Modifications of the Byzantine law in the Slavonic legal code 'Zakon sudnyi lyudem'

Abstract

The paper analyses the provisions of the oldest Slavonic legal code 'Zakon Sudnyi Lyudem' (the Law on the Trial of People) from the 9th century which were made by the process of reception with the modification of the corresponding provisions of the Byzantine Ecloga. Out of 19 articles of this Law which are based on the articles from the Ecloga, 17 of them contain penal norms which regulate the penal protection of other people's property, gender morality, physical integrity of personality, marriage, family and the right of Church asylum. The author has identified three types of modifications: modifications of a linguistic style (the use of words which have a closely related meaning to the words from the Ecloga, or the paraphrase of the text from the Ecloga in one's own words), quantitative modifications (shortening or expansion of the text from the Ecloga) and qualitative modifications (the essential change of the text from the Ecloga). The editors of the Slavonic legal code used qualitative modifications in order to put a mark of their time into their Law, as a personal evaluation of the appropriateness of concrete modifications, and they tried to satisfy the real or assumed needs of their social reality. Many qualitative modifications were conducted with the aim of affirming and establishing Christianity as a newly appropriated official religion in that region, and also with the aim of repressing the heritage of the pagan customary law.