SPECIFICITY OF LEGAL RELATIONS IN LUTSK IN THE 16TH CENTURY

Abstract

The legal relations of the population of Lutsk has been analysed in the article. The attention has been focused on the fact that Lutsk received Magdeburg law in 1432 under the privilege of Władysław Jagailo. At that time, Lutsk and the Lutsk land were legally an indivisible whole. The city and the castle were parts of a single social organism. The privilege of 1497 confirmed Lutsk’s “Teutonic law, which is called Magdeburg law”, and the city’s residents came under the jurisdiction of the city government (voit and councilors). In this way, the city and the castle turned into two independent legal entities. The specificity of the complex socio-cultural structure of the city’s population, which required legal regulation and affected the order of city management, its structure, functions, and the nature of relations with state and local government institutions has been shown. The legal status of Lutsk and other Volyn cities within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Rus, and Zhemaitia was determined by the spheres of Zemstvo (Grand Duchy), patrimonial (princes, lords, landed gentry), and Magdeburg (city) law. Along with them, the legal systems of ethno-confessional communities of Tatars, Armenians, Jews, Karaites, etc. operated with its jurisdiction. It has been proven that the presence of various legal systems in the city had a negative impact on the development of the economy and replenishment of the city's coffers, since the main burden of taxes rested on the townspeople of Lutsk, in particular, the Magdeburg jurisdiction. It has been proved that the presence of different systems of law and the existence of the so-called jurydykas significantly influenced the nature of social relations in Lutsk, which led to unequal relations between individual population groups. The burghers of Lutsk, enjoying the advantages of Magdeburg law, suffered from competition from landowners who farmed on the territories adjacent to the city, as well as from the residents of numerous jurydykas, which violated the rights of the burghers. In addition, the residents of jurydykas, including those of the castle, living on the territory of the city, often did not perform city-wide duties.