In the 5th century, Georgia stood at the edge of empires. It was a Christian kingdom in law, though not yet fully in practice. Politically insecure, a king’s authority depended on kinship, land, and law. It was in this period that the idea of property - known as sakutreba - was introduced into the kingdom for the first time1, with the meaning of “own-ness” or “what is one’s own”. Aside from being an integral part of statehood, property is best conceived as the natural extension or continuation of a person, as it was believed in the ancient world, from Egypt and Babylon to Greece and Rome.
Not coincidentally, the same century saw the emergence of the first Georgian script, providing a means to record, preserve, and stabilize claims that had previously rested on memory and oral customs. Few ideas reshaped societies as deeply as property rights, as an attempt to stabilize control over things through rules rather than force. Like politics itself, rules sought to substitute constant conflict by containing violence.
In an article on Early Modern French maps, I show that property is inseparable from how societies represent space: “Early European maps, such as the Bronze age Saint-Bélec slab from Northwestern France, were most likely cadastral plans for marking land use and ownership.”
This logic would later resurface in Georgia in different forms, including the cognitive assumptions behind modern digital mapping.
Professor Besarion Zoidze, a prominent figure in Georgian law, notes that “the largest number of documents that have been preserved in our archives since ancient times are purchase books” [1]. These books were records of acquisition: land purchases, transfers of peasants with land, villages changing hands, and confirmations of ownership after disputes. Writing didn’t enter the picture to explain law, so much as to secure who controlled what.
According to Georgian historian and linguist Ivane Javakhishvili, there was another term used to refer to property in ancient Georgia: sazepuro. However, it didn’t express a general concept of property, instead referring specifically to elite holdings [2]. In other words, ownership was initially coded by status.
This helps explain why Georgian law long tolerated flexible categories. As the Roman senator and jurist Javolenus Priscus warned, omnis definitio in iure civili periculosa est, or “every definition in civil law is dangerous”. Precision in a legal sense froze social realities that were still in motion and, in practice, recognition mattered more than definition.
Alongside elite property, Georgian sources also attest to sataivistao property which were individually acquired possessions gained through personal labor or purchase, which a household member could dispose of freely without consulting others [3]. Emerging by the 4th–5th centuries and recognized in early legal codes2, sataivistao ownership existed within collective household structures yet subtly undermined them. It allowed property to move with individuals, not just households, which slowly chipped away at the shared feudal household.
Only later did sakutreba come to encompass all forms of property, including movable and immovable goods, as well as material and immaterial ones, with the latter distinction emerging by the 10th century. Even then, Georgian law acknowledged these categories without fully hardening them into separate legal regimes. From purchase books to personal holdings, Georgian property law managed reality first, and defined it later.
Sources
1 - საკუთრების ცნება და მისი ექსკლუზიური ხასიათი შედარებით-სამართლებრივი კვლევა ქართული და ფრანგული სამართლის მიხედვით
2 - რა არის საკუთრების ცნება იურიდიულად და როგორ შეგვიძლია მისი დაცვა?!
3 - საქართველოს ისტორიის ნარკვევები
ex, in The Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik, the earliest surviving piece of Georgian literature.
ex, the Law of Bagrat Kurapalates