XVII. Laws of King George V, of Georgia, surnamed “The Brilliant” From the Bodleian Ms. of the Code of Vakhtang VI, Formerly the Property of Prince David of Georgia

The following translation is made from a MS. of Vakhtang's Code of Laws, purchased from a dealer in Tiflis in January, 1911, which is now the property of the Bodleian Library. The MS. is in good condition and bound in wooden boards covered with stamped leather. It is on yellow glazed paper, watermarked 1746, paged from 1 to 851; and then there follows, unpaged, a Code compiled by Prince David, son and heir of the last King of Georgia, which was hitherto unknown and bears that prince's autograph with the date “November 26, 1800” and a colophon by Gabriel, priest of Anchiskhati Church, dated 1805. The size of the page is 12 by 8 inches, of the text 8½ by 5½ inches. There are eighteen lines to the page and eight folios to the quire. A note on p. 57 says it was written by Ose Decanozishvili by the King's command in 1750, but this entry seems to have been made later in lighter ink and may only refer to the index. A remarkable feature of the MS. is that certain words (apparently those about which the scribe felt some doubt) are markedor; this seems to show a conscientious transcription of an old original. The MS. begins with an alphabetical list of contents (paged 1–57), the earlier part of which (before) had apparently been lost before the pages were numbered. Then comes the usual tabular index of subjects (pp. 62–136), with references to all the sections of the code for comparative purposes, so that the laws of Vakhtang, George, the Athabegs, and the Catholicos may be compared with each other, and with Greek, Armenian, and Mosaic legislation, at a glance.