Excerpts from The Code
of Law of 1649 (Ulozhenie)
[List of complete contents]
- I. Blasphemers and Heretics (9 articles)
- II. The Sovereign's Honour and How to Guard His
Health (22 articles)
- III. The Sovereign's Court, so That There Will
be no Outrages or Disorders at the Sovereign's Court (9 articles)
- IV. Forgers of Documents, Signatures, and Seals
(4 articles)
- V. Mint Masters Who May Counterfeit Money (2
articles)
- VI. Permits to Travel into Other Countries (6
articles)
- VII. The Service of Diverse Military People of
the Muscovite State (32 articles)
- VIII. The Redemption of Captives (7 articles)
- IX. Tolls, Ferries, and Bridges (20 articles)
- X. Legal Procedure (287 articles)
- XI. Legal Procedure Concerning the Peasants (34
articles)
- XII. Legal Procedure Concerning All Subjects
of the Patriarchal Department, the Court, and Peasants (3 articles)
- XIII. The Monastery Department (7 articles)
- XIV. The Oath (10 articles)
- XV. Contracts (5 articles)
- XVI. Pomest'e {Service} Estates (69 articles)
- XVII. Votchina (Hereditary} Estates (55
articles)
- XVIII. Seal Taxes (7I articles)
- XIX. Posadskie liudi {Townsmen} (40 articles)
- XX. Legal Procedure Concerning Kholopy
{Bondmen} (119 articles)
- XXI. Robbery and Theft Cases (104 articles)
- XXII. An Instruction Regarding Offences That
Deserve Capital Punishment and Those That Do Not, but Which Should Be Punished
(26 articles)
- XXIII. The Streltsy {Professional Soldiers}
(3 articles)
- XXIV. The Atamans and the Cossacks (3
articles)
- XXV. Illegal Taverns (2I articles)
Chapter l - Blasphemers and Heretics
- I. If a member of another faith, regardless of
which faith, or a Russian, should blaspheme our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, or His Mother the Holy Queen, Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, or
the honourable cross, or its holy servants, each such case should be investigated
thoroughly, using all possible means. An inquiry about it should be organised,
and the blasphemer of God should be burned at the stake.
- 2. And should some scoundrel come into God's
church during the holy liturgy and should he in some way try to prevent
its completion, he should be seized, his action investigated, and he should
be condemned to death without mercy.
- 3 And should someone, upon entering God's church
during the holy liturgy while singing is going on, start directing insults
against Patriarch, or Metropolitan, or Archbishop, or Bishop, or Archimandrite,
or Igumen, or the ecclesiastical order {in general}, and thereby
disrupt holy singing in that church, the Sovereign should be informed of
this, an investigation should be inaugurated, and for his action the scoundrel
should be whipped at the marketplace.
- 4. And should anyone, upon entering God's church,
start a fight with another person and kill that person, the murderer should
be sentenced to death.
- 5 And should he only wound and not kill, he {the
guilty one} should be mercilessly whipped at the market place, put in prison
for a month, and made to compensate the injured person twice for the insult.
- 6. And if a scoundrel should strike anyone in
God's church but inflict no wound, he should be whipped with a cane for
this insult and {be] made to compensate the injured person.
- 7. If someone should insult another person verbally
but should not harm him [bodily], the guilty person should be put into
prison for a month. And whoever was insulted should be compensated in order
to prevent the occurrence of any outrages in God's churches in the future.
- 8. In church during the singing, no one can present
a personal petition to the Sovereign Tsar and Grand Prince Aleksei Mikhailovich
of All Russia, nor to the Great Lord, His Eminence Joseph, Patriarch of
Moscow and of All Russia, nor to Metropolitans, Archbishops, and Bishops,
in order to prevent confusion in the church during the church singing,
because God's church was created for prayer [not for business]. All Orthodox
Christians should stand and pray in God's churches with fear and should
not think of worldly matters.
- 9. And whoever should forget the fear of God
and disregard the Tsar's decree and petition either the Sovereign, or the
Patriarch, or other officials about a personal matter in God's church during
church singing, such petitioner should be thrown into prison for a term
to be determined by the Sovereign.
Chapter II The Sovereign's Honour,
and How to Guard His Health
- 1. Should anyone think maliciously about the
Sovereign's health, and should another person report him concerning this
malicious thought, there should be made an inquiry into his malicious thought
and intended action against his Tsarist Majesty, and such person, upon
investigation, should be executed.
- 2. Likewise, should a member of his Tsarist Majesty's
government wish to seize control of the Muscovite state and become Sovereign,
and should he, to attain this evil goal, organise an army or conspire with
the enemies of his Tsarist Majesty, issue charters, or aid them in any
way, in order to seize control of the Muscovite state or do some other
foolish thing with the aid of those enemies of the Sovereign, and should
someone report him, there should be organised a proper inquiry into his
treason, and such a traitor should be sentenced to death.
- 3. And should anyone give away a city of his
Tsarist Majesty to an enemy through treason, or accept foreigners into
cities of his Tsarist Majesty for treasonous purposes, and then investigation
be conducted into it, such traitors should be executed.
- 4. And should anyone consciously and treacherously
burn either a city or manors, and then be apprehended during his act or
afterwards, and an inquiry be conducted into his evil act, such person
should be burned mercilessly.
- 5. Service estates, hereditary estates, and livestock
of all traitors should be transferred to the possession of the Sovereign,
- 6. Wives and children of traitors, if they were
aware of their treasons, should be executed.
- 7. If a wife knew nothing of the treason of her
husband, or children of the treason of their father, and if this be verified
by an investigation, such persons should be neither executed not punished;
the Sovereign will determine how much of the service and hereditary estates
they should be allowed to retain for their livelihood.
- 8. If a traitor had children, but they, prior
to his treason, were separated from him, did not live with him, and hence
knew nothing of his treason, and if they had their own livestock and their
own hereditary estates, from such children neither livestock nor hereditary
estates should be confiscated.
- 9. And if someone should commit treason and leave
[as survivors) in the Muscovite state either his father, or his mother,
or his brothers, or his cousins, or his uncles, or any other member of
his family, and if he lived with them and they jointly owned their livestock
and their hereditary estates, such traitor should be thoroughly investigated
in order to determine whether his father, or his mother, or his relatives
knew of his treason. Should an investigation determine that they knew of
his treason, they should be executed and their livestock and hereditary
and service estates transferred to the Sovereign.
- 10. If, however, an investigation should determine
that they knew nothing of the treason of the traitor, they should not be
executed and their livestock and their service and hereditary estates should
not be confiscated.
- 11. If a traitor should return from a foreign
country to the Muscovite state, and if the Sovereign should pardon him
and forgive his guilty action, and then if he should obtain a new service
estate through service, the Sovereign may return his old hereditary estate
to him, but he cannot grant him his old service estate.
- 12. If someone should report that another person
has revealed a great state secret, but he does not have witnesses to substantiate
his report, does not convince anyone [with his arguments), and no evidence
exists to aid in the investigation into the revelation of state secrets,
a decree should be issued on this problem, following an inquiry, as the
Sovereign should direct.
- 13. And if someone should reveal the state of
the Sovereign's health, or if they should disclose information about people
whom they serve, or, if they be peasants, to whom they belong, and if such
reports are not convincing, they should not be believed. After they have
been severely punished for spreading lies, through merciless whipping with
a knut, such individuals should then be returned to those persons
to whom they belong. Such informers should not be believed or listened
to in the future on anything except matters of great importance.
- 14. And should anyone, regardless of his status,
say that he is a government official, and then should it be determined
that he is not, such person should be knuted for impersonating a
government official, and afterwards he should be returned to those persons
to whom he belongs.
- 15. And if someone apprehends a traitor on the
road, and either kills him or captures him and returns him to the Sovereign,
that traitor should [In the latter case] be executed, and the person who
apprehended or killed him should be given the livestock of the traitor
as the Sovereign should decree.
- 16. And whoever should report that another person
had revealed state secrets or was about to commit treason, and the person
who had been reported on is absent at the time, that person must be found
and he must confront the accuser face to face. If a thorough investigation
should verify the validity of the charge, a decree should be issued as
stipulated above.
- 17. If a person should report that another is
about to reveal state secrets or to commit treason, and then fail to prove
it, and if an investigation should determine that he fabricated his evidence,
such an informer should be punished in the same manner that the person
who had been reported upon would have been punished if he had been found
guilty.
- 18. Should a person in the Muscovite state, regardless
of his social status, learn of the existence of mass discontent, or conspiracy,
or any other evil design, [in Moscow] the existence of such plots should
be reported either to Aleksei Mikhailovich, the Sovereign Tsar and Grand
Prince of All Russia, or to his boiars or his high assistants, or
[in the provinces), to local voevodas or other officials of the
central government.
- 19. If someone should know or hear of the existence
of mass discontent or a conspiracy or any other evil design against his
Tsarist Majesty, but fails to report it either to the Sovereign, or his
boiars, or his high assistants, or voevodas, or other officials
of the central government in provincial cities, and then the Sovereign
should find out that that person was aware of the existence of such action
but failed to report it, and an inquiry be conducted into it, such persons
should be sentenced to death without mercy.
- 20. During an insurrection, mass discontent,
or conspiracy, no one should break into, or rob, or inflict bodily harm
on his Tsarist Majesty, his boyars, his high assistants, members of the
boiarskaia duma [Council of Notables], his advisers, his voevodas
in regiments, and other officials in provincial cities.
- 21. Whoever should initiate mass discontent or
a conspiracy against his Tsarist Majesty or his boiars, or his high
assistants, or members of the boiarskaia duma or his advisers, or
voevodas in regiments, or other officials of the central government
in provincial cities, and pillage or inflict bodily harm on them, those
persons who initiate it should be condemned to death without mercy.
- 22. Should voevodas of regiments or officials
of the central government in provincial cities inform the Sovereign that
either service people or people of other classes had approached them in
numbers resembling mass discontent or a conspiracy and threatened to kill
them, and if those people who had been reported on should petition the
Sovereign to investigate those voevodas and officials of the central
government and deny that they had approached them with any mass discontent
or a conspiracy and say that they came only in small numbers to petition
them, upon such petition of the Sovereign a thorough investigation should
be conducted of those city officials and, in the regiments, of the military
personnel. If this investigation in cities and regiments should determine
that these people really came to the voevodas and to the officials
of the central government with genuine petitions and not for robbery purposes
[as it had been reported], such people should not be sentenced to death.
Those voevodas and officials of the central government who erroneously
reported to the Tsar should be severely punished as the Tsar may determine.
Chapter IV Forgers of Documents,
Signatures, and Seals
Chapter VI Permits to Travel
into Other Countries
- 1. And should someone wish to travel for trade
purposes or other private matters from the Muscovite state into a foreign
country which is on peaceful terms with the Muscovite state, such person
in Moscow must petition the Tsar, and in [other] cities [petitions are
to be addressed to the local] voevodas for a travel permit. Without
a travel permit no person should travel. Voevodas in cities must
issue travel permits without delays.
- 2. If a voevoda should delay issuing a
travel permit and thereby cause delay and a loss, and then if a petition
of grievance be submitted about it [to the Tsar], and then an inquiry be
held about it, those voevodas will incur the Tsar's great anger.
And if they cause a loss they must pay it double, and this [the fine] should
go to the petitioner.
- 3. And if someone should travel into another
country without a travel permit, and having been in another state then
return to the Muscovite state, and then be reported by someone that he
had travelled without a travel permit for treasonous purposes or for some
other foolishness, such reports about illegal travels into foreign countries
without the Sovereign's permission should be thoroughly investigated. And
if an investigation should establish that a person travelled into another
country without a travel permit for treasonous purposes or other evil matter,
such person, upon investigation, should be sentenced to death.
- 4. And should investigation establish that a
person travelled into another country without a travel permit for trade
purposes and not for treason, he should be penalised by knuting,
so that others, seeing it, might learn that they should not do the same.
- 5. And in those border cities and districts where
villages of the Sovereign and villages of state peasants, and hereditary
and service estates adjoin Lithuanian or German border lands, and where
the Sovereign's lands thrust into the Lithuanian or German side or where
Lithuanian or German lands thrust into the Sovereign's side, in such case
free people and peasants living in the Sovereign's villages, or in villages
of state peasants, or on hereditary and service estates, are permitted
to travel through those Lithuanian or German border lands without permits
from one city to another; they are also allowed to meet Lithuanian or German
people; it should not be held against them that they live adjacent to those
Lithuanians or Germans who live in border areas.
- 6. Should service or hereditary nobles of border
areas hear that some of their own people or their peasants are trying to
commit treason or some other foolishness, they should notify the Sovereign,
and in cities they should also provide appropriate information to local
voevodas and bring such people or peasants before them. The voevodas
should thoroughly interrogate and investigate such suspects who had been
reported upon, using all possible means, and then should report their findings
to the Sovereign. Such people should be held in prison until the Sovereign
decides what to do with them.