What does pillar noblewoman mean. Nobility: pillar, hereditary, personal

14.09.2009

Nobility: pillar, hereditary, personal.

Coat of arms of the Pushkins

Let's remember who the old woman wanted to be in "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish"? "Pillar noblewoman". Why? Indeed, in the time of Pushkin, the rank was more valued than the nobility of origin. However, being a pillar nobleman was, as they would say now, "cool". This meant that you were of an ancient family, that your ancestors were nobles even before Peter I. Why before Peter? Because in the XVI-XVII centuries. information about Russian nobles was entered in the columns of the Discharge Order. Actually, that's why they are "pillar". And under the reformer tsar, the nobility began to be replenished quite actively with people from other classes. This was officially formalized by the Table of Ranks: if a person received a certain rank, he was elevated to hereditary nobility, that is, not only he, but his children would be nobles.

It is easy to remember in what way it was possible to "get out into the people" in the first decades of the 19th century if you memorize a piece of Pushkin's poem "My Genealogy". The poet (pillar nobleman, by the way) lists in it the most common ways to obtain hereditary nobility in his time:

I am not an officer, not an assessor,
I'm not a noble by the cross,
Not an academician, not a professor;
I'm just a Russian tradesman.

Accordingly, a person received hereditary nobility if he became:

An officer (ensign or cornet, this is the 14th class of the Table of Ranks. True, children born before their father received the officer rank belonged to the group of “chief officer children” and only one of them could receive nobility at the request of his father),
collegiate assessor (grade 8 of the Table of Ranks),
professor
academician,
received an order (Pushkin had a “cross”. That is why they tried to reward representatives of the peasantry, philistinism and merchants either with medals or with some objects, for example, silver ladles. Award ladles were awarded until the beginning of the 19th century).

Then the screw tightening began. In 1845, the military rank conferring hereditary nobility was promoted to major. In 1856 - to the colonel in the army and a real state councilor in civilian life.

I specifically wrote "the most common ways" because there were other possibilities. After accession to the throne, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna granted the nobility to all the soldiers of the grenadier company of the Preobrazhensky regiment, who helped her to carry out the coup. The smallpox received the nobility and their surname after the material for inoculation to Catherine II was taken from the founder of their family, the boy Alexander Markov. The illegitimate daughter of Emperor Paul I from a washerwoman was elevated to the nobility and received the name Musina-Yuriev.

By the way, in the same poem, Alexander Sergeevich writes about representatives of those clans whose ancestors curried favor under Peter the Great and his followers.

My grandfather did not sell pancakes (a hint at the Menshikovs),
Not waxing the royal boots (This is about Kutaisov, the valet of Paul I),
I didn’t sing with the court deacons (About the Razumovskys, whose ancestor, Alyosha Rozum, became Elizabeth Petrovna’s favorite after she noticed a handsome fellow with a wonderful voice in the church choir),
I didn’t jump from crests to princes (Bezborodko),
And he was not a runaway soldier
Austrian powder squads (a kick towards Kleinmichel and his
descendants);
So should I be an aristocrat?
Thank God I'm a tradesman.

And finally, there was a personal nobility. It was received together with the first civil rank, and after 1845 with the first officer rank. A personal nobleman could not own peasants, hold noble elective positions, participate in noble assemblies, his surname was not entered in the genealogical book of the corresponding province. But there were also bonuses: corporal punishment could not be applied to him, he was free from poll tax and recruitment duty. In addition, if the family had three personal nobles in a row (grandfather, father and son), then the son could ask for hereditary nobility. A person could submit the same petition if his father and grandfather had personal nobility and served Russia “immaculately” for 20 years.

P.S. Just in case: I'm talking mainly about the first decades of the 19th century.
P.P.S. The ranking table can be seen here.

We all remember from childhood the absurd old Pushkin woman from The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, who at first wished to become a pillar noblewoman, and then raised her demands even higher. The idea embodied by the author in this work is clear and understandable, but not everyone can explain what “pillar noblewoman” means. Meanwhile, the meaning of this term should be sought in the depths of our history.

Estates of service people

First of all, we note that the columned noblewoman is a representative of an old hereditary noble family, which could well serve as a reason for pride. In addition, she, as a rule, disposed of significant land, although it was not her property. The point here is this.

In those ancient times, when this class was just formed (XV century), the sovereign service people who belonged to it received land allotments, called estates, for the duration of their direct duties. Their size was sometimes quite impressive.

Estate and patrimony

Since they were given for temporary use, at the end of the service they had to be returned to the treasury. In this case, one should not confuse estates with estates, which were the private property of their owners, who had the right to do whatever they liked with it. This difference between the two forms of ownership was eliminated only in the middle of the 18th century, when estates began to be inherited.

"Pillar noblewoman": the meaning of this expression

The names of the owners of such state-owned allotments were entered into special lists called columns. Hence the expressions "pillar nobleman" and "pillar noblewoman" came from. The meaning of the word "noblewoman" in this case indicates a close relationship (usually marriage) of a woman with the owner of such a plot, since she herself was not in the service and could not receive land. The same applies to the children of a servant.

It is known that in the practice of Russian office work of the XV-XVII centuries, a special type of documents was provided, which was a tape of paper strips glued together. It was on it that the names of the nobles - the owners of state-owned plots - were applied. Such a rather wide ribbon was usually rolled up into a scroll called a column - that's what it looked like when placed vertically.

It is not difficult to guess that the expression "pillar nobles" came from him. This becomes even more understandable when you consider that the names in the scroll were written in a "column" - one under the other. This form of document was very convenient. This register of service people was periodically submitted to the sovereign, and he, gradually unwinding it, could examine in detail the entire list of his most trusted persons.

New nobility and pillar

Over time, the laws of the Russian state changed, and the estates, which were previously provided for temporary use, became hereditary. They could be sold, donated and pledged to the bank. The form of compiling accounting documentation has also changed: books have replaced the scrolls-columns. But most importantly, in the XVII-XVIII century, a large number of new families appeared, the nobility of which did not have deep historical roots, but was awarded only recently for services to the state or because of length of service.

And although in legal terms there was no difference between the new and hereditary (pillar) nobility, belonging to the latter was a matter of pride, since it testified to belonging to an ancient family. Thus, a pillar noblewoman is not just a privileged class, but a lady who had reason to be proud of her pedigree. This is exactly what the old woman from Pushkin's fairy tale claimed. No wonder the synonyms for the word "pillar noblewoman" are primordial, indigenous and hereditary.

Conditions of belonging to the pillar nobility

Since there has never been an official legal term in Russia - “pillar noblewoman”, the meaning of the word needed to be clarified. Difficulties arose with the definition of a specific historical milestone at which this layer of the nobility ceases to form. In other words, it is difficult to say to what historical period the genealogy of this or that noblewoman should be traced so that she has the right to be considered a columnar.

This seemingly idle question actually became the subject of unusually heated disputes and discussions fueled by vanity. As a result, two points of view prevailed. According to one of them, a pillar nobleman or a pillar noblewoman are those people whose ancestors were noted in the largest genealogical codes of pre-Petrine times. In another version, the requirements were significantly tightened, and it was necessary to have the founder of the family registered before 1613, that is, before the accession of the Romanov dynasty.

Titles received for the antiquity of the family

In the XVIII century, the ranks of the titled nobility were significantly replenished, from which the Russian aristocracy was formed. They included not only those who climbed the social ladder thanks to their merit, and were awarded a title of nobility for them, but also representatives of old, non-pillar families, who received high-profile titles only by virtue of their origin.

This order applied not only to men, but also to women. And what in this case meant the title of "pillar noblewoman"? This phrase, by and large, was used to inform the public that its owner has some high-profile title - countess, princess, etc. So the old woman knew what to ask the Golden Fish.

Many words from old fairy tales in modern children cause only bewilderment, and adults do not quite understand how to explain this or that concept. For example, what does the "pillar noblewoman" from Pushkin's fairy tales mean? Where did this word come from? Let's try to figure it out.
Nobility in Russia

In Kievan Rus, the concept of "nobility" has not yet developed. Naturally, princely families already existed, but, in principle, any free person could join the ranks of combatants or boyars. As a class, the nobility took shape already in the XIII-XV century in Moscow Russia. The appearance of this class is inextricably linked with the reconsideration of the principles of land tenure, which means a columned noblewoman
Estate and patrimony

In Muscovy there were two types of private land - patrimony and estate. The patrimony was called private land, which was passed down from generation to generation. The estate is land for temporary use, which was given for length of service in the public service. In connection with the expansion of the territory of Moscow Russia, due to the increase in land from the south and Eastern Siberia, there were more agricultural lands, but they could only be obtained in the service of the king.
columns

The lands that were provided to service people were formalized according to the laws of that time in special decrees - columns. In them, each employee could find out if he had land, and whether he had the right to cultivate it. Lists were compiled quite often, and were viewed and certified by the king himself. So the sovereign of all Russia had an idea about the number of people loyal to him who owned estates. To be included in such a list is the dream of every serviceman, because it meant not only the possession of land, but also the likely attention and mercy of the king himself.

In the lists, the names of the estate owners were written from top to bottom - “in a column”. Thus, a person whose last name was in the "columns" and was called "pillar nobleman" and "pillar noblewoman". This honorary title also spoke of the presence of land holdings, and of the special mercy of the sovereign. It was not easy to get into the coveted "columns".
Noblewomen
pillar noblewoman is

At first, only men got into the “columns”. But over time, women's names also appeared on the treasured lists. And so the concept of "pillar noblewoman" appeared. The meaning of the word "noblewoman" implies a good lineage or an advantageous marriage. The term "pillar" indicates the presence of litter lands and a privileged position.

Thus, a pillar noblewoman is a woman from a good family, the wife or widow of a civil servant, who owns an estate. After the death of a civil servant, his widow had the right to keep the estate lands "for living", after her death the estate was returned to the treasury and could be transferred to other pillar nobles. Cases where wives or daughters owned the estate personally were quite rare. As a rule, only the columned noblewoman had this right. This property was usually under the special guardianship of the royal power, and a woman could not sell, mortgage or inherit the land.

The confusion among the owners of patrimonial and estate lands was so typical that it created a lot of inconvenience and incorrect judicial decisions. It is worth clarifying that court decisions in those days were mainly based on case law, and a chain of unlawful court decisions on the transfer of estates to inheritance, lease or sale spread throughout the country. To legalize the status quo, a land reform was undertaken.

The land reforms of the beginning of the 16th century equalized the position of the owners of patrimonial and estate lands. The lands owned by families from generation to generation, and the lands owned by this or that nobleman or pillar noblewoman, are lands subject to the same laws. Such a decision was made in order to legalize the huge manorial lands that, relatively speaking, did not belong to their owners. Thus, the pillar nobles became hereditary nobles - only they themselves could dispose of their right to land. Naturally, in those years, the autocracy grew and strengthened, and the tsarist government reserved the right to take lands and demote a nobleman.

So we figured out the term "pillar noblewoman." The meaning of the word lies on the surface - this is a representative of the nobility, whose last name is in the "column lists" of the sovereign himself. Perhaps this is the daughter of the named royal servant, or his widow, behind whom were the left local lands “for maintenance”. But after the adoption of the land reform, this word begins to fall into disuse and practically loses its meaning. A. S. Pushkin in his fairy tale used this word to denote not only the greed of the old woman, but also her desire to be a famous person for the tsar himself. But how it ended for the greedy woman is known to everyone. and more What nobles in Russia were called columnar?

Subsequently, the estates became hereditary. In the 17th - early 18th centuries, the main documents of the annual record of servicemen according to the Moscow list were boyar lists, which in 1667-1719. were kept in the form of books, repeating the purpose and structure of the boyar lists-columns. Since for the truly ancient Russian noble families, the main evidence of their antiquity was the mention in these columns, such nobles were called columnar.
Stolbovo; e nobility; nstvo - in pre-revolutionary Russia, representatives of noble families, belonging to the ancient hereditary noble families. The name comes from the so-called Stolbtsy - medieval lists of granting estates to representatives of the service class for the duration of their service.
Pillar nobles were representatives of a noble family. The name "pillar" comes from columns - genealogical books.

tvsher In About pillar nobles and not only ...
Today we will talk about the nobles as a class. The reason was a discussion with my friend rainhard_15 . http://rainhard-15.livejournal.com/113708.html

And it all started with diksio she mentioned that her grandmother was a pillar noblewoman. And maybe no one would doubt the veracity of her words, if not for a small addition. Here is that comment: “My grandmother was born in Siberia... in Nerchinsk. Pillar noblewoman."

The owner of the magazine at first politely kept silent, I grunted, but, looking at the light prof_y did not say: “Pillar noblewomen could not have been there. But those who have already lost their rights - please. ”

diksio began to persist and insist: "What do you mean it couldn't? I was born there, then they moved.

So all the same, why in Nerchinsk there could not be pillar nobles, but only those who were struck in their rights, who no longer had any rights to be called canteens, no matter how much they would like to.

To begin with, let's understand who these pillar nobles are and what they are. And these are representatives of noble families in pre-revolutionary Russia, who belonged to the ancient hereditary noble families. The name comes from the so-called Columns - medieval lists of granting estates to representatives of the service class for the duration of their service, which were compiled before 1685

But, if any of the readers of this text saw their last name on this list, this does not mean at all that you belong to this noble family. For a number of reasons, from the fact that many serfs were recorded upon release under the surname of the former owners to the fact that the same surname could be worn by a noble family (who received the nobility for long service or for any merit) and completely unrelated with her simple namesakes. The same with titles - individual branches of a particular family sometimes received a title from the monarch and started a new, titled branch, while the rest of the branches remained "just" nobles. Thus, there were, for example, the princes of the Putyatins, the counts of the Putyatins, the nobles of the Putyatins (and the Putyatins, who did not possess the nobility at all), and there are a lot of such examples. Therefore, without careful and serious genealogical searches based on documents, you do not have to “automatically” attribute yourself to one or another well-known noble family, even if your last name is Golitsyn or Obolensky.

Yes, the nobles were divided into pillar, personal, hereditary, untitled. For those who are interested, Google will help, because if I digress also to explain the rest of the nobility, then the bukff will be even greater.

You also need to remember that in the Russian tradition, surnames, nobility and titles were transmitted exclusively through the male line. The so-called “illegitimate” (illegitimate or adultery) children were also excluded from inheritance until 1917, although many of them, especially the children of representatives of the royal family or the highest nobility, received a different surname and nobility. There are many examples of this, for example, Counts Bobrinsky, whose ancestor was the illegitimate son of Catherine II. Adopted children sometimes received the nobility at the request of their parents, at the "Highest Permission". Given that since the last century, especially after the Second World War, many children were born out of wedlock and received the mother's surname, a large number of today's Russians, bearing noble families and actually having nobles among their ancestors, from a pre-revolutionary point of view, are not nobles, not to mention that legally the very concept of nobility in Russia since October 1917 does not exist. Honestly, diksio I'm embarrassed to explain this to a lawyer...

By the way, the full name of the modern Russian Nobility Assembly sounds like "The Union of the Descendants of the Russian Nobility - the Russian Nobility Assembly." I think you can feel the difference.

Now let's move on to the question: why in Nerchinsk there could not be pillar nobles.

What is Nerchinsk. This is a city, the administrative center of the Nerchinsk district of the Trans-Baikal Territory. It was founded in 1653 by the Cossacks of the centurion Pyotr Ivanovich Beketov under the name Nerchinsk prison. In the XIX-XX centuries, Nerchinsk was a place of political hard labor and exile. Also, according to the decree of the Senate of May 20, 1763, women who were ill with syphilis and engaged in prostitution were subject to exile in Nerchinsk after being cured.

Nerchinsk penal servitude was a place of serving sentences for the most serious criminal offenses. The first lead-silver mine and the Zerentui hard labor prison began to operate in 1739 in the village of Gorny Zerentui. By the beginning of the 19th century, a system of prisons, mines, factories and other economic facilities had developed that belonged to the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty and was managed by the Mining Department. Convicts were used for the development of deposits, in foundries, distilleries and salt factories, in construction and household work. For example, over a million people visited this penal servitude in the 19th century.

A large number of participants in the Polish uprising of 1830-1831 served their sentences in Nerchinsk. and 1863-1864, Decembrist M. S. Lunin, Petrashevists, Nechaevs .... The list can be continued for a long time. And personally, I have not seen noblemen sentenced to hard labor retain their rights. And this is also to explain to me to you, diksio as a lawyer, the right is embarrassing ...

By the way, Pushkin has wonderful poems "My genealogy". The poet, by the way, himself a pillar nobleman, lists in it the most common ways of obtaining hereditary nobility in his time:

I am not an officer, not an assessor,
I'm not a noble by the cross,
Not an academician, not a professor;
I'm just a Russian tradesman.

*****
My grandfather did not sell pancakes (allusion to the Menshikovs),
Not waxed royal boots ( This is about Kutaisov, the valet of Paul I),
I did not sing with the court deacons ( About the Razumovskys, whose ancestor, Alyosha Rozum, became Elizabeth Petrovna's favorite after she noticed a handsome fellow with a wonderful voice in the church choir),
I didn’t jump from crests to princes ( Bezborodko),
And he was not a runaway soldier
Austrian powder squads (a kick towards Kleinmichel and his
descendants);
So should I be an aristocrat?
Thank God I'm a tradesman.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pillar nobility- in pre-revolutionary Russia, representatives of noble families, belonging to the ancient hereditary noble families. The name comes from the so-called Stolbtsy - medieval lists of granting estates to representatives of the service class for the duration of their service.

Subsequently, the estates became hereditary. In the 17th - early 18th centuries, the main documents for the annual recording of service people on the Moscow list were noble lists, which in - years were kept in the form of books that repeated the boyar column lists in purpose and structure. Since for the truly ancient Russian noble families, the main evidence of their antiquity was the mention in these columns, such nobles were called columnar.

Since this concept has not been legally formalized anywhere, there is no consensus in historiography on the question of what historical period can mark the end of the formation of this layer of the nobility, i.e. until what conditional or real date must a noble family or its founder be known in order to be considered a pillar. Various options for such conditional chronological restrictions include: 1) it is assumed that only those families whose ancestors are known in the largest pre-Petrine all-Russian genealogies, such as the Sovereign Genealogy and (or) the Velvet Book, can be attributed to pillar families; 2) in another version, the pillar nobility includes noble families known before 1613, i.e. before the election of the Romanov dynasty to the kingdom; 3) finally, all noble families of the pre-Petrine time can be attributed to pillar nobles (however, in this case it often remains unclear which particular moment of Peter's reign can be recognized as a milestone date).

In the XVIII-XIX centuries, pillar nobles did not have any privileges over representatives of new noble families (they appeared as a result of the award of personal or hereditary nobility for special merits, for length of service, by rank, by order). Therefore, the antiquity of the clan served exclusively as a source of pride for its representatives. In official documentation, the simple wording "from the nobles of such and such a province" was usually used, the same for both the old nobility and the new one. The pillar nobility was quite numerous in the 18th-19th centuries.

The titled nobility (aristocracy) largely consisted of new families (granting the title for special merits, sometimes to the former pillar, but not titled nobles), as well as Finnish, Belarusian, Polish, Georgian, Tatar, Ukrainian, Ostsee, Armenian, Balkan, Western European. The number of births that were previously boyar, and descended from Rurik, Gediminas, or from immigrants from the Golden Horde was limited and gradually decreased (the clan was suppressed in the absence of male heirs), both in relative numbers (the percentage of pillar relative to the growing total number of noble families in Russia), and in absolute terms (according to the total number of such genera). They had no privileges over the new titled nobility.