Очная ставка в средневековых правовых сводах

Российский юридический журнал. 2025. № 1(160). С. 171–181.

Loshkareva M. E., Рязанов П. А.

Confrontation and oath are the oldest types of evidence in criminal proceedings. The legal texts of the European Middle Ages often mention the procedure of finding an unscrupulous purchaser of stolen property through a series of confrontations. The dichotomy of confrontation and oath is a direct consequence of the requirement of good faith in concluding a transaction, namely compliance with the form of the contract and fulfilment of obligations. In Slavic legal systems this procedure was called “svod”. The article is devoted to the analysis of norms about the svod, present in the texts of barbarian codes, Russian Pravda and other Slavic judicial texts, Scandinavian and British monuments of law. Especially interesting is the textual similarity of Russian sources with Scandinavian and Welsh sources in the part of conducting the process only up to the third seller, which on the one hand is difficult to explain by mere coincidence, and on the other hand it seems impossible to assert the fact of borrowing. The similarity of the customs might be the result of the manifestation of features inherent in medieval legislation: pragmatism and symbolism. The procedure was not supposed to be endless, especially when going beyond the judicial district’ borders, but it had to acquire a symbolic completion. 

Keywords: добросовестность, очная ставка, symbolism, confrontation, судебный процесс, theft, кража, символизм, good faith, judicial process, medieval legal codes, средневековые правовые своды