The Cathedral Code is the code of laws of Russia, which was approved by the Zemsky Cathedral during 1648-1649. It was adopted during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. This commission was drafted by a commission led by Prince N.I. Odoevsky. As a basis for the creation of the code, the Code of Laws of 1550, the books of the Robbery, Zemsky, Local Orders, collective petitions of posad people, provincial and Moscow nobles, as well as the Book of Presents and the Lithuanian Statute were used. In general, the Cathedral Code includes 25 chapters and 967 articles that deal with issues of state criminal and property proceedings and law.
Several chapters address issues related to public law. The first chapters define the term “state crime”, which implied an action that is directed against the power of the monarch and the personality of the king. Participation in a criminal act and conspiracy against the king, governor, boyars and ordered people was punished with death without any mercy.
The Council Code in the first chapter describes the protection of the interests of the church from the rebels, the protection of the nobility even when they kill peasants and slaves.
The difference in fines for insulting speaks of
social inequality and Russia's protection of the interests of the ruling class: for insulting a peasant, it was supposed to pay two rubles, a person drinking - a ruble, and persons belonging to a privileged estate - up to 80-100 rubles.
The chapter "Court on the Peasants" includes articles that formalized serfdom and established the eternal hereditary dependence of peasants. In this chapter, the school years were canceled to search for runaway peasants, a large penalty was established for harboring the runaway. The Council Code took away from the landowner peasants the right of judicial representation in relation to property disputes.
In accordance with the chapter "On Posad People", private settlements in cities were liquidated, people who had previously been exempted from taxes were returned to the taxable estates . The judicial code provided for the search for fugitive posad people, the population of the posad was taxed. The chapters "On the estates" and "On the land of the land", which are devoted to land tenure by the nobles, talk about the enslaved servants.
The Council Code contains an extensive chapter "On the Court", which examines legal proceedings. She regulated in detail the procedure for conducting investigations and conducting legal proceedings, determined the amount of court fees and fines, covered issues of intentional and intentional crime, and regulated disputed cases regarding property.
The structure of the armed forces of the state is considered in the chapters "On the Service of the Warriors of the Moscow State", "On Streltsy", "On the Atonement of Prisoners of War." The conciliar code, briefly described in this article, was an important stage in the formation of serfdom and autocracy. It was the main law in the Russian state until the middle of the XIX century.