Sobornoye Ulozhenie

The Sobornoye Ulozheniye (Russian: Соборное уложение, IPA: [sɐˈbornəjə ʊlɐˈʐɛnʲɪjə], lit. Council Code) was a legal code promulgated in 1649 by the Zemsky Sobor under Alexis of Russia as a replacement for the Sudebnik of 1550 introduced by Ivan IV of Russia. The code survived well into the 19th century (up to 1849), when its articles were revised under the direction of Mikhail Speransky.

The code consolidated Russia's slaves and free peasants into a new serf class and pronounced class hereditary as unchangeable (see Russian serfdom). The new code prohibited travel between towns without an internal passport. Russian nobility agreed to serve in the army, but were granted the exclusive privilege of owning serfs.

As the Time of Troubles ended, a new dynastic government, the Romanovs, commenced active law-making. An intensive growth in the number of edicts ("ukases") since the Sudebnik of 1550 can be seen from the following data:

Overall, in the years 1611-1648, a total of 348 edicts were issued, and in the period of 1550-1648, another 445 edicts. This led to the situation in the Russian state where an immense number of state edicts existed that were not only obsolete, but even contradicted each other.

This chaos was contributed to by the scattering of normative acts throughout different state institutes (traditionally new edicts were made on demand of some prikaz, and after their promulgation were attached to an edict book of this prikaz). There was also an absence of coordination in law application: a new article in this book was often known only to the statesmen of the given prikaz. Also, the casual character of legal rules was becoming inefficient. The legislators now sought to regulate legal rules, that is, to pass on to a normative interpretation of legal rules.

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