Great Muscovite Law Code

( 1649 ) Commentary by Brian Bonhomme, Youngstown State University

“If believers in non-Orthodox faiths, of whatever creed, or a Russian, casts abuse on the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, or on the Lady Most Pure Who gave birth to Him, our Mother of God the Chaste Maiden Mary, or on the Holy Cross, or on His Holy Saints: rigorously investigate this by all methods of inquiry. If that is established conclusively: having convicted the blasphemer, execute him by burning him [in a cage].” - Chapter 1, Article 1
“Having hunted down those fugitive peasants and landless peasants of the sovereign, cart them [back] to the sovereign's court villages and to the rural taxpaying districts, to their old allotments as [registered in] the cadastral books, with their wives, and with their children, and with all their movable peasant property, without any statute of limitations.” - Chapter 11, Article 1
“Return fugitive peasants and landless peasants from flight on the basis of the cadastral books to people of all ranks, without any statue of limitations.” - Chapter 11, Article 2

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