Contract Enforcement in Russian Serf Society
نویسنده
چکیده
This paper examines questions about contract enforcement in the absence of formal legal institutions, using archival evidence for one particular rural society in pre-emancipation Russia. The evidence presented indicates that enforcement services provided by the local landlord made it possible for Russians from different socioeconomic and legal strata (soslovii) to engage in a wide variety of contractual transactions. However, this system had significant drawbacks in that the poorest serfs could not afford these services and no serf had recourse beyond the manor.
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