The Charter of Kotor – a source of medieval urban law on the territory of Montenegro

Abstract

The article is dedicated to highlighting the sources of codification and analysis of the content of the Charter of Kotor – a town located on the shore of the Kotor Bay of the Adriatic Sea. It is emphasized that the oldest norms contained in the Kotor Statute date back to 1301, although it should be borne in mind that before the publication of its codified text, printed in Venice in 1616, the compilers did not include some previous decisions, and therefore it is assumed that this the monument of law goes back to even more ancient times. It was emphasized that the sources of codification were, first of all, norms originating from the city self-government bodies, as well as the practice of judicial bodies. In addition, the norms of customary law and the norms of the law of the Republic of Venice obviously had a significant impact on the codification. The canon law of the Catholic Church had a certain influence on the Statute of Kotor. The entire text is divided into four parts, which, in turn, consist of sections.
 Attention was drawn to the fact that the text of the Charter contained a number of norms that determined the legal status of certain population groups. The local aristocracy (nobility, nobility) was a closed state that constituted the ruling elite; its representatives held all the highest administrative positions.
 It is noted that the Kotor Charter has clearly defined the system of authorities and city management. A prominent place among the norms of law included in the Charter was occupied by norms of an administrative nature. They regulated the most diverse spheres of life of the population. A certain part of the document consists of norms regulating fiscal relations.
 It was emphasized that lively trade was carried out through Kotor. Obviously, taking into account the need to regulate relations of an obligatory nature in the first place, a significant number of norms regulating civil-law relations were included in the Charter. The statute also provides an opportunity to create an idea about crimes and punishments for them, about the some features of Kotor’s procedural law.