The article deals with contents, as well as social contexts and functions of sixteen laws enacted by Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina or Motecuhzoma I, the fifth ruler (ruled ca. 1440-1460 AD) of a pre-Hispanic city-state Tenochtitlan, the principal capital of the Aztec Empire. The author also focuses on the problem of Motecuhzoma I´s laws´ factual enforcement and discusses its possible limits.
The enactment of Motecuhzoma I´s laws was an important part of state formation process in Tenochtitlan. These laws reinforced the internal hierarchy of Tenochtitlan society and the privileged social position of a tiny ruling class (ruler, nobles by birth, merited non-noble warriors and their quasi-noble descendants), particularly by excluding masses of ordinary people from the exercise of political power, as well as the acquisition, ownership and public display of the so-called “prestige objects”, which were markers of a higher social status (i.e. belonging to the ruling class). Further they established a complex state apparatus of Tenochtitlan (a system of both central and local city-state administration and judiciary), which was headed by a ruler (