Sale and purchase of real estate in ancient Russian law

Abstract

Contract on sale and purchase of real estate is one of the most important obligation contracts, which needs to be concluded in writing. In the ancient Russian law, it was regulated by several provision of the Pskovska Sudna Gramota (PSG), a collection of normative acts of Medieval Russia (1397-1467). Numerous preserved and published ancient Russian sale and purchase private law documents confirm that the mentioned PSG provisions were applied in practice. In the ancient Russian law, they were known as the 'kupche gramote' (sale and purchase documents). Over 120 preserved documents are the best testimony of the fact that the written sale and purchase of real estate contracts were being concluded. It mostly refers to the cities of Novgorod and Pskov, the two significant centers in the north-west of Russia, which enjoyed a high level of autonomy from the central authorities. The majority of documents had the unified structure and the standardized legal form by which they were written.