The Kanun (also , other names include ) is a set of Albanian traditional customary laws, which has directed all the aspects of the Albanian tribal society..
For at least the last five centuries and into the present, Albanian customary laws have been kept alive only orally by the tribal elders. The success in preserving them exclusively through oral systems is an indication of ancient origins. Strong pre-Christian motifs mixed with motifs from the Christian era reflect the stratification of the Albanian customary law across various historical ages. The Kanun has held a sacred – although secular – longstanding, unwavering, and unchallenged authority with a cross-religious effectiveness over the Albanians, attributed to an earlier pagan code common to all Albanian tribes. The Albanian Kanun is regarded as a literary monument of interest to Indo-European studies, reflecting many legal practices of great antiquity with precise echoes in law codes of other Indo-European peoples, potentially inherited from the Proto-Indo-European culture.
Throughout history, Albanian customary laws have been changed and supplemented with new norms, in accordance with certain requirements of socio-economic development. Besa and nderi (honour) are of major importance in Albanian customary law as the cornerstone of personal and social conduct.
The first known codification of Albanian oral customary law was published by the Ottoman administration in the 19th century. Several regional Albanian customary laws have been collected and published during the 20th and 21st centuries, including The Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini, The Kanun of Skanderbeg and The Kanun of Labëria. During the years of the communist regime, the Albanian state abolished by law the customary practices. However, their exercise returned after the 1990s as a result of the collapse of state institutions in Albania and in Kosovo. In Albania, in particular, the exercise of customary law was observed especially in matters related to property law.
Name The term kanun comes from the Arabic word that means 'law', that was adopted into Ottoman Turkish. It originally comes from the early Greek word"" ("canon"), meaning amongst others "pole" or "rule".κανών, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus The term was then used in Albania during the Ottoman rule. It was so widely used among Albanians that when something was legal it was said to be "kanun", and when not legal, "the kanun doesn't give it". The consuetudinary law was called "kanun". Baroness Von Godin thought it was the Ottomans that gave the name kanun and that the Albanian name Lek (Latin lex) was only later perceived as a proper name attributed to late Medieval nobleman of the Dukagjini family.
Aside from the term kanun other words of Turkish extract were used (usull, itifak, adet, ) or in the Albanian periphrase "rrugë" or "udhë" (way or path). In Martanesh and Çermenikë it was known as "kanun", in Toskëria it was known as "The Kanun of the Adet", in Labëria "The sharte of Idriz Suli", in the Bregu district Venomet e Himarës. but in Dibër, Kurbin, Bendë and Tamadhe it was called zakon (from slavonic законъ). According to Çabej, Camaj and Schmidt-Neke, the oldest Albanian word by which the customary law was known was doke, meaning "custom", "usance", "tradition" in Albanian.
Origin
The Albanian customary law is among the Albanian literary monuments that are of interest to Indo-European studies, reflecting many legal practices of great antiquity that are shared with law codes followed by other Indo-European peoples, potentially inherited from the Proto-Indo-European culture. It has been pointed out that "The laws governing such matters as hospitality, the rights of the heads of households, marriage, blood-feuds and payment of damages find precise echoes in Vedic India and ancient Greece and Rome".
The stratification of the Albanian oral customary law across the various historical eras is reflected in its powerful pre-Christian motifs mixed with motifs from the Christian era. The Albanian Kanun contains several customary concepts that have their origins in pagan beliefs, including in particular the ancestor worship, animism and totemism, which have been preserved since ancient times. Comparing the Albanian Kanun of the Mountains with the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Japanese scholar Kazuhiko Yamamoto has concluded that the basic ethical concepts of the stateless social structure of the Homeric Age — 'faith', 'honor', 'blood', 'revenge', 'food', and 'guest' — are the same customary concepts of the Albanian tribal society. British anthropologist and writer Edith Durham has suggested that the Albanian Kanun likely dates back to the Bronze Age culture. Others further have conjectured that it may be the continuation of ancient Illyrian tribal laws.
Over time, Albanian customary laws have undergone their historical development, they have been changed and supplemented with new norms, in accordance with certain requirements of socio-economic development emerged throughout the ages: Classical antiquity, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman periods. Some scholars have defined the Albanian Kanun as a set of traditions which are more or less ancient and widespread in the Balkans and in the Mediterranean area, however it should be considered independently as a "customary code and a normative heritage" of a people who, on the basis of their own social sense, have created a legal system that was autonomous from the law enforced by the various conquerors. In other words, it can be defined as a 'constitution' of a stateless social system.
For at least the last five centuries and until today, the Kanun has been kept alive only orally by Albanian tribal elders. The success in preserving them exclusively through oral systems is an indication of ancient origins. In his codification of the Kanun Shtjefën Gjeçovi added footnotes in reference to the Roman law, and an earlier indigenous legal system that survived the Roman occupation can be seen in the doke.
History Albanian customs have been handed down through traditional memory systems that have survived intact into modern times in Albania, a phenomenon that is explained by the lack of state formation among Albanians and their ancestors – the Illyrians, being able to preserve their "tribally" organized society. This distinguished them from civilizations such as Ancient Egypt, Minoans and Mycenaeans, who underwent state formation and disrupted their traditional memory practices. According to some historical sources, the government of the Roman and Byzantine empire had to recognize autonomous customary laws to the various local communities for their self-administration. In this context, during different periods, Albanian customary laws were implemented in parallel with Roman, Byzantine, Ecclesiastic, and subsequently Sharia and Ottoman laws. This helped the Albanian mountain tribes to preserve their way of life, identity, and neutrality in the face of external centralizing administration.
In the context of religious perceptions, historical sources confirm the relations between the Greco-Roman religious ethics and the Albanian customary laws. These relations can be seen during the rule of the Illyrian emperors, such as Aurelian who introduced the cult of the Sun; Diocletian who stabilized the empire and ensured its continuation through the institution of the Tetrarchy; Constantine the Great who issued the Edict of Toleration for the Christianized population and who summoned the First Council of Nicaea involving many clercs from Illyricum; Justinian who issued the Corpus Juris Civilis and sought to create an Illyrian Church, building Justiniana Prima and Justiniana Secunda, which was intended to become the centre of Byzantine administration.
The Byzantine Empire ruled over Albanians for a long period of time, exercising with its institutions influence on the Albanians as well as on other Balkan ethnicities such as the Serbs. In the 11th century, the Albanioi are mentioned, having the same legal status (isopoliteia) as the Byzantines.
In the late Middle Ages Albanian cities codified statutes that included regulations from ancient local customary laws, developing their own legal tradition and achieving a form of local self-administration.. In the Statutes of Scutari the verb bessare is thought to be a trace of Old Albanian, thence viewed as in relation to an early evidence of the Albanian institution of Besa. Historical sources from Ragusa mention "the Albanian customs of the Balsha". It has been argued that an article in Dušan's Code can be considered speculatively as an early attempt to clamp down on the self-administered Albanian customary law of the mountains, and if so, this would be an early evidence that such customary laws were in effect. Syrja Pupovci argues that although there is some similarity between the regulations made in Dušan's Code and the Kanun, concerning the legal matters related to the pastoral communities. The Kanun developed independently of the influences of the Dušan's Code. However, she does not exclude the possibility of mutual influence of similar tribal laws among the tribes of Montenegro and Herzegovina.
In 1492, the Sublime Porte officially recognized Himara its own customary law () for self-government, as it was the center of the Labëria uprisings against the Ottoman Empire. When the Ottoman administration became acquainted with the social organization of the Albanian lands, around 1550 they mentioned the local customary law as Canun of the Mountains (). In the 17th century an anonymous prepared a study in the Venetian language: Informazioni sopra origine e metodo delle arbitrarie in affari di sangue in Albania (sec. XVIII) interessante pei costumi (Reale Archivio Generale, Cancelleria Secreta, Cattaro e popolazioni confinarie) (Information on the origin and method of arbitration in the matter of blood-taking in Albania), addressed to the Republic of Venice in order to harmonize the state laws of Venice with the Kanun of the Albanians in the area from Kotor to Shkodra where the rule of the Venetian administration extended. The Venetian Senate did not approve the study because no other law was to be recognized in its provinces. In the same century, some English travelers who visited Himara wrote about a strong customary law implemented by the local population.
In his autonomous Pashalik, the Albanian ruler Ali Pasha enforced his own laws in addition to the Sharia for Muslims and Canon law for Christians, allowing only in rare cases the usage of local Albanian tribal customary laws. After annexing Suli and Himara into his semi-independent state in 1798, he sought to organize the judiciary in every city and province according to the principle of social equality, enforcing his laws for the entire population, both Muslims and Christians. To limit blood feud killings, Ali Pasha replaced blood feuds (Albanian: gjakmarrje) with other punishments such as blood payment or expulsion up to the death penalty. Ali Pasha also reached an agreement with the Kurveleshi population, not to trespass their territories, which at that time were larger than the area they inhabit today. Since the 18th century and continuously, blood feuds and their consequences in Labëria have been limited principally by the councils of elders. The mountain region of Kurveleshi represents the last example of a tribal system among southern Albanians, which was regulated by the Code of Zuli (Albanian: Kanuni i Papa Zhulit/Zulit or Kanuni i Idriz Sulit).