review_a soviet view of medieval russian canon law

7/27/2019 Review_A Soviet View of Medieval Russian Canon Law

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The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian Review

Review: A Soviet View of Medieval Russian Canon LawAuthor(s): Charles J. HalperinReviewed work(s):

Kniazheskie ustavy i tserkov' v drevnei Rusi. XI-XIV vv. [Princely Statutes and theChurch in Ancient Russia. XI-XIV Centuries] by Ia. N. Shchapov

Source: Russian Review, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Jan., 1975), pp. 78-90Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Editors and Board of Trustees of theRussian ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/127761Accessed: 07/06/2009 14:47

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REVIEW ARTICLEb1

A Soviet Viewof MedievalRussianCanonLaw

By CHARLES. HALPERNIA. N. SHCHAPOV.niazheskie ustavy i tserkov' v drevnei Rusi. XI-XIVvv. [Princelystatutesand the churchin ancientRussia.XI-XIVcenturies].Moscow:"Nauka," 972.340pp. 1.63rubles.

Sovietscholarship asgivenconsiderable ttention o thehistoryofthe medievalRussianOrthodox hurchwith mixedresults,land theresearchof Ia. N. Shchapov s partof thisdevelopment.Shchapov,asenior fellow (starshii nauchnyi sotrudnik)of the Institute of Historyin Moscow,has devoted over twenty articlesand this recent mono-graph o thefieldof medievalRussiancanon law.2In his workontheprincelystatutes ssuedto thechurch,Shchapovdrawsnotonlyupontheresearch f suchluminaries f imperial hurchscholarship s A.S.Pavlovof thenineteenthcenturyand V. N. Beneshevich3 f the earlytwentieth (to whom Shchapovdedicated his monograph),but also

1 See the review by G. J. Sheskoof N. A. Smirov, ed. Tserkov'v istorii Rossii (IX-1917 g.): kriticheskieocherki(Moscow, 1967), in Kritika.A Review of CurrentSovietBookson RussianHistory5, no. 2 (Winter1969): 12-18.2 Ia. N. Shchapov,Kniazheskieustavy i tserkov'v drevneiRusi,XI-XIV vv. (Moscow,1972). This monographwill receive the majorshareof attentionbelow; page referenceswill simply be given in parenthesis.Shchapov'searliestpublicationswere manuscriptdescriptions:"Arkheograficheskaiaekspeditsiia v Gor'kovskuiuoblast'," Trudy otdela drevnerusskoiliteratury XIV v.(1958), pp. 613-18, and SobranieI.Ia. Lukashevicha N.A. Markevicha.Opisanie (Mos-cow, 1959),which I have not seen.Presumably Shchapov's monograph derives from his "candidate's dissertation"(kandidatskaiadissertatsiia),"Tserkov'kak feodal'naiaorganizatsiiav drevnei Rusi vX-XII w." (Moscow 1964), which I have also not seen.3 Especially V. N. Beneshevich. Ustav sv. velikogo kniaziaVladimirao tserkovnykhsudakhi o desiatinakh(Petrograd,1915).78


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A Soviet View of Medieval RussianCanon LawuponSoviet worksby the juristS. V. Iushkovand sourcestudies andpublications f textsbythe late M.N.Tikhomirov ndby A. A.Zimin.4Thus,Shchapov'snterestsare a continuation f a firmhistoriograph-ical tradition,one to whichhe paysfull respect n hiswork.(Curious-ly, it appears hatno other Soviet scholar s currentlyworkingon theprincelystatutes.)In addition,one of the mostfrequenttoolswhichShchapov employs is textologicalanalysis.The unifying theme ofmuch of Shchapov's esearch s what is usuallycalled church-staterelations,aproblem o whicha Marxistapproachnthiscaseprovidesnovel insights.

Theappearance f Shchapov'smonograph ffordsa convenientop-portunityto examinehis overallcontributionbecause his oeuvre isbest seen as a whole. The evidence for manyof the generalizationsarticulated n his articles s in some casessuppliedonly in this book;the monograph,becauseof its structure, s usuallysomewhatweakerin clarifying he implicationsof his analyses.Forexample,Shchapovhas often referred in his articles to a key passage in the twelfth-centuryNovgorod tatuteof SviatoslavOl'govichwhich alludesto anolderustav"inRus'";Shchapovnterprets hispassageto refer o andhence confirmthe existence of an earlier,eleventh-century ext ofVladimir's stav.5Yetin the manuscript f the Novgorodstatute thispassagecomesbetween Vladimir's tatuteandthe Novgorodone,andthe proofthat it introduces he latterrather hanconcluding he for-mer is only supplied n his monograph p. 151ff.).On the otherhand,Shchapov's xamination f the originsof the Kievantithe, presentedin full in his lengthiestarticle to date,6 s simplyhinted at, not evensummarized,n themongraph e.g.,p. 309).Thus it wouldbe anover-simplificationo see Shchapov'smonograph s asummary f hisprevi-ous work.It seems moreappropriate,herefore, o integratethe find-

4 S. V. Iushkov, Issledovaniia po istorii russkogo prava (Saratov, 1926) and hisObshchestvenno-politicheskiistroi i pravo Kievskogo gosudarstva (Moscow, 1949);M. N. Tikhomirov, Issledovanie o Russkoi Pravde (Moscow-Leningrad, 1941), andhis editions of Zakon Sudnyi Liudem. Prostrannoi svodnoi redaktsii(Moscow, 1961),and Zakon Sudnyi Liudem. Kratkoiredaktsii(Moscow, 1961), and his photo facsimileof the Merilopravednoe (Moscow, 1961); and primarilyA. A. Zimin'swork in editingvols. 1-2 of Pamiatnikirusskogo prava (Moscow, 1952, 1953).5 E.g., Ia.N. Shchapov,"Tserkov'v sisteme gosudarstvennoivlasti drevnei Rusi,"inDrevnerusskoegosudarstvo ego mezhdunarodnoeznachenie (Moscow, 1965), p. 283.6Ibid., pp. 297-325. Shchapov's"article"encompasses pp. 279-352.

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The RussianReviewingsandconclusions f allShchapov's ublishedworkwithinasingle,albeitbrief,article.Shchapov'sattentionhas been primarilydevoted to the variousprincely statutes governing the immunitiesand privileges of themedievalRussian hurch, extsfrequentlyconsideredpartof mediev-al Russiancanonlaw,broadlyconceived.Of necessityShchapovhashad tostudy n depththehistoryof theKormchaia niga Pilot'sbook)-the Slavonic translationof the GreekNomocanon,a collectionofByzantine,South-Slavic nd later Old-Russian ivil andecclesiasticallaw, editionsof which often containmanuscript opiesof these stat-utes.7Elucidating he originand evolutionof the princelystatutes svastlycomplicatedbythestateof theextantmanuscriptmaterial.The"local" tatutes are almostalwayspreserved n a uniquelate manu-script.Forexample, hetwelfth-century molensk tatuteof RostislavMstislavovich urvives n a singlesixteenth-centurymanuscript;8hefourteenth-centuryTurov statutes in a single seventeenth-centurymanuscript.9 he "national"tatutesof grandprincesVladimirandIaroslavareeachextant nnearlyahundred, qually ate,manuscriptsno earlier hanthefourteenth entury nthe caseofVladimrir'statuteandthe fifteenth n that of Iaroslav's.l1Thetaskof analyzing he text-ologicalhistoryof such sources s a formidable ne.Shchapovhasnotconfinedhimself to using alreadyknown manuscripts;he has un-covered new manuscriptsof the Kormchaiakniga,of the Russkaia

7See Ia.N. Shchapov, "K istorii teksta Novgorodskoi Sinodal'noi kormchei," inIstoriko-arkheologicheskiibornik[ArtsikhovskiiFestschrift] (Moscow, 1962), pp. 295-301; "Novyi spisokkormcheiEfremovskoiredaktsii," n Istochnikii istoriografiia lav-ianskogosrednevekov'ia(Moscow, 1967), pp.256-76; in the latter volume "0 sostavedrevneslavianskoikormchoiEfremovskoiredaktsii,"pp. 207-15; "Varsonof'skaia orm-chaia," Arkheograficheskii zhegodnik za 1968 (1970): 93-101.Shchapov uses his reconstructionof the "literary"history of the Kornchaia knigaprimarilyto assist in dating various redactions of the princely statutes.For a Westernstudy see P. I. 2uzek, S.J., Kormcajakniga. Studies in the Chief Codeof RussianCanonLaw (OrientaliaChristianaAnalecta,no. 168) (Rome, 1964).8In general see Ia.N. Shchapov, "Smolenskiiustav kniazia Rostislava Mstislavo-vicha,"Arkheograficheskiizhegodnikza 1962 (1963): 37-47. Page 147 of Shchapov'smonographexplainswhy it was copied in the sixteenth century.9 See Ia.N. Shchapov, "Turovskieustavy XIV veka o desiatine,"Arkheograficheskiiezhegodnikza 1964 (1965): 252-73, including publicationof key passages and photofacsimiles.10 Textologicalconclusions condensed in Ia.N. Shchapov, "Redaktsiiustava kniazialaroslava Vladimirovicha,"Problemy istochnikovedeniiaII (1963): 418-513.

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A Soviet View of Medieval RussianCanon Lawpravda,"and of theNovgorod tatute.12hchapovhas alsodiscoveredhithertounknown exts ondivorcel8 nd on churchstructure14swellas reinterpretedpreviouslyknownsources.'5He is the firstto havepublished he Turovstatutes nfull.Shchapovdoes not minimize the risks in talkingabout eleventh-century sources(the statutes of Vladimirand Iaroslav)from four-teenth or fifteenth-centurymanuscripts.He admits that his recon-structionsof the textsof these statutesfor the eleventh to thirteenthcenturiesmust be consideredno more than hypothetical (p. 8). Healso rightlysuggests that the variety and number of extant manu-scriptstestifiesto the long historyof the textspriorto the centuryofthe earliest dated manuscript(p. 182). Although one might faultShchapov or seemingly orgettinghis initialwarning n the body ofhismonograph,heseriousreadercan be expectedtokeepinmindthelimitationsnherent n suchtextologicalexposition.It is convenient o discussthe monographtself first.l6Kniazheskieustavyi tserkov' drevneiRusiattemptsa thoroughgoing ource(is-tochnovedcheskii)tudyof theprincelychurchstatutes, ncluding herelationof their evolution to the substanceof medievalRussianhis-tory duringthe periodunderstudy, especiallyto church-staterela-tions.It consistsof roughlyequalsectionson the statutesof Vladimir(pp. 12-135) and Iaroslav(pp. 178-306), interruptedby a shorter

11Ia.N. Shchapov, "Novoe o spiskakh Russkoi Pravdy," Istoricheskiiarkiv, 1959,no. 4, pp. 209-11; "Novye spiski Kormchikhknig, soderzhashchieRusskuiuPravdu,"Istoriia SSSR, 1964, no. 2, pp. 100-103; "Russkaiapravda v novykh spiskakhKorm-chikhknig XVI-XVII w.," Arkheograficheskiizhegodnikza 1969 (1971): 70-72.12Ia.N. Shchapov, "Novyi spisok Novgorodskogoustava SviatoslavaOl'govicha (izsobranii E. E. Egoreva),"Zapiski otdela rukopisei Gos. Biblioteki SSSR im. Lenina,vyp. 26 (1963), pp. 395-98.13Ia.N. Shchapov, "Novyi pamiatnik russkogoprava XV v. (Zapis''o razluchenii'),"in Slaviane i Rus' [Rybakov Festschrift] (Moscow, 1968), pp. 375-82.14Ia.N. Shchapov, "Iuzhnoslavianskiipoliticheskii opyt na sluzhbe u russkikhideologov XV v.," Byzantinobulgarica2 (Sofia, 1966), pp. 199-214. Shchapov makesthe penetrating observation that recent Soviet work on the period of the so-calledSecond South-Slavic Influence, or Orthodox Pre-Renaissance,has completely over-looked the sphere of political ideas.15Ia.N. Shchapov, "Praviloo tserkovnykh iudiakh,"Arkheograficheskii zhegodnikza 1965 (1966): 72-81.16For more detailed summary-reviewsof Shchapov'smonograph, see the reviewsof J. Cracraftin Slavic Review 33, no. 2 (June, 1974): 339-41, and, for a Sovietopinion, V. S. Shul'gin in Voprosy istorii, 1973, no. 5, pp. 162-65.

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The Russian Reviewsection on the Smolenskand Novgorod statutes (pp. 136-77). The twomajorsegments are structured in reverse chronological order: that is,Shchapov begins with the latest redactions and proceeds to strip awaylater layers until he has worked his way backwards to the originaleleventh-century prototypes. To this end, Shchapov employs everyconceivable type of evidence: "pure"textological comparison (i.e.,straight philological parallel texts, as opposed to the more inclusiveconception of textology [tekstologiia] espoused by D. S. Likhachev inparticular), historical dictionaries and dialect charts, coinage andnumismatics (to which an entire subchapter is devoted [pp. 257-79]),titulature (see his original contribution to the history of the titles"grand prince" [p. 174] and "Metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus'"[pp. 217, 219]), the provenance and convoy of the manuscripts, andthe presence of glosses or linguistic modernizations. PredictablyShchapov has excellent mastery of the political history of EasternEurope during the eleventh to fifteenth centuries. On this foundationhe has prepared comprehensive stemmas of the textological history ofthe statutes of Vladimir (p. 37) and laroslav (pp. 299, 209). The book's"Conclusion"deals primarilywith certain comparativepatterns in theevolution of these two texts (pp. 307-18). Appendices chart the fate ofeach article of each statute in the major subredactions (izvody) andredactions (pp. 318-24) and list the nearly ninety manuscripts whichShchapov has consulted personally (pp. 326-27).The patience of even the most dedicated textologist might be triedin following Shchapov's intricate textological arguments, especiallysince Shchapov, but not necessarily the reader, has already foreseenhis ultimate destination, the reconstructed prototypes of the originaltexts (Vladimirstatute, pp. 120-21; Iaroslav statute, pp. 293-96). Thenon-specialist reader will probably be more interested in whereShchapov has gotten than in how he got there, and accordingly thereconstructed Kievan texts will be given greater attention here. Wewill consider several of the broader issues which Shchapov has raisedin the discussion of his articles, where not infrequently they stand outmore clearly; the more narrow findings of the monograph can bebriefly summarized here in a convenient chronological order.17

17 Shchapov presents such a chronological precis (albeit abridged) of his findingsin Ia.N. Shchapov, "Drevnerusskiekniazheskieustavy i tserkov'v feodal'nom razvitiiRusi XI-XIV w.," Istoriia SSSR, 1970, no. 3, pp. 125-36.

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A Soviet View of Medieval RussianCanon LawThe overridingquestion n the historiography f the princelystat-utes,inviewoftheirmanuscript reservation, asalwaysbeenwheth-

eranypartor all of the textscouldbe ascribed otheirproposedname-sakes,a historiographic ebatebegun by Golubinsky opposed)andKliuchevsky infavor)andcontinuing o this day in both Sovietandnon-Soviet scholarship.18Shchapov's principal conclusion, as impliedabove, is that despite the datings of their manuscripts, the Vladimirand Iaroslavstatutes do have their roots in the reigns of the princes towhom they are ascribed. Although this contention is not novel,Shchapov advances new arguments in its favor based upon his text-ological analyses. In his opinion, the oldest source of the Vladimirstatute is a charter granting the Desiatinnaia (Tithe) church in Kiev atithe of all state revenues, probably issued immediately after itsfounding in 996. The original statute per se granted a tithe to the en-tire Metropolitanate and promised the Kievan church judicial immun-ity from the grand prince and his successors. In the late eleventh andearly twelfth centuries an article stipulating the crimes subject to theexclusive jurisdiction of the church became part of the statute, to bejoined in the mid-twelfth century by an article listing the various cate-gories of "churchpeople." This by-now composite text constitutes thearchetype of all extant manuscripts of Vladimir's statute. In the latetwelfth to early-thirteenth centuries newer articles entered the manu-script tradition assigning the church the role of guarantorof weightsand measures and extending judicial immunity to monasteries andecclesiastical philanthropic institutions such as hospitals and alms-houses. Later redactions in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries de-leted, added and adjusted items to fit local conditions.

18 For a selection of non-Soviet views, which are far from unanimous (Shchapovsummarizespre-revolutionaryand Soviet scholarship), consult: the emigre RussianA. V. Kartashev,Ocherkipo istorii Russkoitserkvi, vol. 1 (Paris, 1959), pp. 194-202;the GermanJesuit A. M. Ammann,S.J., Die Ostslawische Kirche im jurisdiktionellenVerbandder byzantinischenGrosskirche Wiirzburg,1955), pp. 69-71; 2uzek, Korm-&ajakniga, pp. 121-27; the Ukrainian Catholic emigre M. Chubatyi, Istoriia khris-tiianstvana Rusi-Ukraini New York-Rome, 1965), pp. 271-73, 731; the Polish Marx-ist A. Poppe, Paitstwoi Kogci6lna Rusi w XI wieku (Warsaw, 1968), ch. 6. ChubatyiandPoppe areinaccessible to me.For a partial English translation of Iaroslav's statute, see B. Dmytryshyn, ed.,Medieval Russia.A Source Book, 900-1700, 2d ed., (Hinsdale, Ill., 1973), pp. 51-54;and for partial translationsof both Iaroslav'sand Vladimir'sstatutes, see G. Vernad-sky et al., A Source Book for RussianHistory from Early Times to 1917, vol. 1, EarlyTimes to the Late Seventeenth Century (New Haven, 1972), pp. 39-40. The head-notes in both volumes refer to these texts as of eleventh-century origin.

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The Russian ReviewThe Smolensk and Novgorod charters illustrate one theme of

Shchapov's work, the changing quid pro quo of the church and thesecular powers concerning the tithe. By the mid-twelfth century theprince of Smolensk no longer gave the church a tithe of monies ac-quired by tribute (poliude) or in fines collected by his own courts(vira i prodazha). Moreover, the Smolensk statute mentions episcopallandowning, a crucialdeparturefromthe early economy of the churchwhich will be commented on below. The Novgorod statute also altersthe tithe system, substituting a fixed sum for that portion of the tithefrom court cases no longer awarded the church and granting the arch-iepiscopal see all of the tribute from several specified regions in theNovgorod empire.Shchapov dates the prototype of Iaroslav'sstatute to the end of theeleventh or the beginning of the twelfth centuries, although he con-tends that the decision to promulgate it was made by Iaroslav andMetropolitan Ilarion. The statute consisted of some forty articles list-ing the crimes and their punishments under ecclesiastical jurisdiction,thus forming a clerical equivalent to the secular Pravda russkaia. Inthe late twelfth or early thirteenth century laroslav's statute was ex-panded by the addition of new articles; these supplemented its orig-inal contents, concerned mostly with family and marriageinfractions,with provisions on crimes against the church, such as blasphemy ordesecration of churches, and with measures against the continued sur-vival of pagan cult rites. This statute, too, underwent modificationand adaptation in later centuries, the most significant alterationbeingthe preparation of a short redaction in the late fourteenth century,probably in Moscow, which for the first time divided revenues fromthe clerical courts between the church and the princely authorities.

Shchapov points out in his conclusion that early Russian law wasnot confined to the Pravda Russkaia,but also included the "national"and local princely statutes relating to the church. The late twelfthand early thirteenth centuries seem to have been a noticeably produc-tive transitionalperiod in the history of both spheres of Kievan law:from then date significantexpansionsof both majorchurch statutes aswell as, perhaps, the composition of the expanded redaction of thePravda. It should be noted that this chronology somewhat compli-cates the usual presentation of this period of Kievan history as one of

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A Soviet View of Medieval Russian Canon Lawdecline.Shchapovconcludes hat historiansof medievalRussianeco-nomic, social,and politicalhistoryof the eleventh to fifteenthcen-turiesnowhavecause to augment heir sourceswith the valuableandconsiderablenformationn the princelychurchstatutes.'9Thisbriefsummary f the major ectionsof Shchapov'smonographcannot do justiceto the almostinfinite mplicationsof his investiga-tionsinto the princelychurch statutes and the role of the churchinthe firstfour centuriesof its existence.Discussionof a few of theseimplications,whereeverpossible n termsof his articles,canperhapssuggestthe full value of Shchapov's esearch.Perhapsthe most persuasivelyarguedconcept both implicit andexplicitin Shchapov's ttitudetowardsthe medieval RussianOrtho-dox churchis that the churchevolved, that it changed,and that itincreased n publicinfluenceandalsoin its materialmeans.The ten-acitywith which secularfactors nfluenced he church'sexistence issuperblyillustrated.20 hchapovhas shown21 hat the church pos-sessedno land before the last quarterof the eleventhcentury;beforethattime,he concludes, t musthave been completelydependentup-on grand-princelyithes (or gifts) for virtuallyall of its income. Asecclesiastical-both monasterialand episcopal-landowningbecamewidespreadandthendominantas the sourceof churchrevenuesdur-ing the twelfth century,the importanceof the tithe as a means offinancial upportof thechurchdeclined;somewhereat the end of thethirteenthor the beginningof the fourteenthcenturies, he tithe dis-appearedentirely. Shchapovexplains he increasingpoliticalrole ofthe hierarchy,so obviousin the twelfth-centurychronicles,by thechurch'saccumulationof the economicwherewithalto sustainsuch19Shchapovmakes several remarkson the more polemical (as opposed to practical)use of both "national" tatutes in the sixteenth century in his article cited in note 17(despite its title); in his review, Shul'gin mentions the necessity of studying thesestatutes more thoroughly in the fifteenth and sixteenth-century manuscripts, withwhich one can only agree.2oShchapov, "Smolenskiiustav... ," discusses the relationshipof an article in theSmolensk statute which forbids the reunificationof the Smolenskand Pereislavl dio-ceses to the political events surroundingthe election of Kliment as Kievan Metro-politan.21This materialis best presented in Shchapov, "Tserkov'v stanovlenie drevnerus-skoi gosudarstvennosti,"Voprosy istorii, 1969, no. 11, pp. 55-64.Ia.N. Shchapov, "Z istorii dav'noruskoitserkvi X-XII st.," Ukrainskii istorichniizhurnal,1967, no. 9, pp. 87-93, is inaccessible to me.

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The RussianReviewactivity.Thisis a refreshing eminder hat the churchmustfunctionin termsof the exigenciesof the world,especiallyeconomicones.Inaddition, t is ahelpfulcorrective o discussions f the RussianOrtho-doxchurchwhichassume t sprang ull-grown romthe head of SaintVladimiron his conversion, ikeAthenafromthe head of Zeus.

Shchapovhas explored,perhapsmoreprofoundly han any otherrecent scholar,the normsof marriage,divorce, and family law inmedievalRussia.22f anyconclusion tandsout, it is how longpaganriteswere retained,how long Christianityookto penetratemost ofthe population.At the sametimeShchapovexplains he gradual uc-cess of the churchby its sensitivityto, and even assimilation f, thepre-Christian ormsof theEastSlavs.Probably hemostcontroversialthesisadvancedby Shchapovs thatthetithesystem tself in its Kiev-anformderived romthemannerof financinghepaganSlaviccult.23It is universallyaccepted by scholarsthat the tithe was not copiedfromByzantium;t was unknown here.But,contrary o theviews ofotherscholars,Shchapovalsoargues hatthetithe wasneitherKhazarin origin(the Khazar ithe was a commercial ax)nor Catholic(theCatholic ithe was levieddirectlyon the population;he Kievan ithewas a tenth of the grandprince's ncome).The Catholic church inPolandused a tithingsystemsimilar o the Kievanone beforeadopt-ingthe standardCatholic ithe,whichsuggestsa commonSlavicsys-tem. Moreover,Vladimirwould mostnaturallyhave turnedto what-eversystemwasalready n use in Russia o supporthis new religion.This revisionistargument, condensed here, is, in this reviewer'sopinion,ultimatelyconvincing.

Shchapov'sdelineationof the relationof Iaroslav's tatute to thePravdaRusskaia s of considerable ignificance e.g., p. 291).Shcha-pov demonstrates hat these codes complementedeach other: thecivilprovisionsof the Pravdaandthefamilyandmarriagearticlesofthe churchstatutedo not overlap.Shchapovdoesnot emphasize-hebarelymentions n passing(p. 186)-that this analysisoffersstrikingconfirmation f the Kievanprincelyoriginof the Pravda,as opposedto eithera Kievanecclesiasticalor Novgorodorigin.It maywell be22 A short synthesis is found in Ia.N. Shchapov, "Braki sem'ia v drevnei Rusi,"Voprosyistorii, 1970, no. 10, pp. 216-219, a nugget of sympatheticsocialhistory.23 See note 6.

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A Soviet View of Medieval RussianCanon Law 87thatShchapov's riginalargumentation asonce andfor all resolvedthat thornyandhoaryquestion.It is a sad featureof ourknowledgeof medievalRusssianhistorythatthe centralproblemof Russia'sByzantine nheritance till awaitsbetter analysis.It is not that we do not have a largenumberof de-tailedstudiesofspecializedquestions,but,rather, hat anunfortunatechasmseemstoseparate hesestudies romtoomanysyntheseswhosemostprevalentvice hasbeen a plethoraof abstractions ut dimlyre-lated to concreteknowledge.24t had long been asserted,even as-sumed, hatmedievalRussian anon aw-indeed, followingSumner'soften quoted quintupleformula,all medievalRussian aw-derivedfrom Byzantine sources availablein Kiev in Slavonic translation.Thereis now, however,broadagreementthat the PravdaRusskaiacodifiedEast-Slaviccustomaryaw and doesnotdemonstrateByzan-tine influence. Shchapovhas made a modest contributionto re-evaluatingthe impact of Byzantiumupon medieval Russiancanonlaw. It has long been known thatmanyof the normsof the princelystatutes differedfrom Byzantine practice,25 ut Shchapovexplainsthesedeviations n a novelway.Thesystemof fines in Iaroslav's tat-

24 am thinking, in part because of their inclusion in anthologies for larger audi-ences, of A. J. Toynbee's "Russia'sByzantine Heritage," in his Civilization on Trial(New York, 1948), pp. 164-183, available in S. Harcave, ed., Readings in RussianHistory, vol. 1 From Ancient Times to the Abolition of Serfdom (New York, 1962);D. Obolensky's"Russia'sByzantine Heritage,"Oxford Slavonic Papers 1 (1950): 37-63, reprinted in Harcave, in T. Riha, ed., Readings in Russian Civilization, vol. 1,Russiabefore Peter the Great,900-1700 (Chicago, 1964), and in M. Chemiavsky,ed.,The Structureof RussianHistory (New York, 1970); G. Florovsky, "The Problem ofOld RussianCulture,"Slavic Review 21, no. 1 (March,1962): 1-15, also in Riha andCherniavsky.Even Obolensky'smore recent and remarkablework, The ByzantineCommonwealth(New York,1971) [for a critical appraisalsee J. V. A. Fine, Jr., "TheByzantinePolitical and CulturalStructure,"Byzantine Studies 1, no. 1 (1974): 78-84,a review article], which contains probably the most judicious evaluation of the prob-lem of Russo-Byzantinerelations to appear, does so, in view of its even more im-mense problematica,in scattered pages in a variety of chapters (e.g., pp. 180-201,223-32, 260-71, 298-300, 306-8, et passim), but is typically forced to deal withByzantine influence on medieval Russiancanon law in one page (p. 319).I. Sevcenko's meticulous textological articles are, of course, invaluable, but theclosest Bev6enkohas come to a synthesis is his historiographic article "ByzantineCultural Influences,"in C. E. Black, ed., Rewriting Russian History, 2d ed. (NewYork, 1962), pp. 141-90.25 See F. Dvornik, "ByzantinePolitical Ideas in Kievan Russia,"DumbartonOaksPapers 9-10 (1956): 97-100, which sees such variations as simplificationsin them-selves based upon Justinianiclegislation, except for the tithe, said to be Frankish orKhazar.


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The RussianReviewute is aliento the Byzantinesystemof penances(whichthe Kievansalso used)but it alsocopies the systemof the Pravda.Manycrimessubject to ecclesiasticalcourts in Rus'were undersecularaegis inByzantium. n the Kievanecclesiastical ourtsthere was no ultimatesecularofficeof appealequivalent o that of the basileus(p. 303ff.).Moreover,every survivalof or adaptation o paganism n medievalRussian awconstitutedaviolationof Byzantinenorms.Shchapovhaspersuasivelyarguedthat the model of the GreekNomocanonwasconsciously ejected n the introductiono Iaroslav's tatute.26 hcha-povconcludes hatByzantinepracticesbeganto be usedin Rus'onlyafterthey had been gradually"russified." therdifferences romBy-zantineprocedures esultednot fromsimplificationsf Byzantinepre-scriptionsbutasa resultof the impactof ahighlysophisticated ocialinstitution the church)upona less evolvedsocialentity (Kievanso-ciety). Thisperspectivemeritsattention,but Shchapovhasprobablyexaggerated omewhat.A seriouscase canbe madethat the ecclesi-asticalcanonstranslated romthe Greekwere not only accessible ntheKormchaia nigabutalso mplemented venin theearliestperiod.Nevertheless,Shchapovhas madea usefulcontributiono solvingtheproblem.27The patternof churchjurisdictionwas an intricate one. Ecclesi-asticalcourtshad sole concernoverall the population or violationsof some crimes(e.g., in family and marriage aw) and sole controlover part of the population n cases involvingany crimes, .e., over"churchpeople" (the definition of whom was not static).28In contra-distinction to these spheres of law deriving from the church'sideolog-ical, "public" unctions, its courts exercised sovereignty over peasants26Ia. N. Shchapov,"UstavkniaziaIaroslava voprosob otnosheniik vizantiiskomunaslediiu na Rusi v seredine XI v.," VizantiiskiiVremennik31 (1971): 71-78. Also ofrelevance to this problem: Ia.N. Shchapov, "Russkaia etopis' o politicheskikhvzai-mootnosheniiakh drevnei Rusi i Vizantii," in Feodal'naia Rossiia vo vsemimo-istoricheskomprotsesse [CherepninFestschrift] (Moscow, 1972), pp. 201-8, and his4"luzhno-slavianskiipyt...."27 See 2uzek, Korm&aja niga; Shchapov (in his "Drevnerusskiekniazheskie us-tavy . .") contends that as medieval Russiansociety became more "feudal," Byzan-tine canon law became more relevant; thus, by the fourteenth and fifteenth centuriesit was the Kievan codes which had become obsolete and abandoned and the Byzan-tine Nomocanonwhich became operative. This schema cannot be accepted withoutconsiderable additional argumentation.28 See in Shchapov's monograph in particular the discussion of proshchenniki,p. 88ff. and on the inclusion of doctorsamong "churchpeople," p. 93ff.

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A Soviet View of Medieval Russian Canon Lawandartisanson monasterial repiscopal ands(once acquired)on thebasisof private,patrimonialaw.Thecomplexityof thislegalactivityof the church-in conjunctionwith its involvement in protectingstandardsof weights andmeasures,philanthropicnstitutions,and asensitivityto politics-testifies to how profoundly he medievalRus-sian church was in and of this world. This descriptionprovides ahealthyantidoteto that whole metaphysicalor teleologicalhistorio-graphictraditionwhich has dealt properlybut to me excessivelyonthe "otherworldliness"nd exclusivelysacramentaland penitentialfunctionsof the churchbothinmedievalRussiaand thereafter.20

There s muchmore n thecorpusof Shchapov's tudies(onthe ab-sence of anti-Latinfeeling in the eleventh and twelfth centuries[monograph,pp. 255-57]; on MetropolitanKiprian's ole in cross-fertilizingNortheast-RussianndWest Russianredactionsof one ofthestatutes[ibid.,p.223ff.]),but(given imitationsof space)the finalissue whichwill be discussedhereis, to thepresentwriter,particular-ly provocative.The continuousfine-tuningof varioussegments ofmedieval Russiancanon law-including the tithe and jurisdictionalprovisionsof the princelystatutesas well as the complicated extualhistoryof the variousredactionsof the Kormchaia niga-the contin-uingdialogue, nshort,betweenlaw andreality,validatesShchapov'sproposition hat,despitethe absenceof records roman ecclesiasticalcourtsystem,medieval Russiancanonlaw was "active aw"(pp. 39,216).Theoperationof sucha legal structuremusthave required heservicesof"jurists,"owhomShchapovmakespassingreference e.g.,p. 311).If theconceptual rameworkn whichShchapovpresents heevolutionof theprincelystatutes s takenseriously, henwhat he hasportrayedentailsthe existenceof a legal subculture n the medievalRussianchurch,whose presence,even grantingthe absence of law-yersorlegal theory, s hardlyconsistentwith a contrastbetween theOrthodoxandLatinchurchesenshrinedn scholarship incethe mus-ings of the Slavophiles.Shchapov's esearchnot only addsa new di-

29 For a recent exposition of this tradition, see W. Philipp, "Russia's Position inMedievalEurope," n L. Legters,ed., Russia:Essays in Historyand Literature Leiden,1972), pp. 33-37. Shchapov himself has voiced this criticism of Western scholarshipon Russian church history in Ia.N. Shchapov, "Nekotoryevoprosy ideologii drevneiRusi v osveshchenii burzhuaznoi istoriografii," n Kritika burzhuaznykh kontseptsiiistorii Rossii perioda feodalizma (Moscow, 1962), pp. 215-33, which gives no hint ofany of Shchapov'sown original investigations.

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90 The RussianReviewmension o ourunderstanding f the textureof medievalRussian o-ciety and life but also,unexpectedly, peaks o issues of nineteenth-centuryRussianntellectualhistory.Shchapov'smonograph nd hisarticlesarecharacterized y a com-binationof technicalexpertiseandconceptual magination are nanyhistorian.What is particularlympressive s his persistentrefusal tooversimplify,his rigorous nsistenceon carefuldistinctions.30 e is amajorhistorian, nd onecanonlyawaithisfutureresearchwitheageranticipation. t is all themorerefreshing hathe is mininga hithertounderworkedbody of sources. He has demonstrated hat majorre-searchcan still be done on pre-sixteenth enturymedieval Russianhistory,a growingbut still modestfieldin both Sovietand Westernscholarship.31

30These same qualities of mind are evident in an article on an entirely differentsubject: Ia.N. Shchapov, "0 sotsialno-ekonomicheskillhkladakhv drevnei Rusi XI-pervoi poloviny XII v.," in L. V. Cherepninet al., eds., Aktual'nyeproblemy istoriiRossiiepokhifeodalizma(Moscow, 1970), pp. 85-119.31 While Soviet scholars have continuouslypublished articles on pre-1500 history,the number of books on the sixteenthand seventeenth centuriescomparedto those onthe earlierperiod appearing n the Soviet Union might be in a ratio of ten-to-one (thisis a sheer guess).A more suggestive statistic is the following: of American doctoral dissertationsonpre-PetrineRussianhistory to be completed within the last twenty-five years (whichis practicallyall of them), by my rough estimate those on the "highMuscoviteperiod"(1462-1689) outnumberthose on the earlier centuries by about two-to-one (approx-imately twenty-two versus nine; one or two others cross this divisionalboundary,butthe trend is obvious). Until very recently, to be a specialist on pre-Petrine Russianhistoryin the US meantone's researchfield was Muscovy.

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