In the Judicial Code of 1497, compiled during the reign of Ivan III, much attention is paid to property (economic) crimes. They caused great damage not only to some owners, but to the whole society. One of these crimes is tatba, that is, theft.
Judgment Theft 1497
In this document, among economic crimes are such as:
- robbery;
- robbery;
- theft;
- embezzlement;
- the acquisition of stolen items;
- destruction of boundary signs;
- "Burn";
- plowing foreign land.
Theft, or tatba, is, unlike the other indicated crimes, not an open theft of other people's things, but secret. The word is derived from the outdated name of the thief - “thief”, which is associated with such tokens as “conceal”, “melt”, “secret”.
A feature of the legal regulation of this type of violation of property rights was that the responsibility for the theft was much more stringent than for robbery. She, along with robbery and murder, was one of the most serious crimes considered the most dangerous for society.
So, for example, in case of reconciliation with the victim, the robber could be exempted from criminal liability, but reconciliation of the thief with the victim was excluded.
In this regard, the question arises: why the tatba in Ancient Russia is a more serious crime than robbery? Indeed, today an open method of embezzlement, which characterizes the robbery, is considered more dangerous in comparison with the secret. Legal scholars see two factors here: moral and social.
Moral side
According to scientists, one of the reasons for the aforementioned view of tatba is its special immorality. During the theft, unlike an open attack during the robbery, the person whose property the criminal had encroached on could defend against him. Whereas during the summer time he had no such opportunity.
Fearing to get a rebuff from the owner of the property, the thief preferred secret actions, which spoke of his cowardice and meanness, a vicious, base character. Therefore, he deserved serious retribution.
Social reason
And also the increased punishability of theft was dictated by the social factor. It consisted in the specifics of the way of life that existed in those days, which in many respects did not resemble the current one. Today, the population is mostly concentrated in medium and large cities. People live fragmented and move from one place to another.
In the past, the vast majority of the population lived in rural areas, in very small settlements by today's standards. People’s lifestyle was characterized by sedentary behavior. All major life issues, such as land use, distribution of duties, maintaining order, mutual assistance, were resolved within the framework of a community organization.
Due to this social structure, everyone knew each other well, many were in kinship, so the appearance of a stranger in the district could always be noticed.
All of the above directly relates to the problem of punishability of the tatba. If during an open encroachment on property the victim saw the face of the offender, then otherwise the victim remained unknown to him.
In the conditions of the community, as a relatively closed social unit, this indicated that, most likely, the crime was committed by one of his own. If at that time a stranger was in the communal territory, then at first the suspicion fell on him.
Consequently, resorting to such a secret method of taking property as the tatba is a conscious step towards sowing discord, mutual distrust, and inciting each other to suspect a crime. Thus, the thief, in fact, destroyed the intracommunal world.
Qualification Issues
Speaking in modern language, then, unlike robbery, the tatba was a multi-objective crime, that is, it violated not one point of social relations protected by law, but several. Firstly, it caused property damage to an individual, and secondly, it was an encroachment on relations of a higher, social level.
The theft could be simple, without any mitigating or aggravating circumstances. And there was also a “qualified” tatba, that is, having aggravating circumstances, which was punished most severely.
The latter included, in particular, its types such as:
- Church tatba, which was the theft of sacred objects from the temple. There were also two objects of violation of rights - this is both a crime against property and against the Church.
- Repeated tatba, that is, relapse.
- The head tatba, which was understood as the abduction of a former free man to sell him into slavery.
Theft in the act
It should be noted that the situation was especially highlighted when the thief was forced into place. At the same time, the definition of a tatba red handed in the days of the Moscow state began to be interpreted differently than before.
At first, under it, as now, they understood the capture of the criminal at the place of the theft, then it was defined as what would be "taken out" of the castle from the crate. And if things are not found behind the castle, but in the courtyard or an empty mansion, then this is not partial.
Scientists have two opinions about this seemingly simple definition. Some believe that red-handed - this is the property that was stolen from under the castle, that is, the secret theft of things that were locked up. Others are of the opinion that red-handed means stolen property, which was later discovered under the lock of a kidnapper.