This manual for the study of the history of Russian law of the imperial period (the era of Peter III and Catherine the Great) is a publication by the privat-docent of St. Petersburg Imperial University V. M. Gribovsky of a number of legal documents, including: Manifesto on granting liberty and freedom to the entire Russian nobility (1762) of Peter III, who freed the nobles from compulsory military service and thereby finally strengthened the privileges of the nobility as a class; and the Order of Empress Catherine II, given to the commission on the composition of the draft new Code (1767), which defines the basic principles of state structure and administration.