Characteristics of the position of the great princes in the ancient Russian state. Boyar estate - ancestral land tenure of feudal lords Land laws of the mid-16th century

), which, along with the obligatory hereditary nature of ownership, distinguished patrimony from benefice, manor and estate.

The votchina differed in economic structure (depending on the role of the domain, the type of feudal duties of the peasants), in size, and in the social affiliation of the votchinniki (secular, including royal, church).

In Ancient Rus'

During times Kievan Rus fiefdom was one of the forms of feudal land ownership. The owner of the estate had the right to pass it on by inheritance (hence the origin of the name from the Old Russian word “otchina,” that is, paternal property), sell, exchange, or, for example, divide it among relatives. Patrimonies as a phenomenon arose in the process of formation of private feudal land ownership. As a rule, their owners in the 9th-11th centuries were princes, as well as princely warriors and zemstvo boyars - heirs of the former tribal elite. After the adoption of Christianity, church patrimonial land ownership was formed, the owners of which were representatives of the church hierarchy (metropolitans, bishops) and large monasteries.

There were various categories of estates: patrimonial, purchased, granted by the prince or others, which partially influenced the ability of the owners to freely dispose fiefdom. Thus, ownership of ancestral estates was limited to the state and relatives. The owner of such a fief was obliged to serve the prince on whose lands it was located, and without the consent of the members of his clan, the fief could not sell or exchange it. In case of violation of such conditions, the owner was deprived of his estate. This fact indicates that in the era of the Old Russian state, ownership of a patrimony was not yet equated with the right of unconditional ownership of it.

During the specific period

Also term fatherland(With possessive pronoun) was used in princely disputes over tables. The emphasis was placed on whether the applicant’s father reigned in the city-center of a certain fiefdom or whether the applicant was an “outcast” for this principality (see Ladder law).

In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

After a significant part of the western Russian lands came under the rule of Lithuania and Poland, patrimonial land ownership in these territories not only remained, but also increased significantly. Most of the estates began to belong to representatives of the ancient Little Russian princely and boyar families. At the same time, the Grand Dukes of Lithuania and the Polish kings granted lands “for the fatherland” and “for eternity” to the Lithuanian, Polish and Russian feudal lords. This process became especially active after 1590, when the Sejm of the Rzecz and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth followed the war of 1654-1667. On the Left Bank in the second half of the 17th century there was a gradual process of formation of land ownership of the Ukrainian Cossack elders.

In the Grand Duchy of Moscow

In the XIV-XV centuries, estates were the main form of land ownership in North-Eastern Rus', where there was an active process of forming the Moscow Principality and then a single centralized state. However, due to the growing contradictions between the central grand-ducal power and the liberties of the boyars-patrimonial lands, the rights of the latter began to be significantly limited (for example, the right of free departure from one prince to another was abolished, the right of trial of the feudal lord in patrimonial lands was limited, etc.). The central government began to rely on the nobility, which enjoyed land ownership according to local law. The process of limiting estates was especially active in the 16th century. At that time, the patrimonial rights of the boyars were significantly limited (laws of 1551 and 1562), and during the oprichnina, a large number of patrimonial estates were liquidated, and their owners were executed. At the end of the 16th century in Russia, the main form of land ownership was no longer estates, but estates. The Service Code of 1556 actually equated patrimony to estate (“service for the fatherland”). In the 17th century, the process of legal rapprochement between the votchina and the estate continued, which ended with the issuance by Peter I of a decree on single inheritance on March 23, 1714, which united the votchina and the estate into a single concept of estate. Since then the concept Patrimony sometimes used in Russia in the 18th-19th centuries to designate noble land ownership.

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Literature

• Ivina L. I. A large patrimony of North-Eastern Rus' at the end of the 14th - first half of the 16th centuries. / L. I. Ivina; Ed. N. E. Nosova; Leningr. Department of the Institute of History of the USSR of the USSR Academy of Sciences. - L.: Science. Leningr. department, 1979. - 224 p. - 2,600 copies.(region)

Excerpt characterizing Votchina

Princess Marya postponed her departure. Sonya and the Count tried to replace Natasha, but they could not. They saw that she alone could keep her mother from insane despair. For three weeks Natasha lived hopelessly with her mother, slept on an armchair in her room, gave her water, fed her and talked to her incessantly - she talked because her gentle, caressing voice alone calmed the countess.
The mother's mental wound could not be healed. Petya's death took away half of her life. A month after the news of Petya’s death, which found her a fresh and cheerful fifty-year-old woman, she left her room half-dead and not taking part in life - an old woman. But the same wound that half killed the countess, this new wound brought Natasha to life.
A mental wound that comes from a rupture of the spiritual body, just like a physical wound, no matter how strange it may seem, after a deep wound has healed and seems to have come together at its edges, a mental wound, like a physical one, heals only from the inside with the bulging force of life.
Natasha’s wound healed in the same way. She thought her life was over. But suddenly love for her mother showed her that the essence of her life - love - was still alive in her. Love woke up and life woke up.
The last days of Prince Andrei connected Natasha with Princess Marya. The new misfortune brought them even closer together. Princess Marya postponed her departure and for the last three weeks, like a sick child, she looked after Natasha. The last weeks Natasha spent in her mother’s room had strained her physical strength.
One day, Princess Marya, in the middle of the day, noticing that Natasha was trembling with a feverish chill, took her to her place and laid her on her bed. Natasha lay down, but when Princess Marya, lowering the curtains, wanted to go out, Natasha called her over.
– I don’t want to sleep. Marie, sit with me.
– You’re tired, try to sleep.
- No no. Why did you take me away? She will ask.
- She's much better. “She spoke so well today,” said Princess Marya.
Natasha lay in bed and in the semi-darkness of the room looked at the face of Princess Marya.
“Does she look like him? – thought Natasha. – Yes, similar and not similar. But she is special, alien, completely new, unknown. And she loves me. What's on her mind? All is good. But how? What does she think? How does she look at me? Yes, she is beautiful."
“Masha,” she said, timidly pulling her hand towards her. - Masha, don’t think that I’m bad. No? Masha, my dear. How I love you. We will be completely, completely friends.
And Natasha, hugging and kissing the hands and face of Princess Marya. Princess Marya was ashamed and rejoiced at this expression of Natasha’s feelings.
From that day on, that passionate and tender friendship that only happens between women was established between Princess Marya and Natasha. They kissed constantly, spoke tender words to each other and spent most of their time together. If one went out, then the other was restless and hurried to join her. The two of them felt greater agreement among themselves than apart, each with herself. A feeling stronger than friendship was established between them: it was an exceptional feeling of the possibility of life only in the presence of each other.
Sometimes they were silent for hours; sometimes, already lying in bed, they began to talk and talked until the morning. They talked mostly about the distant past. Princess Marya talked about her childhood, about her mother, about her father, about her dreams; and Natasha, who had previously turned away with calm incomprehension from this life, devotion, humility, from the poetry of Christian self-sacrifice, now, feeling herself bound by love with Princess Marya, fell in love with Princess Marya’s past and understood a side of life that was previously incomprehensible to her. She did not think of applying humility and self-sacrifice to her life, because she was accustomed to looking for other joys, but she understood and fell in love with this previously incomprehensible virtue in another. For Princess Marya, listening to stories about Natasha’s childhood and early youth, a previously incomprehensible side of life, faith in life, in the pleasures of life, also opened up.
They still never spoke about him in the same way, so as not to violate with words, as it seemed to them, the height of feeling that was in them, and this silence about him made them forget him little by little, not believing it.
Natasha lost weight, turned pale and became so physically weak that everyone constantly talked about her health, and she was pleased with it. But sometimes she was suddenly overcome not only by the fear of death, but by the fear of illness, weakness, loss of beauty, and involuntarily she sometimes carefully examined her bare arm, surprised at its thinness, or looked in the mirror in the morning at her elongated, pitiful, as it seemed to her , face. It seemed to her that this was how it should be, and at the same time she became scared and sad.
Once she quickly went upstairs and was out of breath. Immediately, involuntarily, she came up with something to do downstairs and from there she ran upstairs again, testing her strength and observing herself.
Another time she called Dunyasha, and her voice trembled. She called her again, despite the fact that she heard her steps, called her in the chest voice with which she sang, and listened to him.
She didn’t know this, she wouldn’t have believed it, but under the seemingly impenetrable layer of silt that covered her soul, thin, tender young needles of grass were already breaking through, which were supposed to take root and so cover with their life shoots the grief that had crushed her that it would soon not be visible and not noticeable. The wound was healing from the inside. At the end of January, Princess Marya left for Moscow, and the Count insisted that Natasha go with her in order to consult with doctors.

After the clash at Vyazma, where Kutuzov could not restrain his troops from the desire to overturn, cut off, etc., the further movement of the fleeing French and the fleeing Russians behind them, to Krasnoye, took place without battles. The flight was so fast that the Russian army running after the French could not keep up with them, that the horses in the cavalry and artillery became weak and that information about the movement of the French was always incorrect.
The people of the Russian army were so exhausted by this continuous movement of forty miles a day that they could not move faster.
To understand the degree of exhaustion of the Russian army, you only need to clearly understand the significance of the fact that, having lost no more than five thousand people wounded and killed during the entire movement from Tarutino, without losing hundreds of people as prisoners, the Russian army, which left Tarutino numbering one hundred thousand, came to Red in the number of fifty thousand.
The rapid movement of the Russians after the French had just as destructive an effect on the Russian army as the flight of the French. The only difference was that the Russian army moved arbitrarily, without the threat of death that hung over the French army, and that the backward sick of the French remained in the hands of the enemy, the backward Russians remained at home. Main reason The decrease in Napoleon's army was the speed of movement, and the undoubted proof of this is the corresponding decrease in Russian troops.
All of Kutuzov’s activities, as was the case near Tarutin and near Vyazma, were aimed only at ensuring, as far as was in his power, not to stop this movement disastrous for the French (as the Russian generals wanted in St. Petersburg and in the army), but assist him and facilitate the movement of his troops.

ENE material

Patrimony

Old Russian term civil law, to designate land property with full private ownership rights to it. In the Moscow kingdom, V. is opposed estate, as land property with the rights of conditional, temporary and personal ownership. The term V. retains such a well-defined meaning in Russian law until the beginning of the 18th century, when Peter’s legislation, having first introduced the term “immovable estate,” confused estate and votchina under the same name “immovable estate votchina.” According to its grammatical origin, the term V. means everything inherited from father to son (“my father’s purchase is my fatherland,”) and can absorb the concepts of “grandfather” and “great-grandfather.” Losing its private law character, patrimony in princely usage rises to the term state law, when they want to designate the territory of a certain inheritance or the abstract right of a prince to own some region: thus, Moscow princes and kings call Novgorod the Great and Kyiv their patrimony. Traces of private land ownership become obvious in our country in the 12th century. and are planned, it seems, back in the 11th century. In the initial chronicle according to the Laurentian list there is the following place under 6694:

“Oleg commanded that the city of Suzhdal be lit, only the courtyard of the monastery of the Pechersky monastery and the church where St. Dmitry is there will remain, Ephraim went to the south and from the village».

Patrimonial land ownership is the oldest form, compared to local land ownership. The scope of the rights of the most ancient patrimonial owner seems extremely extensive; in his patrimony he was almost the same as the prince was in his reign - he was not only the owner of the land, but also a person who had administrative and judicial power over the population living on his land; such a fief himself was subject to the jurisdiction only of the prince. However, the population (peasants) living on his land was by no means serfs, but completely free, having the right to move from the land of one patrimonial land to the land of another. We get this concept of the patrimonial owner of ancient Rus' from letters of grant for patrimonies, of which quite a lot have come to us in the 16th century. These letters are not drawn new order things, but serve as an echo of antiquity, which is beginning to disappear in the Moscow Grand Duchy, where the indicated scope of patrimonial rights is significantly narrowed and the right of ownership of land is accompanied by the judicial and administrative power of the patrimonial owner only as exception, and even then with the removal of murder, robbery and red-handed theft; they are new only in the sense that the previously usual order is reduced to the level of exception. This is the first major change that patrimonial law has undergone - a change that chronologically coincided to a certain extent with changes in the political system and regional administration (the replacement of the patrimonial court with the court of the feeder). The second change that ancient Russian patrimonial law had to experience coincides with enhanced development local land ownership, which took rapid steps forward, especially since the time of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. If the beginning of patrimonial land ownership, not without reason, is dated to the druzhina (military service) element, then there is no difficulty in identifying the emergence of the estate among the non-military service element, among the semi-free class of so-called servants “under the court”, to whom the princes receive certain conditions (payment of dues). in kind and in-kind duties) gave land for conditional, temporary and personal possession. The first trace of such a dacha of land is usually sought in the spiritual letter of the Moscow Grand Duke Ivan Kalita (beginning of the 14th century), which, indeed, seems to hint at an estate (without using, however, the term itself) when it speaks of the Rostov village of Bogoroditsky, given to which - to Boriska Vorkova. For the first time we encounter the term “estate” in Russian acts in one document written between 1466-1478 (in Lithuanian-Russian acts - somewhat earlier). When old writers on the history of Russian law attributed the emergence of the estate to the time of Ivan III, they were only half mistaken: the estate arose much earlier than Ivan III, but, as a service estate (in the military service class), it arose only in the second half of the 15th century and developed under influenced by a number of political and financial reasons. From the middle of the 16th century, the class of landowners grew rapidly, estate becomes a very common reward for hardships military service, meanwhile feeding little by little recedes into the background: for feeding, on the one hand, is successfully replaced by an estate, and on the other hand, the population is given the opportunity to pay off taxes to the government twice from the feeders, who in such cases were replaced by elected zemstvo authorities. Old writers vaguely felt some connection between estate and feeding when they made a major legal mistake by confusing both: both the being and the object of power of the feeder and the landowner rest on completely different foundations. So, from the second half of the 15th century. two forms of service land ownership become side by side: patrimonial and local; in the second half of the 16th century, the interaction of both forms was already noticeable. The transformation of the Moscow Great Reign into the Muscovite Kingdom, the dissolution of the feeder into the landowner and his replacement by elected zemstvo authorities, and the rapid development of the local system are noticeably reflected in patrimonial rights. It is in Moscow that the concept of serving the earth and a number of government measures appear, the whole purpose of which is to ensure that “there is no loss in the service and the land does not go out of service.” Here, the word “land” equally means both estate and land; in the Muscovite kingdom the same is served from the estate mandatory service, as with the estate, is a major step that V. was forced to take towards the estate. The government is undertaking a reshuffle in the ownership of lands, because it turned out to be service people who took possession many lands and impoverished by service, “they are not against the sovereign’s salary (that is, estates) and their (in) fathers in the services.” Here, not only the equal obligation of military service from both the estate and the patrimonial land is emphasized, but also, apparently, a hint is expressed about the desirability, in the interests of the service, of a certain ratio in the ownership of the estate and patrimonial land by one person. The very possibility of holding an estate and a patrimony in the same hands, combined with compulsory service on both sides, gave rise to an actual and, perhaps, theoretical rapprochement between them; Even a system of awards from estates to votchina was established, equally applicable to those who served on the Moscow list and to those who served from the cities. Leaving aside the details of the issue of the rapprochement of the estate and votchina, which ended with a decree on March 23 of the year, according to which “from now on... both estates and votchinas are called equal to one immovable estate votchina,” it is necessary to point out the main types of patrimonial land ownership; there are three of them: 1) the “patrimony” itself (ancestral, ancient); 2) “purchase”; 3) “salary” (state tribute). The significant difference between these three types is the control rights. The rights to dispose of patrimonial estates were limited by both the state and the patrimonial estates (the restrictions imposed by the state were especially strong regarding princely estates). The state tried to ensure the conversion of V. between persons of the same region and the same service class and prohibited the giving of estates to a monastery according to one's soul. Votchichi enjoyed the rights of ancestral redemption and ancestral inheritance. Some writers on the history of Russian law (see, for example, the course by M.F. Vladimirsky-Budanov) outline an era when patrimonial owners did not have the right to alienate, with the receipt of compensation, patrimonies without the consent of the patrimonial owners. K. A. Nevolin quite thoroughly spoke out against such a view, recognizing the right of patrimonial redemption as an institution that grew up on the basis of the state (although, we add, not at all in the exclusive interests of maintaining noble families). According to this right, the buyer of the ancestral patrimony, within a certain time and at a certain price, could be forced to sell it back to the clan at the request of one of the patrimony. The conditions of the ancestral ransom, known from acts from the 16th century, were subject to various modifications. Let us note the fundamental change made by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich: the Code abolished the redemption fee, which had recently been legalized by the act of the city, determining the redemption at the price of the deed of sale, which in practice sometimes led to the impossibility of the redemption itself, since the price of the estate in the deed of sale could be indicated too high compared with the actual the cost of the estate. As for the patrimonial inheritance of estates, the legislation has very carefully developed this issue (see Inheritance Law). The most extensive amount of disposal rights belongs to the owners of the “font”. Purchase - real estate acquired by purchase from strangers. Historians of Russian law unanimously admit that purchased estates were initially not subject to the right of patrimonial redemption. From the council's verdict it is clear that the purchased V., which was not subject to redemption from private individuals, from that moment, along with the ancestral one, became subject to redemption from monasteries; and in the letters of grant for estates from the city we find an expression that makes us assume the existence of a redemption of purchased estates. Here is this curious expression: “if he sells (the patrimony) to someone else’s family, and whoever wants to buy back that patrimony for their family, he will be redeemed according to the previous code, like their ancestral and purchased estates are redeemed." In general, estates purchased from the treasury should be distinguished from estates purchased from private individuals. As for the granted estates, the rights to dispose of them are subject to the conditions set out in the granted charters, and are not stable: one can note, however, the process of bringing them closer to the ancestral estates. Initially, charters granted did not have one specific model; in the 17th century, one general type of grant was established, which did not, however, exclude the possibility of the appearance of grants of an extraordinary nature. For the 17th century. One can note four examples of letters of grant, successively replacing each other: 1) from the time of Tsars Vasily and Michael to the city; 2) from year to year; 3) from year to year; 4) up to

Since ancient times, the main occupations of the Eastern Slavs were agriculture, hunting, fishing, gathering, and beekeeping. Trade played a supporting role.

Agriculture of the Eastern Slavs on the eve of the formation of their state and during the period of Kievan Rus reveals territorial variations. There were two farming systems:

in the southern area, agriculture was the main occupation; here quite early on the basis of the fallow (fallow) system arose two-field, and slash-and-burn agriculture was transformed into arable; home played a big role cattle breeding;

in the north, along with agriculture, the most important role was played hunting, gathering And fishing, still dominated relog And slash-and-burn system.

Agriculture Kievan Rus. In the north, the main agricultural tool was a wooden plow with an iron tip, because here there were gray taiga podzolic soils with a thin layer of humus, and the earth was not turned over, but only loosened. In the south, the plow and ralo were used. A wooden harrow was used to loosen the arable land. The development of arable farming is evidenced by the handicraft production of agricultural implements for sale: during excavations, blacksmith workshops of the 12th-13th centuries were discovered, in which sickles, scythes, and ploughshares were found.

A horse was used as a draft force in the north, resistant to the bites of forest insects and at the same time quite capable of dragging a relatively light plow. In the south, the hardier and stronger ox was used.

The composition of agricultural crops was varied. Rye, millet, oats, wheat, buckwheat, peas, spelled, poppy, and flax were sown. The further north you went, the larger the areas occupied by rye and oats. From garden crops turnips, cabbage, beans, onions, garlic, hops were known, and from fruit trees - cherry and apple trees. Despite the gradual relative increase in agricultural production, harvests were low. Frequent phenomena were shortages and famines, which undermined the peasant economy.

As for the rights to land, the supreme manager was considered Grand Duke. In general, all cultivated lands are by nature land tenure were divided into two parts:

common lands; there were an overwhelming majority of them - these were lands belonging to the communities, or rather, the communities considered them their, but the prince could transfer communal lands to the second category;

fiefdoms- private lands owned either by the prince (princely estates) or boyars (boyar estates); estates were inherited (hence the name); the inhabitants of the estates paid the owners of the land feudal rent – quitrent(payment in kind, most often part of the harvest).

Estates in Kievan Rus. The question of the time of appearance and forms of feudal land tenure in Rus' is one of the most key and important, since it is inextricably linked, firstly, with the problem of the identity of Russian civilization, and secondly, with the issues of choosing a historical approach when studying Russian history.

In the XIX – early XX centuries. historians denied feudalism in Ancient Rus' as such. This was partly due to a narrow understanding of feudalism only as a social system characterized by serfdom and vassalage, but mainly due to the fact that the problems of socio-economic development themselves were of little concern to historians. The “fact” itself was used in the process of constructing certain speculative models historical development. As a result, the Slavophiles called the absence of feudalism in Ancient Rus' one of the fundamental differences between Russia and Europe, and Westerners linked this same fact with the backwardness of Russia, which confirmed their idea of ​​​​the need to move along the Western path. N.P. Pavlov-Silvansky proved the existence of feudal relations in Ancient Rus' (on materials of the 15th-16th centuries, retrospectively discovering feudalism in an earlier period), thereby confirming the Marxist theory with Russian data. Soviet historians went to the other extreme - wanting to artificially bring together the development trends of Russia and Europe (at the same time making the not very ancient Russian history more ancient), they found feudal relations in Ancient Rus' from its foundation, referring to the “Russian Truth”, the presence of estates and other indirect evidence.

The estates of Kievan Rus are indeed a feudal form of land ownership; they show clear analogies with the feudal allods of Western Europe at the same time. However: 1) estates in Rus' appeared no earlier than the 11th century, under Vladimir, possibly under Yaroslav, and these were princely estates; boyar private lands appeared no earlier than the second half of the 11th century; at this time, feudalism in Europe had at least a five-century history; 2) there were very few patrimonial lands in Rus', and they were small; 3) cities and pastures on which princely herds graze are mentioned as patrimony in Kievan Rus, but we know almost nothing about patrimony arable land; 4) estates in Rus' - apparently first in time, a form of feudal land tenure, while in the West allod appeared as a result of the long development of beneficial land use. In other words, feudalism probably still existed in Kievan Rus, but it was a special feudalism, and it was not a system-forming or even any characteristic factor in the socio-economic structure.

In general, ancient Russian agriculture is characterized natural character(products produced on the farm were consumed there) and extensive development(the increase in production volumes was achieved by increasing the cultivated area). These features were not manifestations of any national traits or technological backwardness, but were dictated by geographical conditions - the presence of free land, large spaces, low yields.

The emergence of princely power in conditions of a still insufficiently developed, subsistence economy, coupled with the unrelenting danger of raids by steppe dwellers, Varangians and other neighbors, became the reason for the formation of urban settlements, for the most part, not as craft and trade centers, but how military administrative centers. That is why, despite the large number of urban settlements in Kievan Rus (in Northern Europe, Rus' was called Gardarika - the country of cities), the craft here was underdeveloped in comparison with Europe. The main features of Russian craft include weak specialization, lack of craft corporations, combination of crafts with other occupations. The craft was most developed in cities located on trade routes - Kyiv, Novgorod, Smolensk, Polotsk.

Craft in Kievan Rus. Russian artisans of the 11th-12th centuries. produced more than 150 types of iron and steel products. Old Russian jewelers knew the art of minting non-ferrous metals. In the area artistic craft Russian masters have mastered complex techniques grains(making patterns from the smallest grains of metal), filigree(making patterns from the finest wire), figured casting, mob(making a black background for patterned silver plates) and cloisonne enamel. The products of Russian jewelers and blacksmiths were valued throughout Europe. Pottery, leatherworking, woodworking, and stone-cutting crafts received significant development in ancient Russian cities. But in general, historians count a little more than 60 specialties in Kievan Rus (in Paris alone of the same period - about 300). The social division of labor in the country was weak. The products of a few village artisans were distributed over a distance of approximately 10-30 km, and the products of urban artisans rarely penetrated into the village.

Rus' arose along trade routes (“the route from the Varangians to the Greeks,” the Volga route, the Don route); naturally, trade played an important role in the structure of the economy of the Old Russian state. Kyiv and Novgorod, the main trading cities of Rus', were larger in population, according to historians, than most cities in Northern and Western Europe. However, Russian trade also had a number of specific features. Firstly, trade was transit, Russian rivers were of important transit importance for trade between Northern Europe, the Arab East and Byzantium. Large volumes of trade were achieved by reselling foreign goods to foreign merchants in Rus'. Therefore, Russian trade has ethnic specifics: merchants ( guests) were represented, as a rule, by Varangians, Arabs, Jews, Armenians, etc., but not by Slavs. Flax, leather, furs, wax, honey, and slaves were exported. Luxury goods, weapons, spices, and fabrics were imported. Trade served the needs of the social elite. The majority of the population was not drawn into trade - the economy as a whole remained subsistence, and the excess product was confiscated in the form of tribute by the state.

Due to the low prevalence of commodity exchange, cattle were used as money (even the princely treasury was called cowgirl), furs, Arabic dirhams and Byzantine denarii. Only under Vladimir Svyatoslavich, with the development of commodity relations, did the minting of Russian coins begin - spool valves. Under Yaroslav the Wise, Russian silver coins were minted - silversmiths. Both zolotniks and silver coins had very limited circulation, and can hardly be considered the Russian currency of that time. They were much more widely circulated hryvnia- pieces of silver.

System of monetary units in Kievan Rus. The “Russian Truth” mentions hryvnias, coons, nogaty, cut. Numismatists found out that kuna, nogata and rezan are parts of a hryvnia: By weight, one hryvnia was equal to 20 nogata, 25 kunas or 50 rezans. However, the hryvnia itself did not have a clearly defined weight.

It is believed that in the second half of the 10th century. two monetary-weight systems were formed: northern and southern. In the northern system, Western coins played a large role, and the local hryvnia was adapted to their weight. The southern system was tied to the Byzantine light liter. A light liter was equal to 163.728 g of silver. The South Russian hryvnia was equal to 68.22 g, kuna - 2.73 g, nogata - 3.41 g, rezana - 1.36 g.

Taxes in Rus' were collected from rural communities - natural products, from cities - silver. The tribute was collected from the community, and not from each resident, and was calculated with "smoke"(i.e. farms). Cities (urban communities), apparently, paid a predetermined amount (as is known from the example of Novgorod). Under the first princes, tribute was collected polyhuman- the prince and his retinue collected tribute himself, traveling around the population under his control. After the murder of Igor in 945 during Polyudye, his widow Olga, who ruled Russia for her young son Svyatoslav, established lessons(pre-announced amount of tribute) and introduced cart- now the tributaries had to independently bring tribute to the graveyards ( shopping places, villages where tribute could be exchanged). However, the cart was apparently used only in areas close to Kyiv. Polyudye continued to operate on the outskirts of the state. Only residents of communal lands paid tribute to the Kyiv prince; residents of estates (both cities and rural areas) did not pay tribute.

So, the economy of Kievan Rus was based on subsistence agriculture. Craft, as in general commodity relations, in general, were relatively poorly developed, and trade was predominantly transit. However, already during this period feudal relations were emerging in Rus'.

Basic terms on the topic “Kievan Rus”

Corvee - a duty that consisted of the obligation of a peasant who had his own allotment to work on the master's field for a certain number of days a week.

beekeeping - initially extracting honey from wild bees from natural hollows, then breeding bees in hollowed out hollows.

Boyar Duma - the highest council of the nobility under the Grand Duke (during the times of Kievan Rus and the period of fragmentation), and from the 16th century. under the king. The Boyar Duma was a permanent legislative body and took part in resolving issues of internal and foreign policy states.

Boyars - in Kievan and Vladimir-Suzdal Rus', the senior princely warriors, in Novgorod and Pskov - the top of the urban population, descendants of the ancient tribal nobility. The highest, along with the great and appanage princes, layer of society in Russia from X toXVIIIcenturies

Varangians - warrior-combatants from the Scandinavian peoples, who in Europe were called Vikings and Normans. The Varangians are mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years. In the 9th-11th centuries, many Varangian warriors-combatants served with the Russian princes and acted as mercenaries. Scandinavian merchants who were engaged in trade on the way “from the Varangians to the Greeks” were also called Varangians in Rus'. In the XI-XIII centuries. Varangian warriors and merchants in Rus' became glorified without having a noticeable impact on Russian history and culture.

Rope - one of the names of the community among the Eastern and Southern Slavs. In Rus', it initially developed on a consanguineous basis and gradually turned into a neighboring (territorial) community, bound by mutual responsibility. In Russian Pravda, the rope was responsible to the prince for a murder committed on its territory, and supported (fed) the prince’s fine collectors.

Veche - a people's meeting in ancient and medieval Rus' to discuss common affairs. It arose from tribal gatherings of the Slavs. The veche was in charge of issues of war and peace.

Vira – a large fine awarded according to the laws of “Russian Truth” for the murder of a free person.

Virnik - fine collector.

Magus - pagan priest, sorcerer.

Patrimony - in Russia, the hereditary land ownership of a feudal lord. The first estates were princely ones; they appeared in the 10th century. By the XI-XII centuries. the documents already mention boyar and monastic estates. The main value in a patrimonial economy was not so much the land as the dependent peasants living on it. The peasants could not own the land, so they took it for use from their feudal lord. For this they worked corvée and paid quitrent.

Guests - A category of merchants who came to trade from other countries, later - local merchants who traded in other cities or abroad.

Hryvnia – main monetary unit in Kievan Rus.

Tithe - tax in favor of the church.

Druzhina - originally a detachment of warriors that formed around a military leader at the stage of transition from the clan system to the state. The squad was supposed to protect the leader, and he, in turn, provided the squad with everything necessary. The main source of wealth for the warriors was wars and the booty captured during them. Gradually, the squad turns into the top of the tribe, concentrating wealth and power in its hands. In Rus', the squad appeared in the 9th century. It was headed by a prince. In those days, the squad consisted of two parts: the so-called “senior” squad (the prince’s closest advisers and assistants) and the “junior” squad, which included recently recruited warriors.

Purchase – category of dependent population of the Old Russian state. A free man took a loan from the feudal lord, a “buy” (of livestock, money, tools, etc.) and was obliged to work it off. The runaway purchase was made whitewashed, that is, a complete slave. Having returned the loan, the purchase was freed from dependence.

Cyrillic - Slavic alphabet, created on the basis of the Byzantine unitiate (statutory alphabet), supposedly, by a student of the Slavic enlightener Methodius Clementius. It was named “Cyrillic” as a sign of the people’s deep recognition of the activities of the first Slavic enlighteners Cyril and Methodius.

Prince - head of state or fief in the 9th-16th centuries. among the Slavs and other peoples, later - a noble title. Before the formation of the state, the princes were tribal leaders, who then gradually became heads of state. At first, the power of the prince was elective, then it became hereditary. For example, the Rurik dynasty in the Old Russian state.

Baptism - the introduction of Christianity as a state religion in Kievan Rus, carried out at the end of the 10th century (988) by Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich.

Ladder system - a system of transferring grand-ducal power according to seniority in the family.

Chronicle – records of events in Russian history, arranged by year.

Metropolitan – head of the Russian Orthodox Church before the establishment of the patriarchate in 1589

Mytnik - collector of trade duties in Rus'

Viceroy – on Rus' X-XVI centuries official who headed the local government. Appointed by the prince.

Norman theory - a direction in Russian and foreign historiography, whose supporters considered the Normans (Varangians) to be the founders of the state in Ancient Rus'. Formulated in the second quarter of the 18th century. G. Z. Bayer, G. F. Miller and others. The Norman theory was rejected by M. V. Lomonosov, D. I. Ilovaisky, S. A. Gedeonov and others.

Natural quitrent - a duty that consisted in the obligation of the peasant to contribute to the benefit of the owner of the land a certain amount of products produced on his own farm.

Cash quitrent - a duty consisting in the obligation of the peasant to pay the owner of the land a certain amount in money.

Ognishchanin - chief servant, manager of the estate's economy.

Carriage - a system of collecting tribute, which was introduced by Princess Olga, instead of polyudye, establishing its fixed size (lessons) and collection place (cemeteries).

Pogost - according to the tax reform of Princess Olga, the place where tribute was collected, where the population brought it and where the court of the princely official (tiun) was located, who monitored the timely and correct receipt of taxes into the treasury.

Polyudye - in Kievan Rus, a detour by the prince and a squad of subject lands to collect tribute.

Posad - the name of the trade and craft part of the city in Rus'.

The path “from the Varangians to the Greeks” – water (sea and river) route from Scandinavia through Eastern Europe to Byzantium in the Middle Ages. One of the waterways of the expansion of the Varangians from the area of ​​residence (coast Baltic Sea) to the South - to South-Eastern Europe and Asia Minor in the 8th-13th centuries AD. e. Russian merchants used this same route to trade with Constantinople and Scandinavia.

Early feudal state - historians use this term to characterize the Old Russian state of the 9th-10th centuries. During this period, the territory of the state had not yet been fully formed, and there was no established system of governance. The tribal isolation of the territories that were part of the state was preserved.

Tribal community - one of the first forms public organization people. In the early stages of its history, an individual person was unable to resist nature and obtain the minimum necessary for life. This led to the unification of people into communities. The clan community is characterized by collective labor and egalitarian consumption. Within the community there was only a sex-age division of labor.

Russian truth - the first collection of laws of Ancient Rus' that has come down to us.

Ryadovich – category of dependent population of the Old Russian state. They entered into an agreement (series) with the feudal lord, which placed them in a certain dependence on the feudal lord.

Smerd - in Ancient Rus', a category of people without full rights. The life of a smerda in “Russkaya Pravda” was protected by a minimum fee of 5 hryvnia. Perhaps this was the name given to the inhabitants of the newly annexed territories, subject to increased tribute. There is an opinion that all farmers, among whom were both dependent and free, were called smerda.

Neighborhood Community - a group, a collective of people who are not related by family ties. Community members live in a certain territory and belong to the community according to the principle of neighborhood. Each family within the community has the right to a share of community property and cultivates its own part of the arable land. Together, community members raise virgin soil, clear forests, and build roads. Among the Eastern Slavs, the transition from a tribal community to a neighboring one was completed by the 7th century. After this, the male population of the community received the name “people.” With the growth of feudal land ownership (during the existence of the Old Russian state), the community became dependent on the feudal lord or state. However, it retained all its functions. The community regulated the cycle of agricultural work, distributed taxes among the community members (the principle mutual responsibility), solved current economic issues.

Tiun - servant-manager in the estate of the patrimonial estate; The princely tiuns also carried out various state assignments.

Destiny - part of the principality-land, a semi-independent possession allocated to one of the younger members of the ruling dynasty.

Lesson – according to the tax reform of Princess Olga, a fixed amount of tribute levied on the subject population.

Serf - category of dependent population in Russia in the 10th-18th centuries. The most powerless part of the population, in its own way legal status close to slaves. The feudal lord could kill, sell, punish the slave, and was also responsible for the actions of his slave. They became slaves as a result of being captured, sold for debts, or married to a slave. As a rule, serfs did not have their own allotment and were among the servants.

Servants - in the broadest sense of the word servant. In Ancient Rus' category dependent people, slaves.

Paganism – religious beliefs based on primitive myths about many gods, spirits, personifying the forces of nature (sun, rain, fertility), human activities (agriculture, trade, war).

”, as possession on a broader title.

During the time known to us from documents (XV - XVII centuries), patrimonial ownership was gradually limited, finally merging into early XVIII with the local The patrimonial possessions of princes are the first to be subject to restrictions. Already Ivan III forbade the princes of the appanages of North-Eastern Rus' (Yaroslavl, Suzdal and Starodub) to sell their estates without the knowledge of the Grand Duke, and also to give them to monasteries. Under Ivan the Terrible, by decrees of 1562 and 1572, all princes were generally prohibited from selling, exchanging, donating, or giving their estates as dowries. By inheritance, these estates could only pass to sons, and in the absence of them (in the absence of a will) they were taken to the treasury. Princes could bequeath their estate only to close relatives and only with the permission of the sovereign.

If these restrictions on the ruling princes stemmed from state-political considerations, then the main motivation for limiting simple patrimonial landowners was the interest of military service. By their very origin, part of the estates has long been determined by the obligation of service. When Muscovite Rus' began to introduce quite conditional estates on a large scale for the same purpose, it imposed military service on all estates in the same amount as estates. According to the decree of 1556, for every 100 quarters (50 acres in one field) of land, the patrimonial owner, along with the landowner, had to assign one armed horseman. Further, simultaneously with the princely estates, but to a lesser extent, the right to dispose of service estates was also limited (1562, 1572). Women received only the “how to live” part of them, and men inherited no further than the 4th generation.

Village yard. Painting by A. Popov, 1861

Since, despite all this, service estates could be sold and given to monasteries, then, with constant financial difficulties caused by the landowning crisis of the 16th century, a significant part of them left the hands of the estate owners. The government tried to fight against this by establishing in law the right of family redemption and by prohibiting the giving of estates to monasteries. The rules of ancestral ransom were established by the code of law of Ivan the Terrible and Feodor. In 1551 it was forbidden to sell estates to monasteries, in 1572 it was forbidden to give souls to rich monasteries for commemoration; in 1580, relatives were given an unlimited right of redemption, “even though some are far in the family,” and in the absence of them, it was determined to buy back the estates from the monasteries to the sovereign. In the 17th century The government is beginning to monitor even more closely “so that the land does not go out of service.” Service from the estates was strictly regulated: those who failed were threatened with the confiscation of part or all of the estate; those who desolate their estates were ordered to be beaten with a whip (1621).

Estates differed according to the method of acquisition generic or ancient, well-served (granted by the government) and purchased. The disposal of the first two categories of estates was limited: women could not inherit patrimonial and granted estates (1627); By decree of 1679, the right to bequeath estates, including children, to brothers, relatives and strangers, was taken away. Since the decrees of the 16th century. about the non-transfer of estates to the monastery were not fulfilled, then in 1622 the government recognized the estates of the monasteries that had not been redeemed until 1613; It was allowed to continue to give estates to monasteries, not only conditionally until the ransom, but in 1648 it was absolutely forbidden for monasteries to accept estates, under the threat that if relatives did not immediately redeem them, they would be taken into the treasury for free.

By the decree of Peter I on single inheritance on March 23, 1714, it was henceforth determined that “both estates and votchinas should be called the same thing, immovable estate votchina.” The ground for such a merger was prepared both by the described restrictions on the disposal of estates and by the opposite process - the gradual expansion of the right to use estates.

Literature about fiefdoms: S.V. Rozhdestvensky, Serving land ownership in the Moscow state of the 16th century. (St. Petersburg, 1897); N. Pavlov-Silvansky, The Sovereign's Service People (St. Petersburg, 1898); V. N. Storozhev, Decree Book of the Local Order (movement of legislation on the issue of estates; M., 1889).