Charters of Merchant Guilds as the Legal Basis for the Organization and Activities of Trade Corporations of the Middle Ages

Aim. Comparison of the monument of Novgorod law of the 13 th century “The Handwriting of Prince Vsevolod” and the charters of merchant associations of German cities belonging to the same genre of writing and type of legal documents. Methodology . Comparative legal, historical, systemic and system-structural methods were applied, as well as general scientific methods of induction and deduction. Results . As a result of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that the coincidence of legal norms in organization, activity and trade allows us to perceive the statutes of Veliky Novgorod as regulatory documents that meet the best examples of European medieval legislation. Research implications . For the first time in the study of the history of the state and the law of Russia, an analysis of the early domestic entrepreneurial law of the Middle Ages was made. The materials of this article can be used in the educational process within the framework of the subject “History of the State and Law of Russia.”