The Code of Oleron as a Source of Military Criminal Law

Abstract

In this article, the author introduces into academic circulation a historical monument of the early 12th century — the Code of Oleron (the Rolls of Oleron) by Eleanor of Aquitaine, which has not been analyzed by criminologists earlier. The genesis of this normative legal act and the forms of its objectivization are researched. The author justifies the following theses: 1) primarily, this code is a source of criminal law specifically as it is dominated by criminal law clauses, and criminal law sanctions, so it is not a monument of civil law; 2) the analyzed text can be classified as a transition from a legal norm formulated in a text format to a normative legal act; 3) this document reflects an emerging trend for proto-globalization in law; 4) the analyzed document reflects a unique correlation between the legal and the individual regulation of legal relations (the text of the normative legal act contains a permanently enlarged segment of precedent acts — we see a legally formalized open organic system with a trend for self-development); 5) it formalized a developed symbiosis of the clauses of canonical and secular public law (anathematization and criminal punishment), corporal punishments and fines, grounds for prosecution and exemption from liability); 6) it was in this normative legal act that the universal principle of the spatial validity of criminal law was formulated, in a more or less logically complete form, for the first time. Besides, such exotic corpus delicti as pilot’s fraud, coastal looting, and passive piracy are analyzed. The author presents a description and determines the vectors of influence that the Law of Oleron had on the formation of medieval law in most European states (and even Rus’). The author has also researched the specific procedural features of resolving conflicts at sea and in the coastal zone conditioned by the status of the ship’s captain and his crew, the grounds for and limits of the liability of seaport’s public officials, owners of coastal territories and their population, and the procedure for determining the methods and size of damages inflicted by the criminals, which should be compensated for.