Zakon Sudnyi Liudem
The Zakón Súdnyi Liúdem is the oldest preserved Slavic legal text. Its source was Byzantine law and it was written in Old Church Slavonic in the late ninth or early tenth century.
The oldest version contains thirty chapters primarily of penal law adapted from the Ecloga. Parts of this version are word-for-word translation of the source.
The place of origin of the Zakón Súdnyi Liúdem is a topic of controversy. It has been assigned to Great Moravia, the First Bulgarian Empire or Macedonia. Its English translators, Dewey and Kleimola, prefer the Moravian theory. Despite its origins, all surviving manuscripts come from Russia. The text itself seems to have reached Russia before the end of the tenth century. It was widely copied in Russia and has some influence on Russian law, but outside of Russia it was forgotten.Literature
Editions
- Закон судный людем краткой редакции, М., 1961.
- Закон судный людем пространной и сводной редакции, М., 1961.
- H. W. Dewey and A. M. Kleimola, eds. Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem . Ann Arbor, 1977.
Contains an English translation.
