Dušan's Code
Dušan's Code Душанов законик Dušanov zakonik | |
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Code ) |
Dušan's Code (
Background
On 16 April 1346 (
History
The Code was promulgated at a state council on 21 May 1349 in
It had a total of 201 articles. Four of them (79, 123, 152, 153), regarding various subjects, refers to the authority of the "Law of the Sainted King" (i.e.
Composition
The first part, the Syntagma, was an encyclopedic legal collection, provided in alphabetical order. It drew from religious and secular law; ecclesiastical articles made up a majority of the Byzantine original.[5] The version of Dušan's manuscripts contained only a third of the original Greek version; it omitted most of the ecclesiastical material and contained mainly secular articles; Serbia already had an ecclesiastical code in St. Sava's Nomocanon.[5] The secular articles of the abridged Serbian version of the Syntagma were drawn chiefly from Basil I's law code and the Novella's of Emperors who succeeded him; they focused on laws governing contracts, loans, inheritance, marriage, dowries etc. as well as on matters of criminal law.[5] The second part, the Law of Justinian, was actually a shortened version of the 8th-century Farmer's Law, a code settling problems and disputes among peasants within a village.[5]
The third part, Dušan's Code, added what was not covered in the other two parts and specific Serbian situations.[5] Since aspects of civil and criminal law were well covered in the two parts, Dušan's articles concerned with public law and legal procedures.[5] The Code also provided more material on actual punishments; in which there is a strong Byzantine influence, with executions and mutilations frequently replacing Serbia's traditional fines.[5] It touched on crimes or insults and their punishment; settlement of civil suits (including ordeals and selection and role of juries); court procedure and judicial jurisdictions (defining which cases to be judged by which bodies among Church courts,[6] the Emperor's court, courts of the Emperor's circuit judges, and judgement by a nobleman); and rights and obligations, including the right to freely carry out commerce (articles 120, 121), tax obligations (summary tax and timeframe to pay), grazing rights and their violation, service obligations to the Emperor, exemption from state dues (usually for the Church), obligations associated with land, and the obligation of the Church to perform charity.
The code also defined the different types of landholding (specifying the various rights and obligations that went with various categories of land), the rights of inheritance, the position of slaves, and the position of serfs. It defined the labor dues serfs owed to their lords (article 68) but also gave them the right to lay plaint against their master before the Emperor's court (article l39). The code also noted the special privileges of foreign communities (e.g. the Saxons).[7]
Many articles regarded the Church's status, thus supplementing the existing canon law texts. The Church received a very privileged position, on the whole, though it was given the duty of charity in no uncertain terms: "And in all churches the poor shall be fed ... and should any one fail to feed them, be he Metropolitan, bishop, or abbot, he shall be deprived of his office" (article 28). The code also banned simony. A clear-cut separation of Church and state was established in most matters, allowing Church courts to judge the Church's people and prohibiting the nobility from interfering with Church property and Church matters.[7]
Dušan's Code did not look favorably upon the Catholic Church, though he, as his predecessors, was friendly and respectable to foreign Catholics (Saxons and coastal merchants).
The code defined and allowed court procedure, jurisdictions, and punishment to depend upon the social class of the individual involved, supporting the existing class structure.[7] Articles touched on the status in society and in court of clergy, nobility, commoners, serfs, slaves, Albanians and Vlachs (the latter two for their pastoralist lifestyle, than for ethnic reasons), and foreigners.[7] The Code also guaranteed the authority and income of the state; it contained articles on taxes, obligations associated with land, and services and hospitality owed to the Emperor and his agents.[7] Greek, "Latin" or Italian, Ragusan, Bulgarian, Vlach, Albanian and Serbian merchants can freely trade without interference and in transit they are free to transfer their goods.[8]
Articles like the ones just cited [Article 158] are also valuable sources on Serbian social history. However, they must be used with caution. For a series of laws is not the same type of source as a visitor's description of a society. A law code does not describe how things actually functioned but only how they ought to have functioned. In some cases articles may have been based on customary laws; in such cases the articles' contents were probably generally observed or practiced and thus can be taken as evidence about actual practices and conditions. However, an article could also reflect an innovation, a reform the ruler was trying to bring about through legislation. In this case it would not have reflected existing customs and we must then ask, was the ruler successful in realizing his reform or did it remain a dead letter? Thus a law code may at times more accurately depict an ideal than reality. And since certain—perhaps many—articles in Dusan's code may have been attempts to legislate change, attempts which may or may not have been successful (and even if successful in one place, possibly not in others), we must always be careful and avoid leaping to the conclusion that this or that article describes the way things were done in fourteenth-century Serbia.
The Code also maintained law and order, not limiting itself against crime and insults, but also gave responsibility to specific communities; it stated the existing custom that each territory was responsible and liable for keeping order; e.g. a frontier lord was responsible for defending his border: "if any foreign army come and ravish the land of the Emperor, and again return through their land, those frontier lords shall pay all [the people] through whose territory they [the army] came." (Article 49).
The monarch had wide autocratic powers, but was surrounded and advised by a permanent council of magnates and prelates.
The legal
Peasants
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Dušan's Code is one of few sources on the position of Serbia's peasants.[12]
Commoners shall have no council. If anybody is found participating in council, let his ears be cut off, and let the leaders be singed.[13]
— On the Commoners Council
One aspect is the treatment of the position and rights of Serbia's peasants. In the context of the medieval social structure, peasants were the commoners who engaged in agricultural work and formed a substantial part of the population. Commoners, who were the peasants, were not allowed to form or participate in any council. Those found to be involved in any council-related activities were subjected to severe punishment. The code prescribes that the punishment for participating in a council would be cutting off the offender's ears, while the leaders or organizers of such councils would be subjected to singeing.[14]
Legacy
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The code continued as the constitution under the rule of Dušan's son, Stefan Uroš V, and during the fall of the Serbian Empire, it was used in all provinces. It was officially used in the successor state, Serbian Despotate,[15] until its annexation by the Ottoman Empire in 1459. The code was used as a reference for Serbian communities under Turkish rule, which exercised considerable legal autonomy in civil cases.[15] The code was used in the Serbian autonomical areas under the Republic of Venice, like Grbalj and Paštrovići.[16]
Noel Malcolm has argued that an article in Dušan's Code can be considered speculatively as an early attempt to clamp down on the self-administered Albanian customary law of the mountains (Kanun), and if so, this would be an early evidence that such customary laws were in effect.[17]
Dušan's Code regulated all social spheres, thus it is considered the second oldest preserved constitution of Serbia. The original manuscript is not preserved, but around twenty copies of the transcript, ranging from the 14th to the 18th century, remain.
Manuscripts
Saint Mark Koriški Monastery, to where he brought several important books.[19] In 1859, Prizren teacher Nikola Musulin found the Dušan's Code there, and in 1860 the Saint Archangels Charter was found in the St. Nicholas Church in the village of Koriša.[18]
Today 24 manuscripts of Dusan's Code are known. The oldest extant is the Rakovac manuscript, dating to around 1700, comprises only the last 12 articles and the Emperor's comments.
Quotes
See alsoReferences
Sources
External linksWikimedia Commons has media related to Dušan's Code.
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