Chapter X. Of Judgment.

Chapter XI. The Court of the Peasants, and there are 34 articles in it.

Chapter XII. About the court of patriarchal clerks, and there are 7 articles in it.

Chapter XIV. About the kissing of the cross, and there are 10 articles in it.

Chapter XV. About accomplished deeds, and there are 5 articles in it.

Chapter XVI. About local lands, and there are 69 articles in it.

Chapter XVII. About estates, and it contains 55 articles.

Chapter XVIII. About printing duties, and there are 71 articles in it.

Chapter XIX. About townspeople, and there are 40 articles in it.

Chapter XX. The trial of the serf, and it contains 119 articles.

Chapter XXI. About robbery and tatin's affairs, and there are 104 articles in it.

Chapter XXII. And it has 26 articles. Decree for which faults to whom the death penalty is to be inflicted, and for which faults not to be executed by death, but to be punished.

Chapter XXIII. About archers, and there are 3 articles in it.

Chapter XXIV. Decree on atamaneh and on the Cossacks, and there are 3 articles in it.

Chapter XXV. Decree on taverns, it contains 21 articles.

All these chapters can be divided into five groups:

• 1) chapters I - IX - state law;
• 2) chapters X - XIV - the charter of the judiciary and legal proceedings;
• 3) chapters XV - XX - real right;
• 4) chapters XXI - XXII - criminal code;
• 5) chapters XXIII - XXV - an additional part: about archers, about Cossacks, about taverns.

But this classification succeeds only with a certain stretch, because such a grouping of material is present in a monument devoid of compositional harmony only as a hardly discernible tendency, a desire for some systematicity.

So, for example, the first chapter of the "Code" contains legal norms "on blasphemers and church rebels" - the most terrible crime, according to legislators of the 17th century, because it is considered even earlier than an attempt on "sovereign honor" and "sovereign health". For blasphemy against God and Mother of God, an honest cross or saints, according to Article 1 of Chapter I of the Code, the guilty, regardless of whether he was Russian or a non-Christian, was waiting for burning at the stake. Death also threatened any "outlaw" who obstructed the service of the liturgy. For all the outrages and disorders carried out in the temple, which included the submission of petitions to the tsar and the patriarch during the service, severe punishments were also imposed, from a commercial execution (for “obscene speeches” during the liturgy) to imprisonment (submission of petitions, insult someone with a word during worship). But the first chapter with its nine articles of legalization on church issues is not exhausted, they are scattered throughout the entire text of the Code. And in later chapters we find decrees on the oath for people of a spiritual and peaceful rank, on the seduction of the Orthodox into infidelity, on limiting the rights of non-believers, on self-proclaimed priests and monks, on marriage, on the protection of church property, on the honor of clergy, veneration of holidays, etc. e. All these measures were designed to protect the honor and dignity of the church. But contained in the "Code" and points that caused strong discontent of the church hierarchy. According to Chapter XI-II, a special monastic order was established, on which judgment was imposed in relation to the clergy and people dependent on it (patriarchal and monastic peasants, servants, church clergy, etc.). Prior to this, the court for non-ecclesiastical cases in relation to the clergy was carried out in the Order of the Grand Palace. Spiritual estates here, bypassing national institutions, were subject to the court of the king himself. Now the clergy were deprived of judicial privileges, and this was done at the petition of elected people. According to the same petitions, church land ownership was also subjected to significant restrictions. The settlements and patrimonies that belonged to the church authorities were taken "for the sovereign as a tax and for services childless and irrevocably."

Further, all clergy and institutions were strictly forbidden to acquire patrimonies in any way and to give patrimonies to lay people in monasteries (Chapter XVII, Art. 42). From the point of view of the state, this contributed to further centralization and strengthening of autocratic power. But the provisions of the new code provoked resistance from the clergy and fierce criticism from them. After all, the Code deprived the higher clergy, with the exception of the patriarch, of judicial privileges. All church and monastery lands were transferred to the jurisdiction of the Monastic order.

Dissatisfied with the Code, Patriarch Nikon called it nothing more than a "lawless book", but the first head of the Monastic order, Prince V.I. Odoevsky, "the new Luther." As a result of a tense struggle, the spiritual authorities overcame the secular authorities: first, after Nikon's removal from business, in 1667 the secular court against the clergy was abolished, and in 1677 the Monastic order was also abolished.

In the Code, much attention was paid to some social issues. In the Time of Troubles, the class of service people and residents of the settlements was the force that ensured the final victory over external and internal enemies. Chapters XVI and XVII of the "Code" were devoted to streamlining the land relations that were confused during the years of the "Moscow ruin". Someone then lost the fortresses on their possessions, someone received them from impostors. The new legislative code established that only service people and guests had the right to own estates. Thus, land ownership became a class privilege of the nobility and the top merchants. In the interests of the nobility, the Code smooths out the difference between conditional ownership - an estate (on condition and for the duration of service) and hereditary - a fiefdom. From now on, estates can be changed to fiefdoms and vice versa. The petitions of the townspeople were satisfied by the XIX chapter specially dedicated to them. According to it, the posad population was isolated into a closed estate and attached to the posad. All its inhabitants had to bear the tax - that is, to pay certain taxes and perform duties in favor of the state. Now it was impossible to leave the settlement, but it was possible to enter only on condition of joining a tax community. This provision satisfied the demand of the townspeople to protect them from the competition of various ranks of people who, coming from the service, spiritual, peasants, traded and engaged in various crafts near the towns, at the same time did not have a tax. Now everyone who was engaged in bidding and crafts turned into an eternal township tax. At the same time, the "white settlements" (whitewashed, that is, freed from taxes and duties to the state), previously free from taxes, which belonged to secular feudal lords and the church, were attached to the sovereign's settlements free of charge. All who arbitrarily left from there were subject to return to the settlements. They were instructed to "take them to their old townships, where someone lived before this, childless and irrevocably." Thus, according to the exact description of V. O. Klyuchevsky, “the township tax from trading and crafts has become a class duty of the townspeople, and the right of urban bargaining and crafting has become a class privilege.” It is only necessary to add that this provision, fixed by law, was not fully implemented in practice. And the whole XVII century. townspeople continued to petition for the elimination of "white places", the expansion of urban areas, the prohibition of peasants from trading and crafts.

The peasant question was also regulated in a new way in the Code. Chapter XI (“The Court of the Peasants”) canceled the “lesson summers” established in 1597 - a five-year period for the search for runaway peasants, after which the search ceased and, in fact, at least a small loophole was preserved to exit the serfdom, albeit by flight. According to the Code, the search for fugitives became indefinite, and a fine of 10 rubles was imposed for harboring them. Thus, the peasants were finally attached to the land and the legal registration of serfdom was completed. The adoption of these norms was in the interests of service people who actively participated in the Zemsky Sobor of 1648. But it is especially important to note that, according to the Code, the peasants, being, of course, one of the most humiliated and oppressed classes, still had some class rights. Runaway peasants were categorically ordered to property rights. The recognition of personal rights was the provision according to which peasants and peasant women who married on the run were subject to return to the owner only by their families.

These are just some of the most important provisions of the Council Code of 1649. In fact, the adoption of this code of laws was a victory for the middle classes, while their worldly rivals, who stood at the top and bottom of the then social ladder, lost.

The Moscow boyars, the deacon's bureaucracy and the higher clergy, who were defeated at the council of 1648, on the contrary, were dissatisfied with the Code. Thus, it is clearly revealed that the Council of 1648, convened to pacify the country, led to discord and displeasure in Muscovite society. Having achieved their goal, the conciliar representatives of the provincial society turned against themselves strong people and hard mass. If the latter, not reconciling itself with attachment to the tax and the landowner, began to protest with “gilem” (i.e., riots) and going out to the Don, thereby preparing a razinshchina, then the social summit chose the legal path of action and led the government to a complete cessation Zemsky Sobors.