Apparently designed to address cases of conflict among the Rus people, the first law specified who could take revenge for a killing, limiting it to close relations, with compensation due in other cases. The next rules specified compensation for different sorts of injuries and theft, for insults, and for harbouring a slave, and gave directions about the sorts of evidence a complainant needed to bring. These rather basic laws probably reflected the sorts of problems that arose among the Rus nobility in a society still shaped by tribal loyalties.
