Shkodra statutes and Canon, as regulatory selfgoverning instruments of Shkodra and North mountain tribes in Middle Age

• Author: Vera Shtjefni
• Position: PhD Candidate
• Pages: 314-318

ISSN 2410-3918 Academic Journal of Business, Administration, Law and Social Sciences Vol 1 No 2

Acces online at www.iipccl.org IIPCCL Publishing, Tirana-Albania July 2015

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Shkodra statutes and Canon, as regulatory selfgoverning instruments of

Shkodra and North mountain tribes in Middle Age

Vera Shtjefni

PhD Candidate

Abstract

In a little-known period of development of history of the Albanian people, before the Ottoman

invasion, the life of the residents of some Albanian cities and mountain provinces was self governed

through a set of moral rules and norms of behavior accepted by all this population.ere was a

dierence of these norms in urban areas, where these self regulating roles/norms were written and

“codied”, examples are the Statute of Shkodra, Statute of Ulqin, Statute of Durres and customary

legal norms applicable in the mountainous regions of northern Albania. Statutes of the cities and

the common law or Canon served as moral, ethical and legal foundation for Albanian communities.

e rule of these norms was not imposed on these communities through force but through reason

that these customary rules were “according to conscience and common needs of the people”.

e diversity of these acts that regulate the legal and social organization of the city of Shkodra and

life of the population in Northern Mountains show that these populations, although they lived

under very dierent circumstances, had the common substrate and values of Albanian population,

which was not lost aer centuries of Ottoman rule.

Keywords: Statutes of Shkodra, Canon, Self-government, North Mountains of Albania, Law.

Introduction

e history of self-organization of social life of the Albanian population before the

Turkish invasion, aer bringing to light several historical documents, gives an exceptional

panorama of the social, legal development among centuries of the Albanian population.

Unable to give a full picture of all Albanian territories where tribes lived, this papar is only

focused in a part of the territory where Albanian tribes lived as a native population like

in Shkodra and the mountains in Northern Albania. e life of people was self regulated

through a set of rules and norms of behavior, which were accepted by all individuals of these

communities, their families, tribes and the provinces. In this context, there is a division of

these norms in urban areas, where, as we shall address below these selfregulating norms

were written, and “codied”, citing “Statutes of Shkodra” “Statutes of Durres or Ulqin”.

e statutes of Shkodra and the Albanian customary law, called by Ismail Kadare (famous

Albanian writer) as Jus Albanicae (Sinani & Çiiku, Canon and Convention, 2006, 156),

summed up the entire corpus of norms, rules and folk customs, although unwritten but

faithfully transmitted from generation to generation, serving as a general regulator of the

social organization of the Albanian people. ere is no doubt that the word canon derives

etymologically from the Greek word “canoe” [...] metaphorically marking uncodied

laws, under which once walked the ow of life and action of Albanian people.

Canon is the evidence that customary law is expressed as a rate, is the system of social life