Savchenko, D.A. “No property for the traitor”: responsibility for aiding an enemy according to the Pskov Judicial Charter

Abstract: The article concerns grounds and contents of responsibility for treason (perevet) as a first public crime mentioned in the acts of ancient Russian law. It is noted that treason was understood as secret informational and other assistance to an enemy of the Pskov city community. The evidence of guilt of a traitor was first of all correspondence with the enemy. Treason was a public state crime in a sense, that it was an encroachment upon the security interests of the entire publicly organized Pskov community. Punishments to the traitors (hanging or throwing off a bridge) were traditional for the veche and Princes justice of the North-Western Russia and it was regulated by a legal custom. At a Christian time the capital punishment (hanging or burning) for treason was sanctioned by the City Law, as included in the Book of the Helmsman. The article analyzes the text of the Pskov Judicial Charter and the chronicles, which mention punishments of the traitors. The provisions of the Pskov Judicial Charter are regarded in connection with the legal customs of the Ancient Rome and medieval China. The conclusion was made that the requirement of the Pskov Judicial Charter of “no property for the traitor” did not introduce treason as a new type of crime, and it did not establish capital punishment as a novel type of punishment. At the same time it regulated proprietary consequences of treason. The Pskov Judicial Charter provided that a criminal lost title to his property (zhivot), which was transferred to the city community. It made it impossible for the traitor to ransom himself out of capital punishment or transfer the property to his heirs. That is why treason and other types of crimes to which the rule of “no property” applied were singled out as a separate category and their legal consequences were quite similar to the “unforgivable” crimes of the Chinese medieval law and the “heritage” crimes of the Ancient Rome.

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