Dušan's Code
Dusanov zakonik ( Cyrillic Душанов законик ) is a Code of Serbian Tsar Stefan Dušan.
In 1349, Emperor Dušan on a Reichstag in Skopje, the former capital of his empire, publish a comprehensive law book with 135 paragraphs. Later, the Code has been revised and there were added 136 paragraphs. The extended version was published in 1354 in Serres.
The Code is considered the first comprehensive law book of Serbian medieval state. The role of the Serbian kings and emperors as a defender of the Orthodox Church and of Christianity is well established therein as civil rights, property rights and church administration, so the public and private life. For example, widows and orphans assured that they receive social assistance. For the human rights and criminal law is relevant that defendants and prisoners of war were granted rights and torture does not occur.
The Dusanov Code also has elements of a Basic Law, which is why it is considered by some historians as a kind of constitution.
History
The Code of Tsar Stefan Dušan was, contrary to popular opinion, not the first written law book of medieval Serbia. The currently oldest known code of medieval Serbia was the Nomocanon the Sava of Serbia, which has been extended under King Milutin. The Nomocanon was mainly based on the canon law of the Orthodox Church and was friendly to the new political circumstances under Stefan Dušan inadequate. Stefan Dušan conquered large parts of the former Byzantine Empire, where for centuries the complex Byzantine law was firmly anchored.
To take this into account as well as to secure his rule, which was to unite especially the followers of the Eastern Church, enacted Dušan exact rules for public and private life, based on Old Slavic customary law, canon law, and Byzantine Empire laws. So Dusan's Code includes some comments of " Syntagma " of Maththaios Blastares ( a Byzantine monk and scholastics in the 14th century) and Codex Justinian. Also an emerging self-indulgence of the aristocracy, which was richer and more powerful under his policy of conquest, Dušan tried to counteract with his law book.
His law book should be applied uniformly throughout the empire, but in practice were most peripheral parts of the empire in the older common law or knew how the trading cities on the coast to preserve their autonomy. Thus, the new law book could prevail only conditionally, which was due to the less consistent policy under Dusan's successor Stefan Uroš and the Ottoman advance among others. Some elements of the Code, such as the position of the peasants and the Vlachs, can be find in Ottoman law later.