On the Matter of Legislations Ideological Content in David, Son of Alavik’s "The Penitential" (Armenia, 12th Century)
The interrelation between principle of law and category of legal consciousness makes the sources of law of any epoch important evidence of basic ideas arising and developing in these eras: in principle, one could consider law as a provision of normative character that expresses the ideological content of law in a concentrated way. Thus, the study of the ideological attitudes of the era, reflected in legal norms, is of interest both for law and for history (social and political). A striking example of the reflection and understanding of the influence of moral ideas on legal behavior we could see in such medieval Armenian code of law, as “Canonical Legislations” (“The Penitential”), developed by David of Ganjak, son of Alavik between 1130 and 1139 (despite the fact that Russian and some Armenian researchers date 1130 the end of David’s work upon “The Penitential” and his death, I consider C.J.F. Dowsett’s reasoning more reasonable). So, the subject matter of my paper is ideological matter manifested in David of Ganjak’s “The Penitential.” For these purposes, I used problem, conceptual, source and historical-legal analysis. In my paper, I show that the main moral idea of David of Ganjak’s “The Penitential” is the idea of ‘purity (physical purity, purity of thoughts and actions and spiritual/religious purity) that is close connected with the biblical canons, on the one hand, and the rational views of David, son of Alavik, on the other. “The Penitential” attaches great importance to family law, civil-law relations (first of all, issues relating to usury and labor relations), as well as the actions of priests. These are all areas in which maximum purity must be maintained, which corresponded not only to the religious ideas of the 12th-century Armenia, but also to the pragmatic needs of the Armenian population of that region. I conclude that the combination of humanistic, moral and rational principles in David Ganjak’s “The Penitential”, subordinated to the dominant idea of physical, moral and social "purity" of the Armenian population, became an important milestone in its opposition to the influence of hostile legal culture and the evolution of its own legal culture. David Ganjak’s “The Penitential” contributed to the formation of the Armenian national legal consciousness, ensuring the preservation of the integrity, and identity of the Armenians, even during they stay under the rule of the Seljuk conquerors. Nevertheless, the fact that since the 12th century, the understanding of ‘purity’ was so rigidly inculcated in the legal conscience as an idea of precisely ethnic ‘purity’, although it preserved ethnicity, it limited the ability of the Armenian population of Ganjak to establish and maintain social contacts with their closest ethnic environment. Implementing into the legal consciousness of subsequent generations, such a notion of ‘purity’ (even in the form softened at a later time) could contribute to the consolidation and reproduction of intolerance in the event of difficult social conditions.