i.

The greatest literary and legal document of the middle ages is likely to be Dusan’s law code. Its significance to the historian is that it is a crystallization of the traditions and customs of the Serbian lands with the aim of rationalizing and streamlining them. Law in the middle ages was nothing more than this, and there is no real distinction here between law and custom except that the latter calcifies the former, making it available to all. Therefore, nothing in it is actually new, but is the remnant of the best features of law and society from all Serbia. As always, this is nearly unknown in the west, even among medievalists. It is proof that Serbia was likely the most advanced state of its time, and, as I’ve said before, it proves the “libertarian nationalist” character of the Serbian state and society.

The purpose of this chapter is to take some of the most profound features of the law code and parallel them to the culture at large. For Dusan, this code even places the written law over his personal royal command. Serbia was a state ruled by law, not the will of the sovereign. In many respects, this code is not about Byzantinizing Serb life, as some have maintained, nor is it connected with Dusan’s claim to be the Emperor of Serbs and Greeks, it is rather a means by which the nobility could be more effectively controlled, the great commission of all strong monarchies. It is no surprise that after the early death of Dusan at 48, the nobility soon rejected the code and began to rule their regions as personal fiefs. Although Serbia knew no institutions such as serfdom, it was not from lack of trying.

The main point to take from this law code is that it powerfully characterizes the central political issue of all time: the battle between royal authority, the sovereignty of both the law and the sovereign on the one hand, and the use of that against the nobility and regional elites, on the other. The code must be seen in this light. It is a reverse of the Magna Charta, a document which began the slow slide of the west into despotism and oligarchy.

In Russia, the nobility were tied to the Tsar in terms of service. Even the remnants of the boyars, decimated during the reign of Ivan IV, existed solely in respect to their service, not their ancient lineage. The comparatively poor soil and large expanse of land, as well as having no natural boundaries made the Russian nobility far more dependent on the tsar than in Serbia, though even here, the nobility continually chafed under the extreme service requirements of simply being a Russian. The nobility in Russia were often as poor as the serfs and servants on their estates, and certainly had a more difficult and dangerous career. Nobility in the Russian context was not an honor (though it was interpreted in that manner by some), but rather a very exacting responsibility and calling to defend Russian integrity.

In Serbia, this was not the case. The nobility had the wherewithal and desire to rule independently of the central authorities, even if that meant the destruction of the realm, a theme referred to repeatedly in the epic poetry, showing the salience of this divide for Serbian nation building and Serbian self-understanding. Serbia is mountainous, and Montenegro nearly impenetrable. Serbia’s fertile plains provided abundant agriculture, and in no manner resembled the bulk of central and norther Russia. These differences fo a long way in explaining some of the salient distinctions between Russian and Serbian law and custom.

In many respects, there might be a parallel between Novgorod and Dubrovnik, though the latter had a further reach and was tightly connected with Venice and other Italian city states that the famed Russian city did not have. Russia needed to control Novgorod due to the fact that, universally, the oligarchy that controlled the city had no qualms in selling the city to the Poles or the Swedes, thereby destroying a significant part of Russian territory and though cultural assimilation and Latinization. The Serbian state had a similar problem with Dubrovnik, though with far fewer resources than Moscow had under Ivan III. The exploitation of the mineral wealth in the interior gave the Tsars of Serbia a fighting chance against the costal oligarchy, though even there the port cities were needed to avoid overland routes. The control of the coastlands was, of course, then, immediately tied up with the need to control the nobility, and, in many respect, this was a significant aspect of the code, and explains the economic basis for it.

The economics, though important, do not exhaust the necessary background to read the code itself. Dusan and his predecessors, especially Milutin, had an explicit understanding that they were called to unite the Orthodox lands of Serbia for the sake of justice and the protection of Orthodoxy. In Milutin’s case, it was he who developed more explicitly the latent rationality in the legal system, and it was he who set up the circuit courts of the realm. The very fact that the Tsars of Serbia spent the modern equivalent of millions of dollars on monastic establishments prove that they strove for moral perfection and truly believed in their divine mission to protect the faith. Given the constant reality of Latinization coming from the coastlands, this desire was crystalized into a specifically Serbian form–the warrior ascetic. And it is the intersection of the warrior and the monk that this book revolves around. A unity of warrior and monk–profoundly Christian–uniting the Old and New Testament in a royal Christian society, based around the ancient tents of Orthodoxy, set against the world, represented by the amoral merchants of the coast. This was the Serbian mission, this was the explicit self-understanding of Serbia’s more far-seeing and talented rulers.

ii.

Below I have chosen a handful of the more powerful and interesting of the articles in Dusan’s code with a bit of interpretation which will connect the themes already encountered in this book with the law itself. The law code assumed an understanding of the daily routine among Serbia’s differing classes, and thus this connection needs to be made if the code is to be fully appreciated.

The monasteries were centers of learning and poor relief. They were required to have hospitals with a minimum of 12 beds. Of course, their first goal was the salvation of the souls of the monks in residence, as well as their regular flood of pilgrims. Part of this salvation was, of course, to take the words of Christ seriously on the matter of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. Christ said that nothing short of hell would result from failing to perform these tasks.

Unlike Russia, where, under Peter and Catherine, or England under Henry VIII, millions of acres of monastic property were confiscated by the state, Serbia never had a “secularization” campaign due to the high level of educational, social and religious functions of the monasteries. This is not to insult Russian monasteries, the political circumstances of the secularization campaign simply did not exist in Serbia. And Russian monasteries had a similar function to that of the Serbs regardless. Thank God that Serbia did not have a Catherine.

One can remark that this is an article that protects the merchant classes and forbids internal barriers to trade. Though that aspect is significant, it has a far deeper meaning, and that is to control the local lords who wished to use merchant capital for their own purposes. The notion of an internal barrier to trade is identical to the desire of the Tsars to control the local lords. In some respects, this article is aimed at the nobles who controlled territories along the Montenegrin coast. To forbid internal tariffs, always imposed by the local nobility, the Tsar was setting himself above them and their narrow economic interests. It might be noted that whenever central authority was weakened (after the death of Dusan, for example), the local nobles with significant trade within their realms began coining their own money, a significant statement of personal sovereignty. Coining one’s own money was likely the loudest statement of political independence, then and now. Therefore, to regulate the level of control a local lord might have over the merchants in his realm was a major step in solidifying a modicum of central control. The existence of weak tsars was disastrous for Serbia, for the country became a set of tiny fiefs, each with its own narrow interest, soon exploited by outside powers.

This article is one of the most remarkable legal statements in medieval history. It might be noted that modern societies, largely oligarchies, do not have provision such as this. Modern labor is dominated by oligarchic interests, and there is normally very little one can do in terms of redress of grievances. Here, Dusan says that a peasant, an agricultural worker (as there were no serfs in Serbia), could appeal to the Tsar himself. Workers would contract with the lord in terms of corvee (or rather, public works, also paying taxes “in kind”) and other services. If the contract was violated, one had recourse to the church or a higher authority.

This is a similar article. Again, the issue is the independence of local nobility using towns within their jurisdiction for their own purposes. The Tsar is asserting himself above them. The translation “given” is too strict here. What is being said is not a matter of serfdom, but of jurisdiction (in the same manner as a “circuit” court in the U.S.). The judges do not own what lies in their jurisdiction, but they have the power to enforce contracts there. Something similar is being said here. The peasants and other workers within a jurisdiction had the same rights as the lord before the Tsar, the only problem was that the Tsar needed to be a powerful personality in order to maintain his jurisdiction over the lords. True lordship here is not oligarchy, but rather one of service, the maintenance of unity and the protection of the church and, what is the same thing, the cultural integrity of his territory.

Again, an extraordinary article, and articles such as this prove the superiority of the Serbian legal system over all others in the middle ages (and to a great extent in modern societies). The jurors, it should be noted, were truly of one’s peer. This is not the case in western societies (that formally do not have class lines, but in reality, have class lines far stricter and unequal than anything in the middle ages, east or west). Therefore, a peasant was judged by a jury of peasants, a lord, of lords. Today, that would be the equivalent of a manual worker being judged only by a jury of manual workers sharing the defendant’s same ethnic background, language and place of residence.

Now, abuses were largely eliminated by the church acting as the foundation of the legal system. It was very rare for a Serb (or any medieval man) to swear in church and thence to lie. These men believed in heaven and hell, and everything they said and wrote reflected it. To lie in church was s sin of massive proportions. It is also significant that the law forbids arbitration, but rather only a “yes” or “no” vote be given, which is also laid out in the New Testament as the proper behavior for a Christian man.

Dusan mentions that the priest who administer the oath must by “in robes.” This is not merely a statement of contemporary fashion, but suggests that the choosing of jurors and the swearing in of the same was a liturgic event and as such was a part of the regular services of the church. Though it is not spelled out, it is likely, in the context that is spelled out, the at the confession of sins, the reception of Holy Communion and fasting were also part of the juridical proceedings, making it a sacred and liturgical function, where lying or abuse would result in hellfire, as well as–in a more mundane way–be a direct violation fo the most sacred rites of the Serbian people.

This is extremely important, for it proves that there was an appeals system of sorts. Now, modern appeals do not result in fines (much less Hell), which shows that Dusan was quite willing to hit the lord where it hurt the most, their cash flow. Keep in mind that a perper was not a unit of currency (though it could be expressed in currency) but rather a measure of production (e.g. one perper was equal to nearly a bushel of wheat). To fine a peasant jury 1,000 perpers certainly worked to maintain an extremely pure justice system, for, if Hell did not motivate them, years and years of work might.

Counter claims, the article says, are forbidden. This was another way to maintain the purity of the system. There were many biult in walls to protect agasint abuses here, far more than in the modern western systems. Here, the anger of he who he brought before a jury is dealt with. In American systems (particularly small claims) an irritated defendant is likely to bring up counter claims (often dismissed by the judge) merely out of a wish for revenge. This sort of thing is forbidden here. It is dificult ot see, given the preceeding three articles, how any abuses could have slipped thrugh the system at all.

The non-specialist will read this article, shrug his shoulders, and read on. This article, as it turns out, is one of the proofs of the thesis of this book, that unity was the central concern of all significant Serbian Tsars. Here, the coining of money by local lords is forbidden. There was not a single ambitionus fief holder who did not immediately recognize the limits placed on his power expessed subtly by this article.

Goldsmiths were the coiners of money. As a result, they needed to be closely watched by the state. As the coining of money is a major (if not the major) expression of political independence, they needed to live in an environment where they could be watched, rather than risking them being “contracted out” to lords who wished to coin their own currency, and thus centrally control the economy of their jurisdiction. The Albanian lords, mostly Latins in the pay of the Vatican, normally attempted to lure Serbian goldsmiths away from the tows to coin money to express their solidarity against Orthodoxy and for the curious form of “independence” earned under the papal Tiara. As far as the political integrity of Serbia is concerned, this article is likely the most important within the law code.

This is also a significant article in reference to the territorial integrity of Serbia. By “previous Tsars” Dusan likely here means both Dragutin and Milutin, who were major expansionist Tsars who protected the lands of Serbia against the pope and his merchants and bankers. Of course, the significance here lies in the fact that the towns could not decide their own fate, as they were part of an integral Serbian state, regardless of the specific local privileges they enjoyed. Substantial decentralization did not stretch to converting to Romanism or some other heresy. The fact that there needed to be specific forms of legal proceeding between towns meant that they were part of a larger entity that can be a middle man among various disputes between towns, their marketplaces, an importantly, their goldsmiths.

Serbia did not have “towns” or “cities” in the contemporary sense until the middle of the 19th century. “Towns” or “grad” in Serbian, were fortified areas designed to at as a military infrastructure throughout the country. A marketplace might have been situated within it, but rather, a garrison was always to be found. The population of one of these towns was no more than a few hundred, not including the retinue of the local lord who may have resided within its fortifications. By placing the litigation among towns in the hands of the courts of the Tsar was another way of saying that the garrisons found within the grad were not the personal property of the lord (and certainly, the goldsmiths were not either), but part of an integral Serbian unity.