Statutes of Lithuania in the everyday life in the middle of the XVIth century

The 6 documents which belong to the archive fund Nr.239 (West Russian acts) of Russian National Library Manuscript department (St. Petersburg) and refer to Ukrainian Chortoryisky Dukes family. The guidelines of the First and Second (1566) Statutes of Lithuania are mentioned there. The three documents (which date back to March 8, 1557, February 22, 1563 and July 1, 1564) concern the crime cases and are connected with the attacks against the belligerent nationals and illegal land seizure during the rule of Duke Ivan Fedorovych Chortoryisky. In the first two cases Vasyl-Kostantyn Ostrozkyi and his Stepan` sivil servant and in the second case princess Beata from Kostelets and her court nobility Rupsha were supposed to be sued. Other three documents consider the period of the Second Lithuanian Statute functioning in 1566. In particular, we have two letters by Novgorod voivode Ostafii Ivanovych Hornostai addressed to his wife, princess Olena Ivanivna Chortoryiska (December 7, 1568). At first, he has signed one third of all his mansions that cost 4000 kips away to Olena in the frameworks of the gentry’s law and the Statute. In another letter the voivode bequeathed the amount of money mentioned above to his wife in the case of his death. Furthermore, on December, 20, 1568 O. Hornostai borrowed 3000 kips from O. Chortoryiska in the frameworks of the gentry’s law and the Statute and gave a few mansions in pledge