Court agents in Russian civil proceedings from ancient times to the digest of laws of the Russian empire of 1832

The paper examined the origins of court agents in Russian civil proceedings from ancient times to the Judicial Reform of 1864. This approach allowed one to reveal that court agents were a party to civil legal proceedings in Old Russia, determine their powers, describe types of court agents taking part in such legal proceedings as frontier justice later replaced by a trial by combat, which was in force up to the adoption of the Council Code of 1649. The identification of a party to trial by combat in a frontier justice and a trial by combat made it possible to distinguish the characteristics of a court agent in Old Russia. Further research on the sources of Russian civil procedure revealed the disappearance of the oldest forms of legal proceedings and discovered a new court agent, types and powers of court agents. Legal and historical study of court agents in the pre-reform period resulted in new findings about the signs of the pre-reform court agents which had not been previously considered.