The state duties of the peasants were divided into systematic and episodic, and the systematic ones consisted of obezhny tribute (tire) and volostelin feed. The dues went to the treasury, the volostelin fodder - to feed the governors (officials, in a modern way). Episodic duties - the supply of military men, supply, various work - at the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th century were not burdensome. But later they become very severe.
In the Novgorod period, all the peasants of Zaonezhye sat mainly on a quitrent in kind - mostly squirrel: the boyars traded squirrel skins with foreign countries. One volost of the Vytegorsky churchyard paid dues to Boretsky with squirrels alone - 10 pieces per circle from the yard. The boyars sold them in bulk to overseas merchants. This was beneficial for the peasants, because the squirrels did not reduce the income from field crops.
According to the Svir churchyards, squirrels accounted for 79% of the quitrent, bread (rye and oats) - 8%, small income (rams, sheepskins, butter, cheese, etc.) - 2% and money 11%. Moreover, the monetary part of the quitrent during the 15th century gradually increased. So the peasant still had to trade.
In the southern pyatins, share-cropping dominated: the peasant gave away part of the crop - from 1/4 to 1/2. There was also a post-fixed bread quitrent. It was a heavier duty - it did not decrease in lean years.
Ivan 3, having annexed Novgorod to Moscow, radically reformed peasant duties as well. There was no protein in the duties. Money took the first place - up to 3/4 of the tribute tribute. Volostelin natural food was replaced by the governor's money food, which was collected from quitrents and palace peasants. He made 4-4.5 Novgorod money from one family. It was a heavy duty. One peasant family paid obezhny tribute in the southern pyatinas on average 1.7 Novgorod money, in the northern graveyards of the Obonezhskaya pyatina - 1.2 money, and in the southern, near the Svir, the poorest - 0.8.
As a result of the reform of Ivan 3, the monetary part of the dues increased almost 10 times. And this pushed the peasants to the market. Previously, the boyars traded, now the peasants are engaged in this. The role of money in the peasant economy has increased.
The reform of Ivan 3 was not cruel to the peasants. He was a wise man. Having increased ten times the monetary part of the dues, he at the same time reduced the duties to the peasants by an average of 30%, and in the Svir pogosts from 60 to 80%.
Prices haven't stayed the same either. Within ten years after joining Moscow, the prices for rye, oats and wheat in the Novgorod pyatins rose by an average of 40%. This is how different products began to cost in the North-West in Novgorod money. A loaf of bread and kalach cost 1 money each. A pood of oats also cost 1 money, a pood of barley - 1.1, rye and buckwheat - 1.6, a pood of wheat - 2 money. A cartload of hay cost 6 bucks. Yalovitsa - 42 money, a pig - 20 money, a ram - 4 money. A squirrel cost the same as a ram. A pood of cow butter cost 20 money (like a pig), a pood of honey - 21 money, 100 pieces of eggs - 3 money, 100 pieces of dried fish - 1.4 money (like a pood of rye). Poultry was cheap: a chicken for 1 money, a goose for 1.5. But the swan cost 14 money - this is food for the master's table.
In general, as a result of the reforms of Ivan 3, the standard of living of the Novgorod peasants did not decrease. And for the peasants who fell into the category of sovereigns, quitrents (in Obonezhie), the situation turned out to be even more advantageous than under the boyars.
The position of the peasants
For the 15th - early 16th century, we can talk about the prosperous situation of the peasant economy in the north-west of Russia. The differentiation of the peasantry was weak, weakest of all in the north, where there were fewer lands and lands. There were few ruined peasants and empty lands. There were many prosperous peasants, but employment in the peasant economy was a rare phenomenon.
A great force was at work in society, leveling the peasant farms. The peasant could leave the landowner - that's what this strength was. The feudally dependent peasant was not a serf attached to the land - he was personally free. If the owner oppressed him, he left him, leaving the land, and the empty land did not bring income to the landowner. Therefore, the landowner could not tear three skins from the peasants, He, on the contrary, helped
peasants and, if necessary, even credited them. The conditions of peasant life were quite tolerable, and the peasants sat firmly on the ground. The lands were not empty. And since the peasant did not leave, the ruling class did not need to keep them by the force of law - to enslave, attach to the land, turn them into slaves.
A well-regulated social mechanism worked, everything was in balance: the peasant and the owner, income and expenditure. This quiet life will continue for another 70 years, and in the 16th, formidable century, the mechanism will break.
At the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, two trends emerged, two ways of developing feudal agriculture in Russia.
The first path was outlined on the sovereign, dues lands. There was no landowner here, there was no petty regulation of the life and way of life of the peasants. The level of exploitation of the peasants allowed them to live normally, without overstrain. Here the peasant economic initiative dominated, money played a big role. Here the peasantry was more stratified. It was the path of a quick and natural transition to capitalism.
The second path was outlined on the landowners' lands. Gradually increased the size of duties. Peasant life became more difficult. The peasant was losing the initiative. Corvee delayed the pace of economic development. The only thing left for the peasant was to abandon the land and go to other places where exploitation was not so high: after all, he was a free tenant of land. But then the landlord had only one thing left to do - to enslave the peasant, attach him to the land by legislative means. It was the path to serfdom.
If Russia had taken the first path, its history would have been completely different. But she had a second path ahead of her, and this path began under Ivan 3.
No matter how good the economic mechanism created by the Great Terrible, the sovereign of all Russia, the sovereign nevertheless secured himself: he inserted an article about the famous St. George's Day in his Sudebnik of 1497.
St. George's day - church holiday of St. George, November 26, old style. Ivan 3 limited the transition of peasants from one feudal lord to another two weeks a year - a week before St. George's Day and within a week after it. When all agricultural work is completed.
The first step towards the enslavement of the peasants was taken. It remained to cancel the transition of the peasants altogether. This will happen in 96 years.
Rise and fall (16th century)
Situation
The 16th century turned the whole of Europe upside down. The victorious march of capitalism began from England and the Netherlands, which entered the manufacturing period. On the continent in 1517, Martin Luther spoke with 95 theses against the sale of indulgences. The Reformation began in Germany, Switzerland, France, England. The religious wars in England and France resulted in hundreds of thousands of victims. The flow of gold from America created a price revolution. A peasant war broke out in Germany (1524-1526), followed by the Dutch bourgeois revolution (1566-1579). Spain was losing its influence. First she succumbed in the Netherlands to the Guesses, and then at sea to the English sailors, who in 1588 crushed her "Invincible Armada".
Engaged in such worthy deeds, the Europeans finally learned for sure that their Earth is round: Federico Magellan practically proved this with his circumnavigation in 1519-1521, which cost him his life. By the way, for some reason, it was after his voyage that a temporary warming began in Europe, which lasted almost half a century (1525-1569), making it easier for Europeans to change.
Russia was aloof from European events. And the Europeans had a very vague idea of Eastern Europe. At the beginning of the 16th century, two Russias were depicted on various European maps: Moskoviae pars (the country of Muscovy) and
Russia Alba (White Russia). White Russia is Western Russia within the state of Lithuania. She was depicted north of the Black Sea and west of the Don. For some reason, Ingermanland was part of White Russia. White Russians (russi albi) visited Finland and East Sweden. Perhaps these were not White Russians, but Muscovites.
In the center of Muscovy, a swamp was depicted, from which three major rivers of Eastern Europe flowed: the Western Dvina (to the Baltic Sea), the Dnieper (to the Black Sea) and the Volga (to the Caspian Sea).
In 1516, the map of Waldseemüller first depicted White Lake - Lacus Albus. And on the map of Valovsky, it connects with the Arctic Ocean, which then and earlier was called Oceanus Scithicus - Oceanus Scythicus, the Scythian Ocean. The cartographer mixed up information about the White Lake and the White Sea - everything is white. In 1532, on Ziegler's map, White Lake is already in place of Lake Ladoga and the Dnieper and Don flow from it. Now two lakes are mixed up. Western Europeans knew Eastern Europe less well than the recently discovered America. However, they did not yet know that this was America, and considered it to be India.
Russian merchants knew Northern Europe better than Europeans. At the end of the 15th century, they mastered the sea route around Norway, and in the 1520s, Russian ambassadors visited England.
In 1539, a map of Northern Europe by the Swede in exile, Olaus Magnus, appears. This is the first European map where Greenland and Scandinavia are not connected. Russia is still called Moscoviae pars. For the first time, the extreme Russian North is depicted on the map, but with errors. The Kola Peninsula is shown as an isthmus connected to the mainland in the east. The White Sea is shown as a lake (Lacus Albus) that does not connect to the Scythian Ocean. In Sweden, the southwestern coast of the White Sea was well known and considered it a lake, because they knew it from the land side: the inhabitants of Northern Botnia visited these places for hunting and fishing.
But fish were caught here mainly by Muscovites - Novgorodians. Their settlements are shown on the map. On the White Sea and in Eastern Botnia, Novgorod merchants carried on an extensive fur trade with the Lapps. And the Ushkuiniki and the Swedes plundered the border Karelian lands.
After the map of Olaus Magnus was published, they recognized in Europe. that it is possible to swim to China on the Scythian Ocean, it remains to wait for the daredevils. They were the British. In 1554, an English expedition, bypassing Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula, reached the mouth of the Northern Dvina and reached Moscow by dry land. The following year, 1555, the Moscow Company was founded. An English one-way trade with Russia through the White Sea begins, every year 3-4 English ships.
There was no Arkhangelsk yet, the way from the White Sea to Moscow along the Dvina and Sukhona rivers lay through Vologda. From it went the way to Siberia. The rise of Vologda began. The city becomes the largest center of foreign trade in Russia
Developments
In the history of Russia, the 16th century was divided in half: a quiet half before Ivan the Terrible and a bloody half with Ivan the Terrible. The climate is normal: for 100 years 26 rainy and 16 dry. But 4 all-Russian droughts occurred in the quiet half: 1508, 1525, 1533 and 1534.
Vasily 3 reigned for 28 years, from 1505 to 1533. The expansion of the state continued. In 1510, the Grand Duke annexed Pskov, brought out 300 families of posadniks, boyars and merchants from there, confiscated their lands, and planted Moscow service people in their places.
Then he annexed Smolensk, Bryansk, Ryazan, Gomel, Chernigov, Putivl, the upper reaches of the Seversky Donets to Moscow. Basically, these lands belonged to Lithuania, which was weakening. By the end of the reign of Vasily 3, all Russian lands were divided between the Muscovite state and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Moscow was exalted, and Lithuania was losing its greatness, but it still had Kyiv, Vitebsk, Polotsk, it was still a power from sea to sea.
When Vasily 3 died in 1533, his son, the future Ivan 4 the Terrible, was only 3 years old. He was proclaimed the Grand Duke of All Russia, but for 14 years, until 1547, guardians ruled Russia. The Board of Trustees, headed by the mother of the future Tsar, Elena Glinskaya, went down in history under the name "seven boyars". The guardians did not wage wars, but the Kazan Tatars annually, from 1534 to 1545, raided the eastern outskirts of Russia. The question of Russian prisoners was acute.
During the reign of Elena Glinskaya, a monetary reform was carried out: the old, Moscow money was replaced by a new, Novgorod one.
The old, Moscow money was called "saber": a rider with a saber was minted on it. It was a silver light weight coin. Trade turnover in the Muscovite state was expanding, and the money supply could not keep up with it, because the stock of precious metals in Russia was negligible. This caused a massive falsification of the Moscow silver coin. Counterfeiters were punished severely: they flogged their hands, poured tin down their throats (for replacing silver with tin) - nothing helped.
The reform consisted in the fact that the old coin of the authorities was withdrawn from circulation and re-minted according to a single pattern. New, Novgorod silver money was heavier, unified. It began to be called first "Novgorodka", and then "penny", because a rider with a spear was minted on it.
But Russia lagged behind Europe. Crafts developed slowly. The role of cities in the economy and citizens in social life was insufficient. In the middle of the century in huge Russia there were 160 cities, and in the small Netherlands 300. The state was expanding, but there were no commodity-money relations. And there was an outflow of the population to the outskirts. And the total population in Russia was 6.5 million people. With a huge territory, the density is very low - 2 people per square kilometer. 100 thousand people lived in Moscow, 25-30 thousand in Novgorod. And the southern and eastern lands were empty because of the threat of Tatar raids. And, perhaps, the main indicator: crops in Russia are self-3-4. Such harvests in Europe were 2-3 centuries ago. Plow still dominated. The plow and fertilizer were rare.
The monarchy was not absolute (as in Europe). The monarch shared power with the aristocracy, with the Boyar Duma. The then formula for the adoption of laws: "The king indicated, and the boyars were sentenced." The ruling class had a strict hierarchy. Above - the boyars, large landowners: the land is at their complete disposal. In the middle - votchinniki, boyar children. Below - the nobles, whose land was in local ownership (while they were serving). In the 16th century, the estate became the dominant form of feudal landownership. But the nobles had no representatives in the Boyar Duma.
In such conditions, on January 16, 1547, he was married to the kingdom Ivan 4, the first Russian tsar. The quiet half of the century is over. The formidable tsar ruled Russia for 37 years, of which 31 years went to war.
And it all started with fires. In the summer of 1547, Moscow burned three times, the biggest fire happened on June 21: Moscow burned for 10 hours, 25 thousand households burned out, from 1700 to 3700 people died. On June 26, an uprising took place in Moscow.
Then, in 1549, an unofficial government, the Chosen Rada, and the first Zemsky Sobor gathered. In 1550, the Elected Rada carried out reforms: it compiled a new Sudebnik, where the provision on St. George's Day was repeated, created orders (prototypes of ministries), and organized a streltsy army. The days of Ivanovs are a great start.
Ivan 4 set out to cut two knots at once - the southern and the northwestern: to go to the Black Sea and expand the exit to the Baltic.
In the south, the Great Horde collapsed as early as 1502, but aggressive khanates remained on the Volga and in the Crimea. During the first half of the century, the Crimean Tatars undertook 43 campaigns against Russia, and Kazan about 40. Ivan 4 began with the southern problem.
In 1548-1550, the Russian army twice went to Kazan, but without success. In 1551, the Right-Bank, Mountain side of the Kazan Khanate was peacefully annexed. In 1552, the Russian troops went on a third campaign and
Kazan was taken by storm - the Left Bank, Meadow side of the Khanate was annexed. Then five years of Tatar revolts followed, but they did not change anything. Then, in 1553, during the illness of the sovereign, the first executions of traitors and heretics took place. There are 14 years left before the mass executions.
In 1556 it was the turn of the Astrakhan Khanate. Russia went to the Caspian Sea, its border moved to the Terek. Next was the Caucasus.
There remained a strong Crimean Khanate. In 1556-1561, Russian troops undertook a campaign in the Crimea, reached Bakhchisaray and Kerch, learned to fry kebabs on a fire and pushed the Russian border to Azov. Complete victory
lay in the palm of your hand. But Ivan 4 did not end this war: at the height of the Crimean campaign, in 1558, he got involved in an easy, as it apparently seemed to him, Livonian war and got stuck in it for 25 years. All forces were thrown to the North-West - the Crimean Khanate survived, and then with Turkish help it intensified. The Black Sea remained closed to Russia, even Peter 1 did not open it 150 years later
This was Grozny's serious military-political mistake - the first mistake. The following mistakes turned into crimes against the people. The war moved to the North, and the Crimean Tatars continued to plunder southern Russia. Of the 25 years of the Livonian War, 21 years were marked by Tatar raids. In 1571, the Tatars even set fire to Moscow.
But in the first eight years of the reign of Ivan 4, the territory of Russia increased from 2.8 to 4 million square kilometers. And the Great Russians made up only 1/2 of the population in it. Smell of the Russian Empire.
The first dissatisfied appeared. In 1554, the first flight from Russia happened: Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky fled to Lithuania, but unsuccessfully. He was exiled to Beloozero. In 1554-1555 there were mass executions of townspeople. But the nickname Terrible Ivan 4 has not yet received.
In the Northwest in the middle of the 16th century Russian borders were calm. Russia had access to the Baltic Sea along the shores of the Gulf of Finland - from the Narva River to the Sestra River (as in 1939). The dominance of the Hansa in the Baltic was ending, Denmark and its fleet were getting stronger. For Russia, there were good conditions for trade with turbulent Europe.
In 1525, the remnant of the Teutonic Order was proclaimed a duchy by Prussia. A militaristic thorn has remained in the body of Eastern Europe, which will be picked up more than once until it is removed in 1945.
The Livonian Order, bordering on Russia, became decrepit and did not pose any particular danger.
Sweden was busy with internal affairs. In 1521-1523 peasants and miners rebelled there. The uprising was led by the nobleman Gustav Vasa. The rebels won, and Gustav Vasa was elected king of Sweden. First of all, he terminated the Kalmar Union with Denmark in 1397. Sweden gained independence. In 1524, the new Swedish king begins the Reformation in Sweden, which, among other things, included the abolition of monasteries, the secularization of church lands and the confiscation of church treasures accumulated over five centuries. (Why not a Bolshevik?). For comparison: in the 16th century, after the reforms of Ivan 3, the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery owned 20 thousand acres of land (200 square kilometers) and 923 villages and villages.
Gustav Vasa encouraged the development of industry, trade and shipping. Sweden soon came out on top in Europe, and therefore in the world, in the production and export of iron and copper.
At this time, all the Scandinavian countries carried out the reform of their churches, in Sweden and Finland - in 1539-1540. Royal power subjugated the spiritual and thereby strengthened. In 1544, Sweden became a hereditary monarchy, it developed a military appetite, and from the second half of the century it resumed its policy of conquest, interrupted in the 14th century.
Finland in 1556 (two years before the Livonian War) becomes a duchy within Sweden, and in 1581 (two years before the end of the Livonian War) it is proclaimed a Grand Duchy with Turku as its capital. The future capital of Helsingfors (Helsinki) was founded by the Swedes in 1550, but so far it remains in a provincial form. The Finns have a written language. In the middle of the century, the Finnish bishop-educator Mikael Agricola (1510-1557) compiled a Finnish primer, translated the Bible into Finnish and published the first spiritual books in Finnish. But for another 200 years, Swedish will remain the official language of Finland.
Such was the situation in the Eastern Baltic and Northern Europe, when Ivan 4, not yet finished with the Crimean Khan, began the Livonian War. His miscalculation was that he could not foresee the unanimous action of neighboring countries against Russia.
Ivan 4 had another solution: for communications and trade with Europe, he could establish a port at the mouth of the Neva, a century and a half ahead of Peter. But he coveted ready-made ports through which Russian merchants traded - Narva, Revel (Tallinn) and Riga. They belonged to the decrepit Livonian Order, and the main source of income for these cities was Russian transit trade with Europe. And the English and Dutch merchants did not have direct trade with Russia. The Livonian cities were part of the Hansa, and the German emperor was considered their overlord. That's what Ivan 4 got involved in.
Russia's colossal trade through Vyborg was still flourishing. But the contradictions between Sweden and Russia in border issues interfered with this trade. There was even a small war: in September 1555, the Swedes went on the offensive both by sea and by land, laid siege to Oreshek. But they were defeated by Russian troops at Vuoksa and near Vyborg. They lost many prisoners and in June 1556 made peace in Moscow. Probably, this success inspired Ivan 4.
Livonian War started in January 1558 - started successfully. There was a pretext: the Livonian side violated the terms of another truce. Russian troops suddenly crossed the border with Livonia, which ran along the Narova River, Lake Peipsi and west of the Velikaya River, and quickly occupied Narva and Yuryev. The Livonian Order cracked at all seams. But then problems arose in the south, and in order to march on the Crimea, Ivan 4 in 1559 concludes a truce with Livonia. He defeated the Crimean uluses, but when he returned to the Baltic states, he received a completely different balance of power.
Seeing the inevitability of defeat, the Livonian nobility decided to submit to anyone, but not the Russians. The bishop of the island of Esel in 1559 was the first to accept the patronage of the Danish king. And Revel in 1561, when the Russian troops approached, swore allegiance to the new Swedish king Eric 4. The Swedes, ahead of the Russians, captured Estland (Northern Estonia), and the nobility of Northern Estonia also swore allegiance to Eric. Poland also intervened, the Archbishop of Riga and the Livonian Order itself came under its protectorate.
The result of 1561: The Livonian Order collapsed, Russia managed to capture half of Livonia, but now Russia has four new opponents - Sweden, Denmark, Poland and Lithuania. With Sweden, Ivan 4 concludes a truce for 20 years, hostile relations with Poland. Sweden and Denmark are bogged down in the Eight Years' War. Ivan 4 in 1562 concludes an agreement with Denmark against Sweden. For Russia, a 16-year diplomatic war began.
While the war is going on in the Baltic, English trade with Russia through the White Sea is flourishing. In 1563-1567, already 10-14 ships annually sail to the Russian shores.
In 1563, Ivan 4 conquered Polotsk from Lithuania and the following year received an offensive by Lithuanian troops and the flight of Prince Kurbsky to Lithuania. But he concludes a seven-year peace with Sweden. Crisis phenomena appeared in the Russian economy. Heavy taxes lead to the desolation of the Novgorod lands, in Bezhetskaya Pyatina 12% of the land is empty. In the Obonezh Pyatina, the quitrent from the sovereign's peasants for 30 years, from 1533 to 1563, increased 4-6 times.
January 5, 1565 Ivan the Terrible proclaims oprichnina. The seven-year terror begins. In fact, historians consider the beginning of the terror in 1560, when the Chosen Rada, the then government, was liquidated.
The terrible word "oprichnina" is a noun derived from the adjective "oprichny", which means only "special". Oprichnina - a special military corps to protect the "God-protected" personality of the monarch and strengthen his power. The guardsmen are special officers of the 16th century. At first there were 570 of them, then the oprichnina army reached 5000. For its maintenance and royal expenses, territories were transferred that made up the special possession of the king - the oprichnina. This is the second meaning of the word. Historians also call the tsar's policy in 1565-1572 the oprichnina. This is the third value.
All Moscow land was divided into two parts - the oprichnina (the sovereign's inheritance) and the zemshchina. But the zemstvo "for the rise" (for the departure of the tsar from Moscow) had to pay an indemnity of 100 thousand rubles - this is the cost of 2 million quarters of rye.
The north of the oprichnina was occupied by a strip of land that expanded towards the White Sea. Novgorodians were cut off the path to the north and to the Volga. Iron was delivered from the Oshta churchyard for palace needs. And Vologda became the northern residence of the king, as if the second capital. In 1565, the construction of a new, oprichnina Kremlin began in it.
Went executions of princes and boyars and forced resettlement. Ivan 4 became Terrible. And very suspicious. In 1567, he imagines a conspiracy against him, he writes a message to the Queen of England with a request for political asylum. From this year, historians count the beginning of mass terror. Here is material for psychiatrists.
In 1567 Ivan the Terrible undertook a new campaign against Livonia. But the situation is changing again. In 1569, on July 1, a historic event takes place - Lithuania and Poland sign the Union of Lublin and unite into one state - the Commonwealth, which will last 226 years, until 1795. And in 1570, on the initiative of Ivan 4 and under his patronage, the ephemeral Livonian kingdom was created. It's like everything is sorted out. But this was the peak of the military and diplomatic achievements of the king. Then the decline began.
1568 and 1569 in Russia are lean years. In 1570, the price of bread jumped 5-10 times.
In the same 1570, the 8-year-old Danish-Swedish war ends: Denmark resigned itself to the independence of Sweden. And the Russian-Danish agreement becomes a dummy. A complication of Livonian affairs looms before Russia. But future opponents give Ivan 4 eight years of respite. He got the opportunity to consolidate his success and prepare the northwestern Russian lands for a serious war with Sweden and the Commonwealth.
Instead, he decided to put an end to the remnants of the Novgorod and Pskov freemen and began an internal war to strengthen Moscow state power. The reason was the nameless "anonymous" petition. Novgorodians allegedly wanted to exterminate the tsar, put Prince Vladimir Staritsky on the state, give Novgorod and Pskov to the Polish king. The denunciation did not arise from scratch: in 1569 there was a betrayal in Izborsk, and the Poles briefly captured the fortress. Suspicions of Ivan 4 fell on Pskov and Novgorod. To begin with, he resettled 500 families from Pskov and 150 families from Novgorod - up to 3,000 noble citizens.
And then the Swedish king Eric 4 was overthrown from the throne, and the king asks the royal ambassadors to take him to Russia (as the king of the English queen two years before).
At the end of December 1569, a 15,000-strong oprichnina army under the command of Malyuta Skuratov set out on a campaign against Novgorod and Pskov. At first, Klin, Torzhok and Tver were occupied. In five days, several thousand were killed. On January 6, the tsar with the main army entered Novgorod. Oprichniki daily drowned in Volkhov, lowered under the ice, 1000-1500 people each. Treasures of Novgorod became the property of the king. The devastated and bloodless city ceased to be a rival of Moscow. February 13, the tsar in Pskov. There were small executions here. The Pskov treasury passed into the hands of the tsar. There were also punitive expeditions to Narva and Ivangorod.
Oprichniki devastated not only cities, but also all lands within a radius of 200-300 kilometers: bread was burned, livestock was destroyed.
During the winter of 1569-1570, the guardsmen slaughtered several tens of thousands of people. All the next summer, the surviving Novgorodians brought the dead and drowned to heaps and buried them in common graves.
Already in the summer, on July 25, 1570, the execution of boyars with children took place in Moscow. At the Poganaya Puddle (later Chistye Prudy) 116 people were executed. The king himself killed too - with a pike and a saber. It was a Moscow affair, the tsar eliminated the old oprichnina leadership, especially the Basmanovs. It was already paranoia, but there was no one to diagnose - psychiatry did not exist. The new oprichnina leadership - Malyuta Skuratov and Vasily Gryaznoy - distinguished themselves in the investigation and executions. Malyuta will not have time to make a career - he will die in 1572 during the storming of Paida Castle in Swedish Livonia.
For comparison. The semi-mad Swedish king Eric 3 executed no less than Ivan 4. The French king Charles 9 participated in the massacre of Protestants on St. Bartholomew's night on August 24, 1572, when half of the noble French nobility was destroyed. By cruelty European monarchs were worthy of each other.
The oprichny genocide of the northwestern Russian lands did not end in 1570. It continued throughout the 1570s. The oprichniki attacked their neighbors, burned villages, and took the peasants by force. People fled, many went further north. The northwestern Russian lands were plundered, and these were the rear of the Russian army.
In 1570, after two lean years, a plague came to Russia from the West. In Moscow, up to 600-1000 people died daily. Novgorodians buried 10 thousand dead in the fall, 12 thousand died in Ustyug. In total, the plague claimed 300,000 lives. And in addition, the Crimean Khan Devlet Giray raided Moscow - Moscow burned to the ground. Khan's campaign cost Russia another 300,000 lives. In 1572, Devlet Giray was again near Moscow, but this time it was defeated.
And in the same year, the oprichnina ended. The tsar issued a decree prohibiting the use of the word "oprichnina". Historians proudly state that the oprichnina fulfilled its main task - the elimination of specific princely separatism. There were no more divisions. (And the peasants for what?). Russia, like all European states, paid dearly for its consolidation.
Ivan 3 simply resettled the boyars. Charles 9 cut the French nobility. Why peasants? What kind of separatism do they have?
The last outbreak of mass executions under Ivan 4 was in 1575. By this time, even the nobles were tired of the wars of the formidable king. From the mid-1570s, the absence of noblemen for service and desertion from the army became widespread. In the Novgorod lands, thousands of beggars roam the roads.
1575-1577 - years of some success: Russian troops win victories in Livonia, there is silence on the southern borders, the Crimeans switch to the Commonwealth: they raid the Kiev region, Volhynia and Podolia. But on May 1, 1576, the Transylvanian (Hungarian) prince Stefan Batory was crowned on the Polish throne. The situation is changing again.
Batory makes peace with the Crimean Khan and makes three trips to the western Russian lands. In the first campaign (1579) he takes Polotsk,
lost by Lithuania, in the second campaign (1580) - Velikiye Luki. In the same year, 1580, the Tatars resume attacks on the southern borders of Russia, and the Swedes invade Karelia in November and capture Korela. In the third campaign (1581), Batory takes Izborsk, but unsuccessfully besieges Pskov for five months. For another whole year, Polish troops are hosting on Pskov land.
At the same time (1581), the Swedes take Narva, Ivangorod, Yam and Koporye, reach the mouth of the Neva from the north, occupy the western and northern banks of Ladoga and stop 40 kilometers from Olonets, but individual Swedish detachments penetrate far into the depths of Russian territory. Commanding the Swedish forces in the north is Pontus Delagardie.
The Alexander-Svirsky Monastery was destroyed. The Swedes visited Vazhinsky churchyard. For the first time the war came to the Soginsk land. Quiet life ended on the banks of Vazhinsky. In the Novgorod scribe book for 1583, it is reported that in the Vazhinsky churchyard "German people burned the churches." In the 16th century, there were already two churches in Vazhyny - Resurrection and Elijah. It is also written there that the Church of the Resurrection has already been restored. Elijah's Church was restored later. How many people lived at the mouth of the Vazhinka, if there were two churches there and, therefore, there were two parishes, that is, two churchyards per volost.
The invasion of the Swedes in the Ladoga and Onega regions meant that Russia could not defend itself, the war was lost. It remains to conclude a shameful peace.
On January 5, 1582, an agreement was signed in Yama Zapolsky on a 10-year truce between Russia and the Commonwealth. Russia received back the Pskov lands seized by Stefan Batory, but lost Polotsk and South Livonia. In the text of the charter, Ivan 4 was called the Grand Duke, not the Tsar.
The war with Sweden is still going on. In the rear of Ivan 4, the peoples of the Volga region are revolting. The Swedish king Johan 3 accepts a plan for the military defeat and dismemberment of Russia. Delagardie's army in September 1582 unsuccessfully stormed Oreshek. Finally, on August 10, 1583, the
a truce with Sweden - a three-year. Sweden departs Northern Livonia (Northern Estonia), the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland with the fortresses of Yam, Koporye and Ivangorod and Western Karelia to Olonets. For Russia there was only a narrow exit to the Gulf of Finland between the rivers Neva and Sestra. From Soginice to the Swedish border 60 kilometers. Soginsk region became a border region. .
The Livonian War is over. In Russia, devastation, economic desolation. In the Moscow district, 80% of arable land is not sown, in the Novgorod lands - 90%. That is, in the Novgorod lands, 9 out of 10 villages are empty.
Two years before the end of the war, the king, in a fit of rage, kills his eldest son. Symbolically.
At the same time, a census of the population is carried out, and in order to enumerate the peasants, "reserved summers" are established that prohibit the transition of peasants.
That is, the articles of Sudebnikov of 1497 and 1550 about St. George's Day are cancelled.
And now, after 37 years of reign, on March 18, 1584, Ivan the Terrible dies. He is 54 years old, before his death he is a deep old man: wrinkles on his face, bags under his eyes, face and body are asymmetrical.
And he had three sons. He killed the eldest, the middle one, Fedor, sickly and weak-minded, 27 years old in the year of his father's death, the youngest, Dmitry, 2 years old. And which one is the king?
May 31, 1584 Fedor Ivanovich crowned king. But he could not reign, he could not rule. And this is also symbolic. But here Russia was lucky. The feeble-minded king still had a wife. This he could. And his wife, Tsaritsa Irina, had a brother - Boris Godunov, a smart, cunning and power-hungry man. The last quality is the most important. He began to rule.
The country he got ruined with upset finances. First of all, a general amnesty was announced for the victims of the oprichnina. People who had been in prisons, monasteries and simply in exile for 20 years were released. (Well, as in 1956 under Khrushchev after Stalin.)
In 1586, there were riots in Moscow, the mob attacked the Godunov court, plans for an invasion of Russia were discussed in the Polish Sejm, but then King Stefan Batory died. Sigismund 3 Vasa becomes king of Poland. He is also heir to the Swedish throne.
Then in Russia two lean years (1587-1588) follow each other and, of course, famine. And after the famine in Russia, a patriarchate was established, the first patriarch was elected - Job, a protege of Boris Godunov. And the doctrine "Moscow is the third Rome" is being invented. With an imbecile king and a hungry population. It's in Russian!
And the three-year truce with Sweden is long over. New Swedish raids begin, followed by a full-fledged war in 1590. Russian troops took the Yam and reached Narva, and the Swedes ravaged the Lopsky churchyards in the north of Karelia and the island Konevets monastery on Ladoga. The chronicler notes that in 1590 the "Sveian Germans" (that is, the Swedes) went to the Dvina and Onega. It seems that they fought equally, but Russian diplomacy won. In 1595, according to the Tyavzinsky Russian-Swedish peace treaty - "eternal peace" (that is, not a truce) - Sweden returned to Russia the lands it had captured in the Livonian War: the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland to the Narova River and part of Western Karelia with the Korela fortress. In return, Russia ceded its lands in Finland to Sweden. If earlier the Russian border from Lake Ladoga went to the northern tip of the Gulf of Bothnia, now it went straight north to the Barents Sea almost along the meridian.
So already without Ivan the Terrible, his conflict with Europe ended. The territorial result was zero. Russia is brought to exhaustion. It was so weakened that at the beginning of the next century it was on the verge of a new foreign conquest.
In the meantime, the war with the Swedes was going on, in Uglich on May 15, 1591, the 9-year-old Tsarevich Dmitry, the youngest son of Grozny, who suffered from epilepsy, died. Fell on a knife while playing. And this is symbolic. And will people believe this? Godunov will never wash off.
The peasants were in a temporarily obligated state until the conclusion of a redemption deal. At first, the period of this state was not indicated. On December 28, 1881, it was finally installed. According to the decree, all temporarily liable peasants were transferred for redemption from January 1, 1883. A similar situation took place only in the central regions of the empire. On the outskirts, the temporarily obligated state of the peasants remained until 1912-1913.
Under a temporarily obligated state, the peasants had to pay dues for the use of land or work on corvée. The amount of dues for a full allotment was 8-12 rubles a year. The profitability of the allotment and the size of the quitrent were in no way connected. The highest dues (12 rubles a year) were paid by the peasants of the St. Petersburg province, whose lands were extremely infertile. On the contrary, in the chernozem provinces the amount of dues was much lower.
Another vice of quitrent was its gradation, when the first tithe of land was valued more than the rest. For example, in non-chernozem lands, with a full allotment of 4 tithes and a quitrent of 10 rubles, the peasant paid 5 rubles for the first tithe, which was 50% of the quitrent (for the last two tithes, the peasant paid 12.5% of the total quitrent). This forced the peasants to buy land, and gave the landowners the opportunity to profitably sell infertile land.
All men aged 18 to 55 and all women aged 17 to 50 were required to serve corvee. Unlike the former corvée, the post-reform corvee was more limited and streamlined. For a full allotment, a peasant was supposed to work on corvée no more than 40 men's and 30 women's days.
Local regulations
The rest of the "Local provisions" basically repeated the "Great Russian", but taking into account the specifics of their regions. The features of the Peasant Reform for certain categories of peasants and specific regions were determined by the “Additional Rules” - “On the arrangement of peasants settled on the estates of small landowners, and on the allowance for these owners”, “On people assigned to private mining plants of the department of the Ministry of Finance”, “On peasants and workers serving work at Perm private mining plants and salt mines”, “About peasants serving work at landowner factories”, “About peasants and courtyard people in the Land of the Don Cossacks”, “About peasants and courtyard people in the Stavropol province”, “ About Peasants and Household People in Siberia”, “About people who came out of serfdom in the Bessarabian region”.
Liberation of the yard peasants
The “Regulations on the arrangement of courtyard people” provided for their release without land and estates, but for 2 years they remained completely dependent on the landowner. Domestic servants at that time accounted for 6.5% of the serfs. Thus, a huge number of peasants found themselves practically without a livelihood.
Redemption payments
The regulation “On the redemption by peasants who have emerged from serfdom of their estate settlement and on the government’s assistance in acquiring field land by these peasants” determined the procedure for the redemption of land by peasants from landowners, the organization of the redemption operation, the rights and obligations of peasant owners. The redemption of the field allotment depended on an agreement with the landowner, who could oblige the peasants to redeem the land at their request. The price of land was determined by quitrent, capitalized from 6% per annum. In the event of a ransom under a voluntary agreement, the peasants had to make an additional payment to the landowner. The landowner received the main amount from the state.
The peasant was obliged to immediately pay the landowner 20% of the redemption amount, and the remaining 80% was paid by the state. The peasants had to repay it for 49 years annually in equal redemption payments. The annual payment was 6% of the redemption amount. Thus, the peasants in total paid 294% of the redemption loan. In modern terms, the buyout loan was a loan with annuity payments for a period of 49 years at 5.6% per annum. The payment of redemption payments was discontinued in 1906 under the conditions of the First Russian Revolution. Mikhail Pokrovsky pointed out that "the redemption was beneficial not to the peasants, but to the landlords." By 1906, the peasants paid 1 billion 571 million rubles in ransom for land worth 544 million rubles. Thus, the peasants actually (taking into account the interest on the loan) paid a triple amount, which was the subject of criticism from observers who stood on populist positions (and later from Soviet historians), but at the same time it was a mathematically normal result for such a long-term loan. The loan rate of 5.6% per annum, taking into account the non-mortgage nature of the loan (for non-payment of redemption fees, it was possible to seize the personal, non-productive property of peasants, but not the land itself) and the manifested unreliability of the borrowers, was balanced and consistent with the prevailing lending rates for all other types of borrowers at the time. Since penalties for overdue payments were repeatedly written off, and in 1906 the state forgave rural communities for all the unpaid part of the debt, the redemption operation turned out to be unprofitable for the state.
(based on "The Poem of the Versonian Villans")
"The Poem of the Verson Villans" was written in Old French by a certain Estou le Goz in the middle of the 13th century. The action takes place in the village of Verson, not far from the city of Caen (Normandy). Verson's lord was the rich monastery of St. Michael. The author of the work is entirely on the side of the monastery and is hostile and ironic towards the peasants.
Again I bring my complaint to St. Michael - the messenger of the heavenly king - against all Verson villains ...
Villans must carry stone - in it, every day, then need - without disputes and without resistance. And in furnaces and in mills - after all, they are more treacherous than humble! - they are constantly guilty of service. If a house is being built, they must supply stone and cement to the masons"...
The first work of the year is for Ivanov's day 2. Villans must mow the meadows, rake and collect hay in shocks and stack it in haystacks in the meadows, and then take it to the manor's yard when they indicate. Bordarii 3 will remove the hay to the barn. They do this work all the time.
Then they must clean the mill ditches - each comes with his own shovel; with a shovel around their necks, they go to shovel dry and liquid manure. Villan is doing this work.
But then August comes, and with it a new job (they just missed it!). They owe corvee, and it should not be forgotten. Villans must reap bread, collect and bundle it into sheaves, stack it in stacks in the middle of the field and take it immediately to the barns. They carry this service from childhood, as their ancestors carried it. This is how they work for the lord.
"Apparently, a mixture of clay and straw.
3 Bordarii - peasants who are obliged to work mainly on the estate, in contrast to villans - holders of small plots on estates, bearing corvée and paying dues in kind and money.
If their lands are subject to shampar, then they will never bring their sheaves from the fields: they go to look for a picker and bring him with great reluctance; if the villan sins against the established account, then the picker will shame him and impose a heavy fine if he did not give him anything. And now he loads the shampar on his buggy, not daring to throw off a single sheaf, and carries the common shampar to the barn.His own harvest remains in the rain and wind, and the villan yearns for his bread, which lies in the field, where it suffers all kinds of damage! And now he drives up to the barn, where they take a fine from him if he has lost even one sheaf that has fallen from a cart in the field or on the road.He ties his horses, but they will not be given a crumb of feed; and if the measurer sees him, he he will also be able to upset the Villan by demanding wine from him. he knew that joy!), cursing in his own dialect that he had given him such a lot, and therefore such a mockery of him.
And then the time of the fair "in the meadow" comes up and the September Mother of God day 2, when it is necessary to carry the piglets. If a villan has eight piglets, then he takes the two best ones, one of them for the lord, who, of course, will not take the worst! And on top of that, you need to add 3 denier for each pig out of the remaining ones. All this must be paid by the Villan.
Then comes the day of St. Dionysius 4 . Here the villans clutch at their heads - after all, they have to pay a qualification, and they are in fear.
But the deadline for payment for fencing is approaching - after all, the villans keep large fences. If a villan has been cultivating his field for a long time, yet he cannot and will not dare to enclose it with a hedge before he pays the toll to the lord and obtains his consent.<...>
Then they are again guilty of corvée. When they plowed the land, they go to the barn for grain, sow and harrow. Each accounted for one acre 5...
Chickens must be handed in by Christmas; if they are not good enough and tender enough, the clerk will take the deposit of the villan 6 .
Then comes the beer service; two nets of barley and three cartiers 7 wheat each.
"Shampar (part from the field) - giving the seigneur a certain share of the crop. Sometimes it is the ninth, tenth or eleventh sheaf, but there are cases when the fourth sheaf was also given.
3 Denier = "/12 sous. 20 sous = 1 livre.
"Saint Dionysius Day - October 9th. Villan, as the holder of the land of the feudal lord, paid him a qualification. The peasant paid ^enz or shampar, and sometimes both.
5 Norman acre = 12.1 ha.
"One from coercive measures against villans was a system of bail. ·
7 Medieval measures of bulk solids fluctuated. In the XIII century. there were 3 bushels in one cartier of wheat, and 12 bushels in one net.
Come on, make them pay! They must pay in full! Go, take away their horses, take away their cows and calves, hold their pledges in all yards. Bring more, do not leave anything for them as a gift! Because all villans are treacherous traitors...
If a villan gives his daughter in marriage outside the seigneury, then the seigneur receives the duty "culage". "Three sous are due to him in the form of a marriage, and, sire, I swear that there is something for him to receive these three sous. For in ancient times it was so, that Villan led his daughter by the hand and presented her to the seigneur...
Then comes Palm Sunday. A God-ordained holiday when you have to bear the tax for the sheep, since the Villans inherited this duty. But if they fail to pay on time, then by doing so they put themselves at the mercy of the seigneur.
On Easter they are again guilty of corvée. When the villans plow the land, they go to the barn for grain, sow and harrow. Each cultivates one acre for barley.
After that, you need to go to the smithy to shoe the horses, because it's time to go to the forest for firewood ...
This is followed by a cart service called sommage: after all, every year they carried bread to Domzhan. And then they mocked a lot ...
In addition, they have a mill ban 2 . If the villein does not settle accounts with the miller, as he should, the miller will take his toll on the grain, measuring it in such a bushel that he will repay his grinding; and with a spatula he will scoop up flour for himself so that only half of the full measure remains, and he will also grab a handful ...
Then a furnace bath lies on them, and this is the worst. When the wife of a villan goes there (she has not been sent there for a long time) and regularly pays her fornage, brings a cake and help, then the baker, haughty and important, grumbles, and the baker is dissatisfied and scolds, saying that he did not receive what he deserved; he swears by the teeth of the Lord that the oven will be heated badly and that he will not have to eat good bread - it will be unbaked.
Sir, let it be known to you that under heaven there is no more vile people than the Verson Villans; we know this for certain...
The landowner was obliged to provide the peasants with a land plot not for ownership, but only for “permanent use”. The land ceded to the peasants legally continued to be the landlord's property, for the use of which the peasants had to bear duties until a redemption deal was concluded between them and the landowner. Until that time, the peasants were considered "temporarily liable", that is, they remained in their former feudal dependence. But, since no deadline was set for the transition to redemption, this “temporality” from urgent, as previously assumed, turned into indefinite. The sizes and forms of duties, if there is no voluntary agreement between the landowner and the peasants, were also determined by the local "Regulations".
"Regulations" established two types of duties - quitrent and corvée. The size of the dues according to the "Great Russian" "Regulations" ranged from 8 to 12 rubles. for the shower room, depending on the locality. The basis for calculating the dues was its size, which existed on the eve of the reform; if we recall that the peasant dues were paid not only from the income from the peasants’ agricultural economy, but also from various non-agricultural incomes, then it becomes clear that in paying the quitrent, the peasant paid not only for the use of the landowners’ land, but also for the right to dispose of his labor power; the quitrent, thus, was still in the nature of a feudal duty. Naturally, there was no correspondence between the dues and the profitability of the peasant allotment; the highest quitrent (12 rubles) was paid by the peasants of the estates located near St. Petersburg, where, as is known, the land is of very low quality, then came the St. , Kursk and Voronezh, provinces paid 9 rubles.
When calculating the dues, the so-called "gradation" was introduced, which consisted in the fact that the first tithe of the allotment received by the peasants was valued more than the following tithes; therefore, if the peasants received an incomplete allotment, each tithe cost them more than when they received a full allotment, that is, the less land the peasant received, the more it cost him. A particularly sharp gradation was established for the non-chernozem zone; in the chernozem and steppe zones, it was somewhat less. The gradation gave the landowners the opportunity to further increase the discrepancy between the size of the quitrent and the profitability of the land, that is, to further increase the payment for the loss of power over the peasant. And since labor power was valued especially dearly in the non-chernozem zone, it was mainly the landowners of the non-chernozem zone that were interested in gradation. No wonder the "invention" of gradation belongs to the nobles of the non-chernozem strip - the Tver Provincial Committee.
In corvee estates, corvee was preserved even after the reform. The size and procedure for serving the corvée were determined by voluntary agreement; if an agreement could not be reached, then the corvee was served on the basis of the "Regulations". According to the “Regulations on the Great Russian, Novorossiysk and Belarusian provinces”, for each shower allotment, the peasants had to work out 40 days for men and 30 for women per year, and both men and women had to come to work with their inventory - just like before the reform. Corvee service was subject to men from 18 to 55 years old, and women - from 17 to 50, that is, approximately the same as it was practiced on landlord estates until February 19. The service of corvée was also regulated by gradation.
Most of the corvee days (three-fifths) the peasants had to work out in the period from spring to harvest in the fall, which was especially expensive for the peasant to work for himself. The landowner could demand peasants to work on any day, with the exception of holidays, so long as the total number of days per week did not exceed a certain norm. If a peasant could not work due to illness, then other peasants or himself upon recovery had to work for him; if he was ill for more than six months, he could be deprived of his land allotment.
Special institutions - the provincial offices for peasant affairs - were to work out fixed provisions that would indicate exactly what work should be performed by the corvée peasant during the day. For those jobs that could not be transferred to the assigned position, the length of the working day was set at 12 hours in summer and 9 hours in winter.
Corvee peasants were allowed to switch to quitrent even without the consent of the landowner, but not earlier than two years after the publication of the "Regulations" and provided that there were no state and landowner arrears. In addition, the peasants had to declare their desire to switch to quitrent a year in advance.
The collection of dues and corvée duties from the peasants with shortfalls was equated with the collection of state dues and was carried out primarily before all other obligations that lay on the peasants. To pay off the arrears, the property of the peasant could be sold, he and his family members could be forcibly sent to work, his field plot and even the estate could be taken away from him.
Thus, the duties of temporarily liable peasants did not essentially differ from those of serfs; it is the same monetary or labor rent, only more or less regulated by law. Only underwater duty and small requisitions were canceled - poultry, butter, eggs, berries, mushrooms, canvas, wool, etc.
The considered local “Regulations” extended to the central and northern provinces, to the provinces of the Middle and Lower Volga and Ural regions, to three “Novorossiysk” provinces (Ekaterinoslav, Tauride and Kherson), part of the Kharkov province and the provinces of Mogilev and Vitebsk, with the exception of four, the so-called "Inflyants", counties of the latter, adjoining the Baltic region. In these provinces, with few exceptions, communal land tenure dominated; in connection with this, the allotment was assigned to the whole society, which answered with mutual responsibility in the event of a malfunction in serving the duties. In those societies where there was household land use, the allotment was assigned to individual householders, and the latter were personally responsible for the duties.
For the rest of the regions of Belarus and Ukraine and for the provinces of Lithuania, special local "Regulations" were issued.
There wasn't much left. Mostly dependent people worked on the land. It is clear that among them were the descendants of Roman slaves. But how did the German peasants lost your freedom?
It is known that in the days of the early barbarian kingdoms it was the custom among the Germanic tribes to give bread and everything necessary to those relatives who went to war. This is how taxes and other duties (that is, compulsory obligations) began to emerge. peasants in favor of warriors - members of the clan.
When wars arose between tribes, the peasants sought protection from some powerful neighbor or monastery. In exchange for protection from robbers and foreign invaders, the peasant had to give up the right to own land, that is, thereby recognizing himself as dependent. Peasant felt safe in the territory subject to a strong man, and in the Middle Ages, this was the man who had a lot of land.
He also became addicted Peasant, who did not have his own allotment, but received it, for example, from a warrior to whom the king gave a large allotment for his service. The peasant was also brought to dependence by his debts, and often even outright violence from a wealthy neighbor.
Until the beginning of the 11th century. peasants in European countries have lost almost all the land suitable for cultivation. It passed into the possession of kings, counts, knights, as well as churches and monasteries. The peasants only used the land, for which they had to perform various duties, the size and number of which was regulated by custom. The duty in favor of the landowner could also include work on his field (from several days a year to several days a week), a food (in kind) or cash tax, as well as the obligation to grind grain at the master’s mill for a fee determined by him, bake for him bread, etc. The peasants were obliged to perform “public works” (repair bridges and rowing, provide their carts if necessary), and in case of conflicts between them and their neighbors, the master himself judged them.
Addiction level Peasants was uneven. Some only gave their owners a small tax in kind, others had to work for them for almost half the summer. Peasants who performed many duties were called serfs in France, and vilans in England.
But neither serfs nor vilans could be called serfs. Serfdom as a complete form of peasant dependence spread in East Germany, Poland, Austria only in the 18th century. An English Wealan or a French Servant cannot be compared with the serf of the Russian Empire of the 18-19th century in the same way. Neither the Welan nor the Serva could be executed without consequences, sold or exchanged without land or apart from the family; it was not even allowed to deprive him of his land if he performed all the duties. The relationship between the peasant and the master was not regulated by the desires of the master, but by long-established customs. In some countries, in case of their violation by the master, the peasant could go to court and demand compensation for damage.
For a long time dependence of the peasants was not very heavy: the landowner took peasant as much food as needed for his family and yard servants. He did not extort more, because it did not make sense. After all, people still did not know how to preserve food for a long time, and there was practically no trade. In the 13th-14th century, when trade gained momentum, the duties of the peasants increased significantly.
The excessive demands of the landowners provoked opposition from peasants. It was considered quite fair, because it violated the norms of customs, a kind of agreement between the peasants and the owners of the land, established a very long time ago. Peasants ran away from their masters, destroyed their estates, sometimes killed them. If it became difficult for all the peasants to live, then one could expect a peasant revolt, an uprising. In such cases, the uprisings were either crushed with all cruelty, or the owner had to make some concessions. Then such a volume of duties was established that did not destroy the peasant economy and suited the landowner.
