Sudebnik of 1497

The Sudebnik of 1497, also known as the Sudebnik of Ivan III, was a law code issued by Ivan III, ruler of Moscow, to unify and centralize the legal system of the emerging Russian state. It replaced the separate charters of the individual Russian principalities with a single framework, drawing on the earlier Russkaya Pravda and regional judicial charters while adding provisions on sedition, sacrilege and slander and defining court structure and competence. It also regulated peasant relations, introducing a fee for peasants leaving the service of their lord and fixing November 26 as the single date across Russia when peasants could change masters, and it remained in force until the Sudebnik of 1550, issued under Ivan IV, replaced it. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/