Kievan Rus' law
The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichians, and the Ves' then said to the people of Rus', "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it.
The prince and his druzhina defended people, decide lawsuits, provided trade and built towns.
[14][15][16] Yaroslav's Pravda of the beginning of the 11th century was the first written law code in Kievan Rus'.
[17][15][16] In the period of Vladimir Monomakh's reign at the beginning of the 12th century, the Vast edition of Russkaya Pravda was given, which contained rules of criminal, procedural and civil law, including trade, family law and rules of the bond of obligation.
[14][17][15][16] Later written secular law also included statutory charters, trade treaties, statutes of Grand Duchy of Lithuania, major codes of Muscovy – Sudebniks (see below), and other texts.
[16] Translations of Byzantine legal codes, including Nomocanon, were widely spread in Kievan Rus' (see: Kormchaia, Merilo Pravednoye),[18] but it wasn't widely applied in secular or church legal practice, restricted mainly in canon law.
From the end of the 14th century, monarchs (including the Grand Dukes of Lithuania) issued privileges – special charters, private laws aimed at ensuring the rights of individuals or social groups.
[5] In the first quarter of the 16th century, large-scale work was carried out to systematize the law of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
The main sources of the Statute of 1529 were local customary law, charters, the Sudebnik of 1468 and Russkaya Pravda.
In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the legal capacity of the poor landless service gentry was limited.
The petty gentry, who served with the pan, could not leave the service without the consent of the master and did not have the opportunity to dispose of the well-earned estate.
The law established the form and procedure for making transactions, the statute of limitations, the sequence of penalties, etc.
As security for the loan agreement, the debtor could transfer property to the creditor as a pledge (screen saver).
According to the law, the heirs of the first stage were the children of the testators and their offspring, born in a legal marriage and not deprived of the right to inherit.
However, according to legal custom, a marriage could be dissolved at the request of one or both spouses by a spiritual or secular court.
In the event of the insolvency of the debtor – an ordinary person – the court could decide on the transfer to the creditor as a pledge of his children or wife.
With complex complicity, criminals were divided into perpetrators, accomplices, instigators and could be punished in different ways.
The purpose of punishment was also to compensate for the harm caused in the form of various monetary penalties, fines and confiscations.
Innovations in comparison with the ancient Russian period were the legalized death penalty, corporal punishment and imprisonment.
The death penalty was provided for the commission of a state crime, murder, theft and a number of other acts.
Corporal punishment in relation to ordinary people included beating with a whip or with rods.
Like the Russkaya Pravda, Lithuanian legislation provided for a fine for some crimes – "guilt", as well as compensation for damage to the victims or relatives of the murdered – golovshchina.
The process was accusatory in nature: the victim or his representative were obliged to collect evidence themselves and present it to the court.
The first included: recognition of the party, written acts, red-handed detention, testimony of a certain number of witnesses, provided by law.
Villages with Rus' law enjoyed broad self-government, they chose their chiefs: tiuns, starets and even priests, who accepted guarantees for their members.
However, during this period, the old community (Verv) was split into smaller units (Hearth tax) and, under the pressure of the gentry's possessions, lost self-government.
