Laws of King George V of Georgia

THE following translation is made from a MS. of Vakhtang's Code of Laws, purchased from a dealer in Tiflis in January, 1911, which is now the property of the Bodleian Library. The MS. is in good condition and bound in wooden boards covered with stamped leather. It is on yellow glazed paper, watermarked 1746, paged from 1 to 851; and then there follows, unpaged, a Code compiled by Prince David, son and heir of the last King of Georgia, which was hitherto unknown and bears that prince's autograph with the date “November 20, 1800” and a colophon by Gabriel, priest of Anchiskhati Church, dated 1805. The size of the page is 12 by 8 inches, of the text 8 ½ by 5 ½ inches. There are eighteen lines to the page and eight folios to the quire. A note on p. 57 says it was written by Ose Decanozishvili by the King's command in 1750, but this entry seems to have been made later in lighter ink and may only refer to the index. A remarkable feature of the MS. is that certain words (apparently those about which the scribe felt some doubt) are marked “or”; this seems to show a conscientious transcription of an old original. The MS. begins with an alphabetical list of contents (paged 1-57), the earlier part of which (before ib) had apparently been lost before the pages were numbered. Then comes the usual tabular index of subjects (pp. 62-136), with references to all the sections of the code for comparative purposes, so that the laws of Vakhtang, George, the Athabegs, and the Catholicos may be compared with each other, and with Greek, Armenian, and Mosaic legislation, at a glance. On p. 142 (which bears the note saqarTvelo-s mefis Zis daviTisa aris, showing that it was the property of Prince David, son of King George XIII) is Vakhtangs Introduction, followed by the Mosaic Law (p. 147), the Greek (Byzantine) Code of Leo VI (A.D. 886-¬912), Constantine Porphyrogenitus (A.D. 912-59), and other emperors (p. 172). Between pp. 236 (art. 147 of the Greek Code) and 448 (art. 203 of the Armenian Code of Mekhitar) 212 pages are missing. The Armenian Code ends on p. 620. On p. 624 begin the Laws of the Catholicos of Georgia; p. 639, the Laws of George V (which we hereafter translate); p. 660, the Laws of the Athabegs Aghbugha and Веkа; pp. 714-851, the Code of Vakhtang and (p. 825) rules for writing judgments. All this mass of legislation is only known in Europe by hearsay. It is of extraordinary interest to students of comparative jurisprudence; and the large section which bears the name of Vakhtang, though edited by that prince in the eighteenth century, is based upon the most ancient customs of the Georgian race and might profitably engage the attention of Assyriologists. There appeared in 1828, for the use of officials in the Caucasus, a Russian translation of the Georgian Laws, issued by the Ruling Senate; but by 1887 it had become so rare that a new edition with a preface was published in that year at Tiflis by A. S. Frenkel & D. Z. Bakradze under the title Сборникъ Законовъ грузинскаго царя Вахтанга VI. A liberal use has been made of Bakradze's notes, and the Russian translation has been an invaluable aid to the interpretation of the text. From a manuscript German version of this publication Dr. Felix Holldack prepared his book Zwei Grundsteine zu einer Grusinischen Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1907). The great Georgian scholar, M.-F. Brosset, had made a complete French translation of Vakhtang's Code and sent it to the printers, but it never saw the light. Professor Maxim Kovalevsky in his Законъ и обычай на Кавказе (Moscow, 1890) has made use of Frenkel & Bakradze's edition. In Georgian there are a few monographs on the subject, including N. Urbneli's accounts of the Laws of George V and the Laws of the Athabegs. There is not even a published text with which to collate our MS. The only section published in Georgian up to the present time is that bearing the name of the Athabegs Aghbugha and Веkа (A.D. 1361-91 and 1444-51), which was incorporated by D. Chubinov in his Chrestomathy (St. Petersburg, 1863). Mr. Sargis Cacabadze has just printed on a sheet, apparently with a view to publication in some more complete form, the Laws of King George V. He does not give any information about the source from which the text is taken, but his variants are of little importance. He dates the Laws between 1325 and 1338 A.D. The Laws of George are the oldest original fragments of Georgian legislation. For the present it must suffice to present an English translation and a few explanatory notes. The reader should remember that these Laws are not those of the kingdom of Georgia, but ordinances, influenced by Georgian law and based on the customs of a remote and disorderly district and designed to pacify that district. Though of local application they are founded on those general Georgian principles of jurisprudence which were held in common by both high¬landers and lowlanders. Most of the MSS. of Vakhtang's Code contains only the legislation peculiarly associated with that prince's name. We have, however, in the Bodleian Library another complete text written in 1819 by Nicoloz Balinovi, but it cannot be compared in value with the much older text we have used. It may be added that Vakhtang compiled his Code before 1709 A. D. and that its adoption in Bokhara was recently proposed, and it is said to have been translated into the Sart language of that State for the purpose.