What legal code first provided tenants rights and/or covered eviction?
score:3
The relevant sections of Code of Hammurabi as per Avalon Project, and dated circa 1755-1750 B.C., are:
- If a chieftain or a man is captured on the "Way of the King" (in war), and a merchant buy him free, and bring him back to his place; if he have the means in his house to buy his freedom, he shall buy himself free: if he have nothing in his house with which to buy himself free, he shall be bought free by the temple of his community; if there be nothing in the temple with which to buy him free, the court shall buy his freedom. His field, garden, and house shall not be given for the purchase of his freedom.
...- The field, garden, and house of a chieftain, of a man, or of one subject to quit-rent, can not be sold.
- If any one buy the field, garden, and house of a chieftain, man, or one subject to quit-rent, his contract tablet of sale shall be broken (declared invalid) and he loses his money. The field, garden, and house return to their owners.
- A chieftain, man, or one subject to quit-rent can not assign his tenure of field, house, and garden to his wife or daughter, nor can he assign it for a debt.
- He may, however, assign a field, garden, or house which he has bought, and holds as property, to his wife or daughter or give it for debt.
- He may sell field, garden, and house to a merchant (royal agents) or to any other public official, the buyer holding field, house, and garden for its usufruct.
Quit-rent being "a [payment] imposed on occupants of freehold or leased land in lieu of services to a higher landowning authority": I interpret "one subject to quit-rent" as being some rough equivalent to an English-Common-Law-type serf. The degree of similarity must of course be justified by a comparison of the relevant English Common Law clauses to the comparative clauses in Code of Hammurabi.
Note that the effect of the above is a sort of bankruptcy protection. Assets used for income generation may be seized for non-payment of debts owing; with the exception of those ("the field, garden, and house") required to not be homeless and to have the means of feeding self and family.
At a more abstract level I interpret "A chieftain, man, or one subject to quit-rent" as citizenry. It is unclear to me if non-citizens would enjoy the same protections, as clearly there is a class comprising those who are none of "chieftain, man, or one subject to quit-rent"; and those would at a minimum include all those regarded as slaves.
Note that scutage (literally shield money - "money paid by a vassal to his lord in lieu of military service") is the specific English term for a quit-rent paid in lieu of military service. This suggests that a (presumed knowledgeable) translator has chosen quit-rent over scutage in the translation because it is more general and not only in lieu of military service.
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