Feudal relations in Russia began to emerge during the reign of Prince Vladimir, but strong development happened only under Yaroslav the Wise.

From the beginning of the X century. until the middle of the 11th century, Russia turned into strong state, which united the Middle Dnieper region, headed by Kyiv, North-Western Russia, headed by Novgorod. Many East Slavic lands were liberated from the rule of the Khazars. "Cherven cities" also entrenched in Russia.

The state power of Russia contributed to the development of crafts, trade relations within the country and with other states, the construction of new urban centers, the development of arable land. Gradually there was an improvement in the structure of power. In the XI century. The princes of Kyiv became the sovereign rulers of the whole country. Tribal elders turned into boyars and began to be called the highest layer of the squad system. The younger squad, in turn, consisted of people of noble families. They carried out the orders of the prince in governing the state, collecting tributes and taxes, in the field of diplomatic relations. The Kyiv prince enjoyed enormous power. He led the army, dealt with issues related to the organization of defense and warfare, managed the judiciary. His irreplaceable assistants were governors. The princely power expressed the interests of the whole society. She maintained order in the country, defended property rights, tried for criminal offenses. But first of all, the Grand Duke defended the privileges of the layers that were closest to him, namely, the church clergy, merchants, boyars, squads.

During the reign of Yaroslav the Wise, the land began to play an increasingly important role. The acquisition of land plots brought not only huge incomes, but also the strengthening of political power. Tribute is the first known form of dependence of the working population on the state. All the principalities subject to it began to be called tributary. The main object of taxation was the land and its owner. So the state asserted its supreme ownership of all the principalities conquered and annexed to Kyiv. Soon the appearance of wealthy landowners and mendicants began. This time was called "the period of military democracy." Increasingly, representatives of the princely family, who used their influence, appropriated the land. They built yards, hunting houses, organized their own economy, turned ordinary free community members into dependent workers. The emergence of such possessions was a prerequisite for the emergence of landed property and the emergence of dependent people who live and work with their master.

Representatives of the strata close to the princely power began to appropriate not only the lands inhabited by peasants, but also empty plots that could be turned into large prosperous farms in a short period of time.

How did the origin feudal hierarchy?

The right to collect tribute was granted to local princes and boyars. It was their means of enrichment. Later, the vassals of the Grand Duke transferred a certain part of the plots with the right to collect tribute from them to their vassals from among their own combatants. The word "feud" meant hereditary possession of land, which the master granted to his vassal for various services. In Russia in the X-XI centuries. a system of relations between the lord and the vassal is born. Soon a new concept of “patrimony” appeared, meaning land ownership belonging to a person on the basis of full hereditary property. Only the Grand Duke could take away the patrimony or welcome.

Over time, the highest hierarchs of the church and junior warriors began to have their own possessions. Huge spaces, inhabited by smerd peasants, merchants, artisans, were under the authority of the head of state.

What were the main features of the feudal economy? First, it is vassalage. Secondly, the dependence on the labor of the peasants. The villagers worked on the land of their master and were obliged to pay for it with grain, honey, and furs. Another feature of the feudal economy are duties and nationwide requisitions. Due to unfavorable weather conditions, the peasants lost their farms and for the money borrowed from the master had to fulfill rural work. They were called rowers. The peasants could not leave the master before they fulfilled the contract.

In the XI-XII centuries. a large number of serfs appeared: if a person did not have money, he could sell himself into serfs; he turned into a serf if he married a serf. The thieving "ryadovichi", captives fell into the composition of the serfs. Kholops performed housework, in the field. Church only by the end of the XI - beginning of the XII centuries. was able to mitigate the disenfranchised position of the serfs.

Changes in the formation of new social relations also influenced the development of urban life. Cities located on the trade routes. Merchants and artisans have always settled in them, seeking to earn money by selling their goods. The prince and his squad lived in cities that were political and economic centers. These cities not only occupied advantageous military-strategic positions, but also concentrated religious life. They were centers of culture, where art developed, libraries were built. Cities in Russia arose earlier than in Sweden, Hungary, Poland, Norway.

9th–10th centuries - This is a period of strengthening and development of the economy of the East Slavic lands, the formation of statehood. At the beginning of the XI century. there were already about thirty large cities, the area of ​​\u200b\u200bwhich was over 2.5 hectares. Kyiv, Smolensk, Novgorod, Rostov, Suzdal, Chernigov and others stood out among them. They were princely residences and had a complex system of fortifications. In all cities there were princely palaces, administrative buildings. Trade duties were collected here, the courts of the nobility stood. In each city center there were main cathedrals: in Novgorod - Saint Sophia Cathedral, in Kyiv - the Church of the Tithes, in Chernigov - the Church of the Savior. They were served by archbishops and bishops. A large number of other churches were built by boyars, merchants, artisans with their own money.

The population of urban centers was very diverse - from rich merchants to small merchants - peddlers. Merchant unions were born, which had common funds, providing assistance to merchants in trouble. In many cities of Russia there were yards of foreign merchants. Trades were all over the place. Weapons, expensive fabrics, jewelry, precious stones were brought from Byzantium; from the countries of Persia and the Caucasus - beads, spices, wine, incense. Trade duties were collected by the great Kievan and local princes. Craftsmen from their surrounding towns came to the cities to sell their goods or buy something.

In Kyiv, the main trade was in Podil, at the piers of the Pochaina River. Shops in the squares were littered with goods. Jews and Bulgarians, Greeks and Poles, Armenians and Arabs were sitting in the stalls. Kyiv craftsmen sold gold jewelry, silverware, jugs, scoops, amphoras.

The military people were an integral part public life ancient Russian cities. The core of the army was the squad, which is the most powerful and well-armed part of the princely army. These warriors rode on horseback, fought next to their prince. They were armed with sabers or spears.

When the population was in danger, the Grand Duke called for military activity smerds and artisans who formed a regiment. Villagers fought under the command of a thousand. The regiment was armed with spears, bows, battle axes.

During the campaign, the prince rode ahead, then the squad, and then the regiment. Behind them stretched a convoy, in which there were weapons and food supplies. The battle usually began with a duel of heroes. During the battle, the "brow" acted as the center of reliable warriors who could withstand the blows of enemy cavalry. To the right and to the left were the princely squad, horse soldiers. They were supposed to surround the enemy and deliver a decisive blow.

feudal lord in Russia

Alternative descriptions

In Ancient Russia and the Muscovite state - senior combatant, adviser to the prince

In Muscovite Russia: a large landowner, a representative of the highest ruling stratum

in Russia up to early XVI 2nd century: large landowner belonging to the upper stratum of the ruling class

Duma under Ivan the Terrible

Landowner in Russia (XVIII century)

Lermontovsky Orsha by estate

In Russia, estate, title

Representative of the upper class of feudal lords in Russia in the 9th-17th centuries.

Title of Lermontov's Orsha from the poem of the same name

Russian feudal lord

Feudal lord under Grozny

Feudal lord under Godunov

feudal landowner

Noble nobleman in Russia

Shurik in the mouth of Ivan the Terrible

Feudal lord under Ivan the Terrible

Shurik for Ivan the Terrible

I sat in the Duma

Large landowner in Russia

Rank in Muscovite Russia

. "Dumets" of the era of Ivan the Terrible

Appeal of Ivan the Terrible to Shurik

The highest rank of service people (in Russia at the end of the 15th century - the beginning of the 18th century)

Large feudal lord in Russia

. "Hello, ...!" (Shurik and Grozny)

Representative of the upper class of feudal lords in Russia 9-17 centuries.

In ancient and medieval Russia: a large landowner who belonged to the upper stratum of the ruling class

In Muscovite Russia: a large landowner, a representative of the highest ruling stratum

. "Dumets" under Ivan the Terrible

. "Dumets" of the era of Ivan the Terrible

. "Hi,...!" (Shurik and Grozny)

. "Hi,...!" (Yakovlev's toast as Ivan the Terrible)

Lost his beard under Peter 1

M. noblewoman now a barin, mistress. (From the fight, to beat, the voivode? from the boyars, to cheer for whom, to take care? from the pains, the big road?) the boyars know how to pick up the mind (it’s a sin not to be fooled). The boyar is not even a brother in rags. Such and such a boyar, but still not a man. Every boyar praises his mercy. Our heads disappeared behind the naked boyars. In the old days it was a noble dignity: a nobleman, the noblest class in the state; close boyar, room, which is now a chamber, close to the king. Introduced boyar, palace judge, kind of chancellor. The boyar is worthy or with a way, to which special incomes were assigned from cities or volosts. The boyars are peculiar, who were related to the queen, in property with the king. penz. dialect boyars, instead of boyars; in novoros. boyars, Moldavian, Wallachian nobleman; boyarinosh, Bessarabian nobleman of the lowest degree, personal. Boyars, at weddings, all the guests, all the travelers, and the young: the prince and princess. At the wedding, all the boyars. Wedding boyar, comic. the same as the caliph for an hour. Senior or big boyar, wedding. senior boyfriend of grooms, manager and speechy joker; in general, big boyars, groomsmen or best men, small ones, brides. A small boyar is also called an assistant to a big one, a friend. Boyars pl. psk. evening at the groom during a bachelorette party, farewell party, wedding eve; and these guests, one bachelor, men, are called boyars. Boyarynash, Bessarabsk. people who do not come from nobility, but reached the lowest Moldavian ranks, giving some boyar rights (Grotto). Boyarinushko and boyarynka, affectionate, loving belittling. Boyarchenok m. barchenok, barchuk, barcha. Boyarok m. boyarka f. psk. an impoverished nobleman living somewhere in the people; accustomer. Boyarka, zap. senior bridesmaid. Haw. Hat trimmed with fur worn by men and women (Naumov). Boyarich, hawthorn, boyar's children, barich and young lady. Boyarinov, boyarin, belonging to them; boyar, lordly, belonging to the boyar. Without the truth of the boyars, the tsar will anger God. Boyar intent, but peasant mind. the gates of the boyar court are wide, but narrow, about bondage. Captivity, captivity, the boyar court: eat casually, sleep while standing. Hunting, boyar court: they doze standing, sleep sitting, eat casually, legs hurt, but they don’t order to sit down. The devil has moved into the boyar court. Not traction, son of a boyar, non-taxable, not a worker. By the grace of the boyars, Pozharsky himself. Boyar children, old. a class of petty nobles who were obligated to military service. Boyar arrogance, lordly arrogance, Tatar soap plant, fire flower, Lychnis chalcedonica. Lord's snit, Bupeurum plant. Boyarovaty, with his techniques like a boyar, important, stately. Boyars cf. nobility, boyar status, way of life, title, dignity; assembly of people of this rank. Other boyars are worse than ponomars. To be boyar, to govern, to live as a boyar. To be boyar, to be boyar, to be afraid, to take on the appearance of a gentleman, to want to seem like one. He got mad at me, jumped up like a gentleman. He became boyar, became boyar to the point that the patrimony was sold. He was muttering something dusty. Feared, spoiled. He messed up, he messed up. To beat off someone, to finish off; get rid of, get rid of. They fought, it will be with us. Our boyar is not to be boyared. He got pissed off, poised. Ran through the estate. Angry, dispersed. To make someone arrogant, to bring down. Boyarshchina, boyarshina. corvee, draft, panshchina, ladle work for the landowner, owner. Hawthorn, bush berry tree Crataegus; Сrataegus oxyacantha et monogyna, boyarka, glod, mistress, gludina, glog, talono; Crataegus melanocarpa, black glod; Crataegus pyracantha, cup tree, medlar; Сrataegus sanguinea, mountain hawthorn, Siberian. White hawthorn, Pyrus aria, mealy tree. The hawthorn is good, but not in front of the boyar porch. Hawthorn old. moth, butterfly; flowery dragonfly, green rocker

Representative of the upper class of feudal lords in Russia in the 9th-17th centuries

In general, the state initially arises most often as a reaction to an external threat. This requires a strong leader who is able to rally around him the most combat-ready and active part of the nobility.

Approximately such a picture we see in the days of Kievan Rus. Let's not argue the Vikings brought us the state, or it arose on the basis of local tribes. It's important that strong personality, which Rurik appeared, having achieved the unity of the glades with fire and sword, began to expand the borders, subjugating new peoples, moreover, all of them were economically and politically weaker than Kyiv.

Now let's look at the 11th century, when the feudal fragmentation of Russia finally took shape at the Lyubech Congress of Princes. Despite the presence of such a strong political figure as Vladimir Monomakh, Russia breaks up into a number of principalities, and the princes jointly agree to keep everyone “his patrimony”. Here we see how economically and politically equal principalities do not find a basis for unification, and even the threat from the steppe is not able to reunite Russia. What for? In all principalities, the same thing is produced, it makes sense to trade only with distant countries, the East, for example. There is no economic basis for unity, the aristocracy in each principality wants to be the most important of all, and categorically does not want to obey the Grand Duke. As a result, we get classical feudal fragmentation in Russia.

Its consequences were many-sided. For each individual principality of the XII-XIII centuries, they are rather sad. Not a single principality could resist the Mongol-Tatars. But at the same time, fragmentation is a necessary historical period in the history of any country. Russia is no exception here. Only through fragmentation, in the end, can one realize the need for unity, which happened during the time of the Moscow princes. Therefore, to say that the consequences feudal fragmentation in Russia were extremely sad, and that she caused great harm to our history is extremely unfair. Yes, we were not lucky that fragmentation coincided with Mongol conquest, so we were thrown back in our development for a century. But at the same time, Russia was able to revive, largely due to the struggle against the Golden Horde. Let us recall Europe, in particular Germany, which avoided such upheavals and was able to become a single state only in the 19th century.

Causes of feudal fragmentation

Russia was a great state. It developed, and its territory also increased. She conducted a successful foreign trade, could repel the attack of enemies. So why did Russia break up into separate principalities? Consider the main causes of political fragmentation.

The first, and probably the most obvious reason is the increase in the descendants of Rurik. Each generation was bigger and bigger than the previous one, and everyone wanted to grab "their piece of the pie."

The second reason, which in principle can be connected with the first, is the absence of a strong charismatic prince. Before fragmentation, it was possible to maintain the unity of the state. And all because among the Rurikovich there was an authority that everyone respected.

The third reason is the independence of the economy of individual principalities from the center and among themselves. Each principality produced everything that it needed to exist. Therefore, it could become a separate state.

The fourth reason is the interest of the boyars in their prince, who would protect their rights in the field. Therefore, the boyars helped the prince to establish power in each land. However, later in the principalities a struggle for power arose between the boyars and the prince. In each land, the issue of power was resolved in different ways.

The fifth reason is the weakening of Kyiv, the center of Russia. The city was often attacked by nomads, which contributed to the outflow of the population to more peaceful places. The migration of residents led to a backlog in the economy of Kyiv from other principalities.

Other reasons for fragmentation include:

6. the absence in the middle of the XII century of a serious external enemy

7. Gain military power local princes

8. lack of a specific order of inheritance. The new ladder inheritance order was inefficient. All the princes wanted to rule, but no one wanted to wait for his turn.

It is worth noting that, despite political fragmentation, the Russian people were spiritually united: the Russian people retained a common language, common traditions, as well as a single religion - Orthodoxy. They did not forget about the common historical roots. All this made it possible to unite separate principalities under the flag of one state, which happened, but only after more than 300 years.

What economic, social and political reasons led to the feudal fragmentation of Russian lands?

The main reason for feudal fragmentation is the change in the nature of relations between the Grand Duke and his combatants as a result of the latter settling on the ground. In the first century and a half of the existence of Kievan Rus, the squad was completely supported by the prince. The prince, as well as his state apparatus, collected tribute and other requisitions. As the combatants received land and received from the prince the right to collect taxes and duties themselves, they came to the conclusion that the income from military robbery was less reliable than fees from peasants and townspeople. In the XI century, the process of settling the squad on the ground intensified. And from the first half of the XII century in Kievan Rus, the votchina became the predominant form of ownership, the owner of which could dispose of it at his own discretion. And although the possession of a fiefdom imposed on the feudal lord the obligation to perform military service, his economic dependence on the Grand Duke was significantly weakened. The incomes of the former combatants-feudal lords depended more on the mercy of the prince. They made their own existence. With the weakening of economic dependence on the Grand Duke, political dependence also weakens.

A significant role in the process of feudal fragmentation in Russia was played by the developing institution of feudal immunity, which provides for a certain level of sovereignty of the feudal lord within the boundaries of his fiefdom. In this territory, the feudal lord had the rights of the head of state. The Grand Duke and his authorities did not have the right to act in this territory. The feudal lord himself collected taxes, duties, and administered court. As a result, a state apparatus, a squad, courts, prisons, etc. are formed in independent principalities-patrimonies. appanage princes they begin to manage communal lands, transfer them on their own behalf to the boyars and monasteries. Thus, local princely dynasties are formed, and local feudal lords make up the court and squad of this dynasty. Of great importance in this process was the introduction of the institution of heredity on the earth and the people inhabiting it. Under the influence of all these processes, the nature of relations between the local principalities and Kyiv also changed. Service dependence is being replaced by relations of political partners, sometimes in the form of equal allies, sometimes suzerain and vassal.

All these economic and political processes in politically meant the fragmentation of power, the collapse of the former centralized statehood of Kievan Rus. This disintegration, as it was in Western Europe, was accompanied by internecine wars. On the territory of Kievan Rus, three most influential states were formed: the Vladimir-Suzdal principality. Galicia-Volyn principality and Novgorod land. Both within these principalities and between them, fierce clashes and destructive wars took place for a long time, which weakened the power of Russia, led to the destruction of cities and villages.

The boyars were the main divisive force. Based on his power, the local princes managed to establish their power in every land. However, later between the strong boyars and the local princes, contradictions and a struggle for power arose.

Sources: xn--e1aogju.xn--p1ai, knowledge.allbest.ru, znanija.com, kurs-istorii.ru, otvet.mail.ru

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feudal Russia Old Russian statehood

Typology of feudal relations in Ancient Russia

The study of feudalism and the formation of feudal relations in Russia has been carried out in Russian historiography for more than two centuries. At the same time, Soviet historians made the greatest contribution to the study of this issue. It should be recognized that in pre-revolutionary historiography, the topic of feudalism in Russia was practically not touched upon, this was facilitated by the conviction that Russian history was radically different from the history of Western European countries. And one of the fundamental differences was just the absence of feudal orders in the Old Russian state. Official ideological doctrine influenced by the revolutions in Europe in 1830 and 1848-49. "proclaimed special properties The Russian state and its history - Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality, dividing the paths of the historical development of Russia and Western European countries, to which she left feudalism, revolutions and constitutions. N. Kareev's statement regarding the issue of feudalism in post-reform Russia is characteristic: “We did not have feudalism - such was the dominant point of view of our historiography. Among historians, it was as if indecent to find feudalism in Russia. The opposition of Russia and the West, and as a result of this, the denial of feudal relations in Russian history became so firmly established in the official ideology that during the revolutionary events of 1905, Nicholas II justified the alienation of the revolution for Russia by a general historical context: “We did not have feudalism, there was always unity and trust."

Therefore, only a few researchers in the second half of the 19th century pointed to the feudal character of certain social categories and institutions in medieval Russia.

The situation changed at the beginning of the last century, when N.P. Pavlov-Silvansky proved that in Russia there were institutions and institutions similar to the corresponding structures characteristic of feudal states Western Europe. At the same time, the period of the feudal system in the history of Russia was dated to the XIII-XVI centuries. and did not affect the lifetime Old Russian state. The appearance of large landownership, princely and boyar estates, or the boyar seigneury, was dated by the researcher to the 13th century. It was in the decisive significance of these institutions that he saw the essence of feudalism.

Soon, in the first years of Soviet power, the assertion was put forward that already in the era of Kievan Rus all the basic elements of the feudal system existed: large-scale land ownership combined with small peasant farming, the combination of political power with land ownership and vassalage. Period X-XII centuries. was proclaimed a "feudal revolution".

The continuation of research into the genesis of feudal relations on the territory of the Old Russian state is associated with the name of S. V. Yushkov, who, while linking the emergence of feudal relations with the economic crisis of the late 12th century, at the same time noted the emergence of feudal institutions by the 11th century. and even earlier. It can be said that if in pre-revolutionary historiography the origin and development of feudal relations dated back to a specific period, then Soviet historians of the 1920s. made the main emphasis on identifying the genesis of feudalism in Kievan Rus.

As a result of studies that took place in the first decade of the establishment of Soviet power, several points of view regarding the typology of the social system of Kievan Rus' emerged: 1) the features of feudal society existed in Kievan Rus, but the dominance of feudal relations was established only in the 13th century; 2) fully developed feudalism existed in Russia in the 11th-12th centuries; 3) Old Russian society was inherently not feudal, but slave-owning. What is characteristic, these concepts did not recognize the possible existence of feudal relations in Russia for the X century, not to mention the IX century. The era of IX-X centuries. received different names, such as: "the era of the primary natural tribal system", but not feudal. True, many historians noted the processes of gradual feudalization that took place in Kievan Rus. Yu. V. Gauthier attributed the emergence of fortresses or castles of “Slavic princes and clan lords” to the process of feudalization.

The natural process of studying the socio-economic foundations of the Old Russian state in discussions was interrupted in the 30s. last century. This was due to the great influence exerted on domestic historical science by the political situation and, in particular, the dictates of Stalin's ideological dogmas. So, according to I. V. Stalin, in its historical development, the state had to go through the necessary period of developed slavery, which was replaced by feudalism. The essence of feudalism consisted in large-scale landownership combined with serfdom. Such unambiguous instructions from the government largely provoked historians to create concepts of developed slave ownership on the territory of Kievan Rus and the emergence of feudal forms of dependence as the final result of the expansion of slave ownership. M. M. Tsvibak, declaring the society of Kievan Rus feudal, noted that it was preceded by slavery and tribal system. Therefore: “the main feudalization comes from slavery and gives rise, in turn, to the transformation of free community members into dependent serfs. The community members are losing their land, it is concentrated in the hands of the feudal lords. I. I. Smirnov spoke out even more insistently, arguing that ancient Russian society passed the stage of slave development and in the 10th century. we have developed class society slave owners and slaves. The slave-owning formation was recognized by him as an inevitable step preceding feudalism.

However, despite the circumstances cited above, the most popular concept in Soviet historiography about the formation of feudalism in Russia was formulated by B. D. Grekov by the end of the 30s. XX century. When drawing up his concept, the scientist significantly departed from the dogmatic ideas of I.V. Stalin about the development of the historical process. So instead of the scheme popular in those years: primitive communal system - slavery - feudalism, the historian insisted on the genesis of feudalism, and with it the feudal state, as a result of the decomposition of tribal society. It is worth noting that a significant number of researchers took part in the development of this concept, but Grekov himself, of course, played the most active role in its creation, and it was in his works that the opinions of other scientists were gradually unified. The main distinguishing feature of this concept was the study of the genesis of feudalism in its classical sense as the formation of large private land ownership and the peasantry dependent on the patrimony. According to her, the growth of productive forces, primarily in agriculture, caused the collapse of the primitive communal system and the emergence of feudal relations. Feudalism developed through the formation of large private land ownership, i.e., a class of feudal landowners, and a population working for the landowners, i.e., a class of feudally dependent peasantry, deprived of land - the main means of production. As a result, the patrimonial regime was considered as feudal, and most importantly, was the main feature of it. The expression of the same feudal form industrial relations is pre-capitalist land rent, labor rent, in kind, and, finally, money rent. However, the political situation of that time could not but influence the search for Grekov. The institutions of the official ideology needed evidence of the country's permanent entry into the circle of the advanced powers of Europe. As one of these evidences, the especially early existence of feudalism on the territory of Russia was seen, and, consequently, the recognition of the Old Russian state as feudal. Grekov noted the strengthened feudal system on the territory of Russia at the beginning of the 10th century and recognized Kievan Rus of the 10th century as a feudal state. This point of view provoked criticism from the older generation of scientists, who seriously questioned the possibility of the existence of feudal relations in Kievan Rus in the 9th-10th centuries: feudal exploitation population, but only on the collection of tribute from the conquered tribes. She stood at the crossroads the highest level barbarism and civilization, being a kind of bridge between tribal system and feudal. social relations, formed in the "Power of Rurikovich" embodied military democracy. True, reservations were made that “by the end of the 10th century. the process of feudalization is already making some progress, and in the principality of Vladimir we are already seeing some elements of a nascent feudal state, intricately intertwined with the remnants of a military democracy. The time of feudalism came with the death of Yaroslav the Wise. It is important to note that most historians of the 30-40s. XX century considered the era of IX-X centuries. pre-feudal, transitional from tribal to feudal system. This point of view was most consistently defended by S. V. Yushkov, who pointed out that “the 9th-10th centuries. Old Russian society consisted of a free ordinary population organized in communities, princes with their warriors and patriarchal slaves ”and only from the second half of the 10th century. there are prerequisites "for the development of feudalism, for the transformation of princes, tribal nobility, warriors into large landowners-feudal lords, and community members, whose land is expropriated, into a feudal-dependent peasantry."

It was the publication of Yushkov's article "On the pre-feudal ("barbarian") state" in 1946 that served as the reason for the resumption of the discussion about the early feudal or pre-feudal essence of the Old Russian state interrupted by the Great Patriotic War. He stated that on the verge of the slave-owning and feudal eras, states arise that, in their own way, social entity and political structure, cannot be attributed either to the type of feudal states or to the type of slave states. They arose as a result of the decomposition of the primitive communal system. Therefore, they are pre-feudal. For such states, Yushkov introduced a new term - barbaric. He singled out 2 types of such states: 1) the states of the barbarian Germans who invaded the territory of the Roman Empire. 2) Pre-feudal states that arose as a result of the decomposition of the primitive communal system - the Kiev state until the 11th century, the Mongolian state before its unification by Genghis Khan, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until the 9th century. In the Kiev state, he saw the coexistence of three ways: primitive communal (patriarchal), slave-owning and feudal, notes the presence of a class of slave owners and a class of slaves. However: “in the Kievan state, as in other pre-feudal states, the nobility, that is, the princes and boyars, simultaneously exploited various kinds of dependent people in their households, that is, they turned into feudal lords. The general line of social evolution led to feudalism, and already in the IX-X centuries. feudal-dependent people appeared - smerds, outcasts, purchases. But since the ancient Russian society of the IX-X centuries. was still pre-feudal (barbarian), its main part consisted of free community members, and, consequently, the primitive communal way of life had great importance". At the same time, the researcher focused not on the coexistence of the three ways, but on the struggle between them, in which the feudal way of life won, transforming pre-feudal Russia into feudal Russia. This event took place in the XI-XII centuries. In many ways, a similar position was taken by V. V. Mavrodin, who assessed the VIII-X centuries in the history of Eastern Slavs as a time of ever-accelerating disintegration of the primitive communal system. As a result, during the IX-X centuries. in the main and most advanced centers of Russia, a feudal mode of production is taking shape. However, in his opinion, feudalism in Russia really consolidated only in the 11th century. Therefore, the scientist estimated the period of the 9th-10th centuries. like pre-feudal. He declared pre-feudal society to be barbaric, within which new, feudal relations developed.

A new approach to the study of feudal relations in Russia was the work of L. V. Cherepnin, who introduced a new term: “state feudalism”. It is important to note that Cherepnin's ideas, put forward about half a century ago, have remained relevant in our time, moreover, they are becoming more widespread and confirmed. The main idea of ​​his concept is that in the early feudal period, until the turn of the 11th-12th centuries, Russia was dominated by state form feudal landownership. The Russian Grand Duke acted as the supreme owner of the land, and the entire territory of the state was his fiefdom. All fees and tributes collected were a form of feudal rent received by the ruling class.

Despite the fact that most Russian historians express confidence that feudalism in Russia was preceded by a primitive communal system, some researchers continue to prove the emergence of Russian feudalism as a result of the collapse of the slave system.

It can be argued that in Russian historiography there is no common understanding of both the time and causes of the emergence, and the subsequent development of feudal relations on the territory of Ancient Russia. True, the majority of historians agree on one thing: the process of the genesis of feudal relations in Russia could not be short-lived and turned out to be stretched out over several centuries.

In conclusion of the historiographic review, one should especially highlight the new culturological approach, which is gaining ground in the latest Russian historical science. This approach gained its distribution under the influence of the French historical school of Annales. It involves the study of such categories of Russian medieval culture as "truth" and "faith", "power", "property", the behavior of a medieval person and his worldview. By focusing on the particular, particular or singular, this approach does not require the analytical capabilities of the concept of feudal relations. As a result, researchers this direction refuse to study their genesis and development on the territory of Kievan Rus: "feudalism remains a phenomenon characteristic of the medieval West and alien to the nature of those relations of power and property that have developed in Russia." Such an approach is in many respects similar to the opposition between Russia and the West that existed in Russian historical science in the 19th century, and can hardly be constructive.

Feudal relations on the territory of the East Slavic tribes began to emerge as a result of the collapse of tribal relations. The beginning of the process of changing patriarchal-clan relations by early feudal ones in the territory of settlement Eastern Slavs dates from the end of the 8th - beginning of the 9th centuries. i.e., the time of the formation of the East Slavic tribal principalities. This process was expressed in the change of the family community from the territorial neighbor: “the formation of the tribal organization of the land-territorial community ... occurred largely under the influence of the change of slash-and-burn agriculture to arable farming and ended by the 9th century ... In its further development, the established rural community as a result of internal processes generated by its inherent dualism, gives rise to the singling out of feudal elements. As a result, processes of differentiation began in society (separation of tribal nobility, property stratification), which served as the basis for the emergence of class relations. The role of tribal principalities in the genesis of statehood was high. It was they who "concealed the embryo of the state, being a transitional form from the union of tribes to the state - proto-states"2. The formation of tribal principalities by the 9th century marked the birth of feudal relations among the Eastern Slavs.

The processes of state feudalization that took place on the territory of Russia in the second half of the 10th century were similar to the processes that took place in other countries of the Middle Ages. The development of corporate (collective) land ownership into individual property had identical features in various countries and societies of the early medieval world. Having studied the course of the process of the emergence and development of landed property in the Transcaucasian region, A.P. Novoseltsev suggested that the essence of this process consisted in the decomposition and elimination of collective forms of landed property of various types and the gradual emergence of private feudal property on this foundation. Scientist stressed important role the state as the main recipient and holder of communal rights to the land fund.

Feudal property developed in a similar way on the territory of Western Europe. Among the ancient Germans there was an idea that all the land obtained by force of arms was considered the property of the tribe and its leader. As the power of the leader turned into royal power, all the lands that were in the use of the commoners began to be considered, probably, as royal possessions. The folding and crystallization of royal rights to forests and other lands took place very slowly, hardly noticeable to contemporaries. For a long time they did not see the difference between the possessions of the king and the tribe.

Something similar happened in the East Slavic environment in the 10th - first half of the 11th century.

The formation of a unified Old Russian statehood and the establishment on the territory of Russia of a system of early feudal relations in the form of state feudalism dates back to the middle of the 10th century - the era of the reign of Princess Olga, when new level the process of "principalization" of all Russian lands by the grand ducal power and the liquidation of the tribal principalities of the Eastern Slavs takes place. The model of state feudalism is finally established, in which the state acts as the supreme owner of the land and there is only a feudal-state form of exploitation in the form of tribute and state duties1. It can be said that one of the reasons for the establishment of state feudalism is the fact that in the early feudal society the ruling class is not strong enough, therefore “ownership of land in its early underdeveloped form belongs to this class in the person of the head of state, the prince, who is the head of the armed groups, exercising the right to this property in practice.

It is the reforms carried out by Olga in the middle of the 10th century that provide the legal basis for the process of “principalization” of Russian lands through the creation of a single grand-princely administration based on fortresses and churchyards. If during the reign of Igor the precedent associated with the streets was one of the first manifestations of the orders characteristic of state feudalism, then under Olga state feudalism began to take shape in a coherent system. Before Olga's transformations, the tribal principalities that were part of Kievan Rus had very significant autonomy. At the head of each reign was his "bright prince", who enjoyed the support of the local nobility, and who could not be deprived of his power at the behest of the Grand Duke of Kyiv. The tribal prince was only obliged to monitor the collection of tribute, and to put up and lead the reigning army with participation in the all-Russian campaign. In other aspects of his policy, he was not under the control of Kyiv. It is impossible to ignore the fact that different reigns had varying degrees of dependence on central authority. So, a number of tribal principalities (Drevlyans, Dregovichi, Severyans, Krivichi) the Kyiv prince traveled around himself together with his retinue during the collection of tribute - "polyudya", in other principalities, local "bright princes" themselves collected tribute and sent it to Kyiv, existed in their own In turn, the reigns (Croats, Radimichi, Vyatichi), who were in a semi-independent state, periodically participated in all-Russian campaigns and paid irregular tribute. The "principalization" of Russian lands during Olga's time is expressed in the gradual elimination of tribal principalities. In the second half of the 10th century, local princes cede their powers to representatives of the Rurik dynasty ruling in Kyiv (the rule of Svyatoslav Igorevich in Novgorod in the 50s of the 10th century, Vladimir Svyatoslavich in Novgorod and Oleg Svyatoslavich in the Drevlyane land in the 70s). The new administrative system was finally approved during the reign of Vladimir Svyatoslavich, when the last tribal principalities were liquidated (Vyatichi in 982, Krivichi in 985, Carpathian Croats in 992) and Vladimir appointed his sons to the places of the former tribal princes (which was mentioned higher).

In many respects, the system of churchyards founded by Olga contributed to the success of the process of “reigning” the lands. There are two points of view regarding the churchyard in Russian historiography. According to one of them, the churchyard is considered as a rural community, originating in pre-feudal times1, and according to the other, as a territorial unit formed by princes for fiscal and administrative purposes2. The second point of view seems to be more reasonable.

With the formation of the churchyard system as a result of Olga's reforms in 947, a well-known historian connects the emergence of such a complex as "graveyard - village - smerdy". This complex was directly related to the formation of the princely domain. Smerds were a certain part of the peasant population, closely associated with the princely domain, directly subordinate to the prince, to some extent protected by him (the smerd cannot be tormented without the prince's word ") and obliged to bear certain duties in favor of the prince. Smerds plowed the land, lived in "villages", and were assigned to churchyards.

In turn, the system of exploitation of “people”, peasants-vervniks, in their villages consisted of such elements as: tribute levied during polyudya, and a number of duties (“cart”, making boats and sails, building camps) in the form of labor rent . Some researchers note that with the emergence of graveyards as administrative-tax centers, “the polyudya system, i.e. trips of princely “husbands” for tribute, is gradually replaced by a “cart”, i.e. its delivery to a certain point in the graveyard by community members.

A number of historians point to the connection of churchyards with community centers, noting that “cases where churchyards are not associated with community centers are very rare ... it must be assumed that such administrative and tax centers arose in new points at the behest of the authorities due to the fact that the community population resisted princely or volost officials.

As a result, community members gradually lost the opportunity to freely use the income from their lands, which became the supreme property of the state. The community members also lost the right to dispose of the products of their labor, some of which was appropriated by the ruling class in the form of tribute. Tribute, as noted above, was the earliest form of feudal exploitation of rural community members by the Kievan princes.

In a more detailed consideration of the issue of tribute and the resulting tributary relationships, it is important to note that in Russian historiography there are different approaches to the very essence of this type of exploitation. At the same time, both in the era of Soviet historiography and to this day, the issue of tributary and tributary relations in Ancient Russia remains debatable. So some researchers distinguish between tribute and polyudye, defining different functions for them. According to this group of scientists, the tribute was an indemnity collected by the victorious Kievan princes from the defeated East Slavic tribes, a form of robbery, ransom for peace. Local princes were content with polyud - a voluntary gift of the population, which they "ruled". In turn, tributary relations within the Slavic churchyards are neoplasms that arise during the construction of churchyards by the Kievan princes. According to another concept, although the presence in the era of Kievan Rus of tribute-indemnity taken from the conquered peoples is not denied, but at the same time, the appearance at the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th centuries is indicated. tribute in the sense of feudal rent. A number of features are given that allow us to consider the tribute of the 10th century. land rent: “1) the supreme land owner - the Kiev state (actually the Kyiv prince); 2) the regularity of tribute collection, established by the "statutes" and "lessons"; 3) the presence of certain fixed areas from which collection took place; 4) the collection of rent was carried out with the help of non-economic coercion, which was expressed in the withdrawal of tribute by the armed detachments of princely warriors. It is rightly noted: “whether tribute was levied on the land in favor of the supreme owner, whether in favor of the feudal lords, to whom the supreme owner paid this tribute as a salary for their service, or in favor of princely ministerial agents, it does not play any role in determining whether it is rent or indemnity". The opinion that tribute was already in the era of the first Kyiv princes from the Rurik dynasty acquires the value of feudal rent seems to be more reasonable.

Dating this event also causes controversy among historians. There are cautious estimates according to which: "the evolution of tribute into feudal rent was carried out gradually and it is difficult to date this process." At the same time, there are more specific chronological framework, which seem quite logical: “the transition from voluntary offerings and tribute-contributions to a regularly levied tax can be clearly seen at the end of the 9th century, when tribute begins to be collected in favor of the Kievan princes from the “smoke” (i.e. yard), “ral” , "plow", in certain sizes "along the shelyage", "along the black kun". Therefore, we can say that already at the beginning of the 10th century, tribute was a centralized feudal rent received by the state in the person of ruling dynasty Rurikovich, which exercised the right of corporate ownership of land.

The most important feature of the processes taking place on the territory of Russia in the middle of the 10th century is that: “the creation of domain grand-ducal property during the reign of Princess Olga in fact meant the creation of feudal state property ... the formation of land property during the period of “ruling” by the grand ducal power of Kyiv of the territories of neighboring communities led to the fact that all land in Russia became the supreme property of the state. The “principling” of lands led to a change in the main agricultural cells - neighboring communities: their gradual feudalization took place. The realization of the right of supreme land ownership was carried out through polyudye. Ultimately, the tribute collected turned into feudal rent. This landed property was managed by combatants closest to the Grand Duke, who were in charge of both administrative and judicial power, as well as princely lands and the collection of tribute from the subject local population. Therefore, organizing their domain economy, in which gradually all peasant lands begin to be considered as state lands, the power of the Kyiv princes relied on the entire layer of the military feudal nobility. This nationalization of the land “was one of the most important prerequisites for feudalism. We can say that this also manifested a general sociological regularity. Taking into account the above facts, it can be noted that in Russia the first form of feudal land ownership was state property, and the first form of exploitation was state duties (tributes - taxes). The patrimonial property, on the other hand, was only a secondary form of feudal land ownership, formed by distributing between individuals the lands that were owned by the early feudal state.

Ultimately, the statement seems fair: “it is obvious that the formation of a unified statehood in Russia was based on the formation of state relations of feudal ownership of land, which originated during the period of the “reigning” of Russian lands”

What is feudalism ♦ Large land ownership in Ancient Russia ♦ Did large land ownership coincide with large farming? ♦ Estate economy: quitrent in kind ♦ Appearance of cash quitrent and corvée ♦ Relationship between patrimony and evil spirits; the process of feudalization ♦ The question of the settlement of the ancient Russian peasantry; "old-timers" ♦ The question of the community ♦ The evolution of the old Russian village ♦ How did large land ownership arise ♦ Award. Capture ♦ Indebtedness of small landownership: the black-mowed peasantry of the north of Russia in the 16th century ♦ The purchase of Russkaya Pravda and the isorniki of the Pskov charter ♦ The scale of land mobilization in the 16th century ♦ The union of political power with the land ♦ The patrimonial right as a relic of the patriarchal ♦ The patrimonial court; patrimonial customs ♦ Lord's squads ♦ Vassalage: feudal ladder in Muscovite Russia ♦ Feudal Curia and Boyar Duma ♦ Protection of morality in Ancient Russia ♦ Can feudalism be considered as a legal system

The primitive social system, which we considered in Chapter I, has already become the past for Ancient Russia. From him only experiences were preserved, however, rather stubborn and tenacious, surviving in remote corners almost to this day. But what was real for Ancient Russia, its everyday reality, belonged to the later stage of social development. This later stage, which arose directly from those relations that we agreed to call primitive, Western European historians and sociologists long ago called feudalism. Nationalist historiography, striving to prove that everything in the history of Russia was "original", original and unlike the history of other peoples, denied the existence of feudalism in Russia. She managed to inspire more than one generation of the reading public with the famous, which has become a classic, opposition to the stone, mountainous, rugged mountains and seas into many patches of Europe, in every corner of which sat its own “feudal predator”, stubbornly and successfully resisting all attempts at centralization, and wooden, even Russia, monotonous throughout its entire length, which did not know feudal castles, just as it does not know seas or mountains - and by nature itself, it seemed, intended to form a single state. This opposition, which proceeded from observations not so much of the social system as of the landscape, as it is depicted to us when we look out of the window of a railway car, undoubtedly suffered from a certain preponderance of visibility over science. It was worth asking a little more rigorously the question of what is feudalism and what are its distinguishing features, so that the expressive, at first glance, parallel of the stone castle of the Western European baron and the wooden estate of the Russian votchinnik loses all its persuasiveness. In modern historical science, neither the material of buildings, nor the presence or absence of a mountain range in the landscape, is taken into account at all when determining the main features of feudalism. This modern science attributes to feudalism mainly three main features. This is, firstly, the domination of large landownership, and secondly, the connection with the landownership of political power, a connection so strong that in a feudal society it is impossible to imagine a landowner who would not be a sovereign in one degree or another, and a sovereign who would not would be a large landowner, and, finally, thirdly, those peculiar relations that existed between these landowners-sovereigns: the presence of a well-known hierarchy landowners, so that the smaller ones depended on the largest, the smaller ones depended on them, and so on, and the whole system was a kind of ladder. The question of whether feudalism existed in Russia is reduced to the question of whether these three main features were present in ancient Russian society. If so, then you can talk as much as you like about the originality of the Russian historical process, but the existence of feudalism in Russia will have to be recognized.

Large-scale landownership in Russia we meet already in a very early era . A more complete edition of Russkaya Pravda (represented by the so-called lists - Karamzinsky, Troitsky, Synodal and others) in its main content is in no way younger than the 13th century, and some of its articles are much older. And in it we already find a large boyar estate with its necessary attributes; clerk, yard servants and peasants who are obliged to work on the land of the lords for a debt (“purchases)”). The “Boyarin” of Russkaya Pravda is, first of all, a large landowner. The indirect indications of Pravda also find direct confirmation in separate documents: at the end of the 12th century, a pious Novgorodian donates to the monastery of St. She saved two whole villages “with servants and cattle”, with livestock, both four-legged and two-legged. For later centuries, indications of the existence of large estates become so numerous that it is not necessary to prove the existence of this phenomenon. It is worth noting, for the sake of clarity, only the size of the then large-scale property and indicate its characteristic, compared with our time, features. In the Novgorod scribe books of the 15th century, we meet the owners of 600, 900 and even 1500 acres of one arable land, not counting the land - meadows, forests, etc. If we take into account that forests then were often measured not even by acres, but directly by miles , and that arable land was only a small part of the total area, then we must come to the conclusion that estates of tens of thousands of acres were not uncommon in ancient Novgorod. In the middle of the next 16th century, the Trinity-Sergius Monastery in one place alone, in the Yaroslavl district, in the Cheremkha volost, owned 1111 quarters (555'/2 acres) of arable land, which, with the three-field system, then already widespread in Central Russia, amounted to more than 1600 acres. Total; to this there were meadows, which annually produced up to 900 hay hay, and "a forest of the verst, 9 versts long, and 6 versts wide." This was by no means the most important of the land holdings of the monastery, on the contrary, it was only a small part of them: in the neighboring Rostov district, near the same Trinity-Sergius Lavra, also in the estate alone, the village of Novy, there were up to 5,000 acres of one arable land and 165 square miles forests. At the same time, in the Tver district we meet a landowner, which means not a hereditary, but a newly emerged owner, Prince Semyon Ivanovich Glinsky, who, in addition to the village where his estate was, owned 65 villages and 61 repairs, in which there were a total of 273 peasant households, and with them more than one and a half thousand acres of arable land and meadows, which yielded up to ten thousand hay hay. Glinsky was an important gentleman, a relative of the Grand Duke himself, but his neighbors, who bore completely quiet names, one - Lomakova, and the other - Spyachev, the first had 22 villages, and the second - 26 villages and 6 repairs. And in the Rostov district, in the village of Ponikarov, we will find not even a nobleman, but a simple clerk (clerks were "thin rank", according to the concepts of the Moscow aristocracy), who owned 55 peasant and bobyl households, which plowed together up to 500 acres of land.

It was not for nothing that we moved from the number of acres to the number of households and villages belonging to one or another master: without this, the comparison would not be sufficiently clear. The fact is that we were very mistaken if we assumed that all these hundreds and thousands of acres belonging to one owner, plowed by this latter for themselves and constituted one or several large farms. Nothing like that: each individual village, each individual peasant household (“yard” and “village” then often coincided, a one-door village was even typical) plowed their own separate piece of land, and the votchinnik himself with his serfs was content with one “village” or a little more. The richest landowner, which we only find in the Novgorod scribe books, had his own farm only in the village where his estate stood and where there were from 20 to 30 acres of all cultivated land. In the estate where the Trinity Monastery owned up to 5,000 acres, the actual monastic arable land was less than 200 acres, and the monasteries were still, in that time, very intensive farming and went ahead of all other land owners. Here we come to the main feature of feudal large landownership: it was a combination of large property with small household. The income of the then rich gentleman consisted mainly not in the products of his own arable land, but in what the peasants delivered to him, who each ran their own independent economy on their own plot. The cadastral books, especially those of Novgorod, give us an extremely expressive picture of this collection of crumbs of large income at that time. One landowner of Derevskaya pyatina received from one of his yards: “a quarter of bread, a mark of barley, a rosary of oats, ½ ram, 1 cheese, 2 handfuls of flax, 10 eggs.” Another, belonging to an already more progressive type, took from the same peasant household "4 ½ money or five five grains of bread, cheese, lamb shoulder, ½ sheepskin, 3 ½ handfuls of flax." Not only products Agriculture in the literal sense, they were obtained in this way by the owner of the land, but also products, in our opinion, of the manufacturing industry: blacksmiths' yards paid with axes, scythes, coulters, frying pans. It is even more characteristic that personal services were acquired in the same way: in cadastral books we will find not only entire settlements of grooms and kennels - princely grooms and kennels were even relatively large landowners - but also buffoons with buffoons. The dues of these medieval artists obviously consisted in the amusements that they delivered to their master. The Grand Duke Simeon Bekbulatovich had a gardener in the village of Gorodishchi, “but he was given half a dozen arable land in the rural field to protect the garden and plant apple trees.” The most conspicuous way of acquiring personal services in the form of dues from the land, both here and in the West, was the demand for military service for the land.

It was impossible not to notice this type of feudal dues, and, noticing only it as something specific, our historiography built on this observation of its own a broad and complex picture of the so-called "local system". But the estate system is only a particularly striking detail of the feudal system in general, the essence of which was that the landowner ceded his right to land to others for all kinds of natural duties and offerings.

Only later did money appear as part of this feudal dues: according to the Novgorod scribe books, we can trace the transformation of natural duties into cash with our own eyes, and the initiative for this transformation belonged to the largest landowner, the Grand Duke of Moscow. And simultaneously with money, or only a little earlier than it, a prominent place in the series of in-kind duties begins to play the labor of peasants on the lord's arable land, which becomes too large to be handled by the hands of serfs alone: corvee. Both of them mark the emergence of a completely new phenomenon, unknown to early feudalism or playing a very secondary role at that time: the emergence market; where everything can be bought, exchanged for money, and, moreover, in any, unlimited quantity. Only the appearance of an internal grain market could force the patrimonial and landowner of the 16th century to seriously take up independent farming, just as at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries the emergence of an international grain market gave a new impetus to his great-great-grandson in the same direction. Only now did each extra pood of bread become valuable, because it meant extra silver in your pocket, and for silver it became possible to find satisfaction for all your needs, including those that would not be satisfied by any village dues. In the period of the birth of feudalism, buying and selling were not the rule, but the exception: they sold not for profit, but out of need, they sold not the products of their economy, but their property, which they themselves used before; the sale was often a ruin in disguise, and the purchase was usually the purchase of luxury items, because the essentials were at home, at hand, and they did not have to be bought. - the purchase was often the first step to the navel; to such destruction. In the old days, that economic system, where they try to make do with their own, without buying or selling anything, mowed down the name natural economy. Obviously, the absence or low prevalence of money and the receipt of all benefits were taken as a specific sign. in kind. But the lack of money was only a derivative sign, the essence of the matter was reduced to the absence exchange as a constant daily phenomenon, without which it is impossible to imagine economic life, as it has become in our day. The isolation of individual farms was the main thing, and, as applied to large-scale land ownership, this era received from the latest scientists the name of the era of closed patrimonial or local economy (“manorial”, as it is sometimes called, from the name of the English medieval fiefdom - manor).

We see that this economic type has one essential similarity with the one we considered in Chapter I: with the “oven” or “courtyard”. Here and there, a given economic group strives to satisfy all its needs with its own means, without resorting to outside help and without needing it. But there is also a very significant difference: there the fruits of the common labor went to those who themselves worked - the producer and the consumer merged into one close circle of people. Here the producer and the consumer are separated from each other: separate small farms produce, a special group consumes - the votchinnik with his household, children and households.

How could such a relationship develop? What made these hundreds of small proprietors give up part of their income in favor of one person, no direct participation in manufacturing process not accepted? At first glance, medieval peasant dues bring to mind one category of relationships that are familiar to us. And now the big owner, without exploiting all his land himself, leases part of it to smaller owners. Are not all these sheep, chickens, linen or frying pans just a form of rent in kind, a reward for rented land? If we put aside for a moment from any historical perspective, imagine that people at all times and in all countries are exactly the same - as writers of the 18th century often imagined, and sometimes contemporary lawyers do - such an explanation will seem to us the most simple and natural. . The undoubted fact of the movement of large masses of the Russian population from west to east - and later from north to south - especially for Russia, reinforced this, at first glance, natural idea to others: the Russian peasant was portrayed as a vagrant, constantly looking for a new place to settle. And now wandering peasants renting land in one or another estate for a year, two or three, then moving on, giving way to new newcomers - this picture was imprinted in the memory of many Russian historians for a long time. The simple consideration did not immediately occur to me that all these movements of the masses of the people, undoubted in themselves, are like those secular changes in sea level, which are completely inaccessible to the gaze of an individual observer, limited by the narrow limits of his personal life, and which become noticeable only when when we compare the observations of many generations. That the great-grandson of a Russian peasant often died very far from the place where his great-grandfather was buried, this is true, but it would be very hasty to conclude from this that both great-grandfather and great-grandson during their lifetime were wandering farmers who looked at their hut, as if - sort of like a hotel. In order to remain true to such an idea, one must close one's eyes to a phenomenon typical of ancient Russia, which appears before us in almost every document that deals with land and land ownership. Not a single dispute over land was resolved at that time without the participation of old-timers, some of which "remembered" for thirty, others for forty, and others even for seventy and ninety years. These old-timers often showed an amazing topographical memory of a given area: they knew how to show by heart all the bushes and swamps, any “burnt pine” and “forked alder”, which marked the boundary between this or that estate. In order to know him like that, one had to be born and grow up in him - a wandering tenant, an occasional guest in the estate, even for ten years, would not have studied all these details, and would they be interesting to him? The old-timer was, no doubt, just as strong and settled a resident of the estate as the votchinnik himself; and if he paid the last quitrent, then hardly as a tenant of the land, which, as often happened, was plowed from time immemorial not only by himself, but also by his father and even grandfather. But this is not enough: the “old man”, according to ancient Russian legal ideas, could even turn a wandering person into a settled one. A newly arrived peasant in the estate could “get old” - and then he already lost the right to look for a new patrimony. What role this "old age" played in the later enslavement of the peasants, we shall see in its own place; for the time being, it is important for us to note that, legally, Ancient Russia also originated from the concept of the peasant as a more or less stable and permanent inhabitant of his village. Whoever wanted to roam had to hasten to leave the place, otherwise he merged with the mass of the surrounding inhabitants, whom the law obviously considered as a settled, and not as a nomadic population. In a word, the idea of ​​the ancient Russian farmer as a transitory tenant of the lord's land, and of quitrent as a special form of rent, has to be severely limited, and not only because it would be strange to find a modern legal category in a circle of relations so little similar to ours. but also because it is directly opposite to the facts. Obviously, the peasant had to share with the master the products of his household not as a tenant of the master's land, but for some other reason.

For feudalism, as a worldwide phenomenon, this foundation has long been pointed out by Western European historical literature. It talks about the process feudalization land property. Here the picture is drawn approximately like this. At the very beginning of settled agriculture, the land is in the hands of those who cultivate it. Most researchers accept that the agricultural population then managed not individually, but in groups, and the land belonged to these same groups; that the original form of landed property was not personal property, but communal. Little by little, however, communal property disintegrated, giving way to individual property; in parallel with this, there was a differentiation among the population itself, the community. Stronger families took more and more more land, the weaker ones lost the one that was in their hands initially, falling into economic and then political dependence on strong neighbors. Thus arose large-scale feudal property with the distinctive features familiar to us. For some countries - England, for example - a free community as a primary phenomenon, a feudal estate as a secondary, later, are now considered proven. This cannot be said about Russia. The dispute about whether a landed community existed among us from time immemorial, which is now disintegrating, did not begin from yesterday; in its classical form it is already before us in the articles of Chicherin and Belyaev, dating back to the 50s of the 19th century. But the data to resolve this dispute until recently remain extremely scarce. One of the most typical signs communities are known to redistribution: since in the community not a single inch of land is the property of an individual, then from time to time, as changes in the composition of the population, the communal land is redistributed anew in relation to the number of cash owners. But before the 16th century in Russia, only one case of land redistribution can be indicated, and even that was carried out on the initiative not of the peasants, but of the local patrimony, his clerk. In other words, feudal relations already existed here. What was before them? The most plausible answer would be that in our country feudalism developed directly on the basis of that collective landownership, which we defined as "primitive" - ​​landownership of the "stove" or "courtyard." We remember that this peculiar "commune" was by no means that association of free and equal farmers, which is drawn by some researchers, for example, the community of the ancient Germans. There was no individual property in the "peche" because there was no individual farm; but when the latter appeared, there was no mention of equality. If two brothers who previously made up “one family” were divided, then the oven fell into two equal halves. But the first could have three sons, and the second one: in the next generation, three of the grandchildren of one grandfather each owned 1/6 of the village (we remember that the “village” and “yard”, farm, often, but in ancient era, probably, and always coincided), and the fourth grandson - a whole half. Such harsh examples, however, are rare: with an abundance of forests, anyone who felt cramped in their own oven could put up a new “repair”, which quickly turned into an independent village. But such cases, when in the hands of one of the villagers is ⅓ of the village, and in the hands of another the remaining ⅔, are very common in cadastral books. The notion of the equal right of everyone to the same land plot as another was nowhere to come from, yes, we repeat, and there was no economic need for this equality as yet.

Parodying famous expression that the Russian people occupied the East European Plain, “not settling, but moving”, it can be said that the development of the ancient Russian village went through not “partitions”, but “partitions”. In order for us to have a community with its redistributions, it was not enough those financial and political conditions in general, which we will have to talk about below: we also needed land tightness, and there was no mention of it in pre-Moscow and even early Moscow Russia. . It has long been pointed out that the best analogy in terms of land space for Ancient Russia is given by the least populated areas of modern Siberia. Both there and here, in order to enter into full possession of a land plot in the middle of an uncleared, virgin forest, it was enough to “outline” this plot by putting marks on the trees surrounding it. We meet such a drawing in the same way in Russkaya Pravda with its “meadow oak”, for the felling of which a large fine was due, and in the documents of the 16th milestone, which are even familiar with this word - “drawing”. In one court case of 1529, judges ask local old-timers, “Tell the Grand Duke by kissing the cross, whose land and forest we are standing on, and who drew that drawing, and dried the forest, and planted a barn, and plowed arable land, and how long ago? » And the borders of the estate, as in the days of Pravda and as in present-day or recent Siberia, were marked trees. Back in 1552, a monastery old-timer in one land dispute, proving the correctness of his monastery, walked with an image “from the road to the left to a crooked oak, and on it facet, yes to the pine tree, and on the pine tree facet, from pine to sluggish oak, on it facet, and from the forked oak through the mug with a swamp from the oak, and on the oak facet..»

If there are very few traces of a landed community in the old documents - up to the 16th century inclusive, then there are plenty of traces of stove land ownership on the patrimonial lands of this era. First of all, the legal form of collective family property turned out, as one would expect, to be much more stable than its economic content. Patronage, hereditary land in cadastral books very rarely appears as the property of one faces, much more often, as a subject of ownership, we have Group persons, mostly close relatives, but sometimes distant ones. In the village of Yeldezine, in the parish of Zakhozhye, in the Tver district, at the beginning of the 16th century, Mikhail and Gridya Andreevs, the children of Yeldezina and Gridya Gavrilov, the son of Yeldezin, were imprisoned: two brothers and one cousin. After their death, their heirs were divided among themselves, but again not into individual, personal plots. On one quarter of the village of Yeddezin, the widow of Grigory (otherwise Gridi) Andreevich Yeldezin, Matryona, with two sons, turned out to be, half of the village went to the three sons of Mikhail Andreevich, and only the last quarter of the Yeldezin estate found itself, obviously, quite by accident, a single owner in the person of Gribank Mikhailovich. In the same district, in another volost, there was the village of Klyuchnikovo, owned by a group of four people, consisting of Senka and Mikhal Andreev, Yarkov's children - brothers, and their nephews, Yurka and Matyusha Fedorov, Yarkov's children. We take two examples from the countless number found on the pages of Moscow scribe books. How unusual the idea of ​​personal landed property was for Moscow Russia of the 16th century, shows us the curious fact that when the Grand Duke began to distribute land to estates for service, then, although the service itself was, of course, personal, it did not occur to him to distribute the land also to individuals. The concept of a personal service area, a service "howl", developed only very gradually. And estates are initially owned, usually, by a father with sons, an uncle with nephews, several brothers together. And sometimes it also happens that a mother and son are sitting on a service plot, and although the son is three years old, and he obviously cannot serve, they leave the land behind him, “until he is ready for service”: you can’t deprive the land of an entire family because for being in this moment there is no one to serve in it military service.

But if the legal form was kept the same, in fact the “pechishte” began to split up a long time ago, as we have already seen several times; traces of this fragmentation are no less a characteristic indicator of the way in which large patrimonial property of Ancient Russia arose than the remnants of collective ownership. We have seen how, after several generations, the fractions of the former "village" ended up in the hands of members of the same family; but the colossal "princely" estates were sometimes composed of the same fractional, small lots. In the same Tver district, according to the cadastral book of 1540-1559, a third of the village of Bykovo belonged to Prince. Boris Shchepin, and two-thirds remained in the hands of the former patrimonials, the Davydovs. Behind Mitya Ryskunov was half the village of Korobino, and the other half behind the book. Dmitry Pupkov. Half of the village of Popova was in the hands of Fyodor Rzhevsky, and the other half was "the patrimony of Princess Ulyana Pupkova." Sometimes, thanks to fragmentation, on the same land - and often a small one - estates of extremely diverse social status were united. The Shcheglyatev family, all in the same Tver district, had two villages and repairs - a total of about 60 acres of arable land. One of these Shcheglyatevs served Princess Anna, the wife of Prince Vasily Andreevich Mikulinsky. And a generation later, in one of the Shcheglyatevsky villages, we meet as many as three owners: the same Princess Anna, the “suzerain” of one of the Shcheglyatevs, as we have seen, another Shcheglyatev, who at that time was a priest, and a certain Ulyana Ilyinichna Fereznina, who exchanged from someone then from the estates one of the lots of this village in exchange for another land. As you can see, it would be very wrong to imagine the patrimonials of the times of Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible or his father as exceptionally important gentlemen, lords or barons of their kind. I could be the owner of the land, I could be a priest, I could be a clerk, I could be a serf, yesterday or even today. Prince Ivan Mikhailovich Glinsky, dying in the 80s of the 16th century, asked his executor Boris Fedorovich Godunov to "grant him" - to give his "man" Bersegan Akchurin one of the patrimonial villages of Glinsky in Pereyaslavl district. The heir, obviously, entered into all the rights of the testator - and the village, by virtue of this will, was to become the patrimony of Akchurin, who, according to the same spiritual charter, received freedom. Here, a freed serf turned into a votchinnik, and in the cadastral books of the first half of the century we find a votchinnik who renounced his freedom and turned into a serf. A certain Nekras Nazarov, the son of Sokolov, who was sitting in half of the village of Romashkov, in the Tver district, told the scribes that he was serving Prince Semyon Ivanovich Mikulinsky, “and he said a full letter and bondage of 8 rubles.” The votchinnik, like the peasants of that time, got even with the debt, giving himself in payment.

Not only was he, of course, not a very distinguished person, but he was, of course, not a large landowner, otherwise such a fate would not have befallen him. We have seen that large property already dominated in the 16th century, but this by no means meant that every fiefdom of that time was necessarily a large estate. By the time the scribe books were compiled, small property had not yet been completely absorbed, and in these books we often meet votchinniks, full, independent, hereditary owners of their land, owning a plot of purely peasant size - 10 or 12 acres of arable land in three fields. Such a "land lord" could turn into a proletarian in exactly the same way as any peasant. All in the same Tver district, scribes found the village of Prudishche, which belonged to a certain Vasyuk Fomin, for which they “were not given letters” for a very good reason: there was nothing to describe. There was not only no household, but there was not even any building, and the patrimonial Vasyuk Fomin went from house to house and ate the name of Christ.

Large property in our country, as elsewhere in Europe, grew up on the ruins of small property. How did this process go? How were small proprietors expropriated in favor of various princes of Mikulinsky, Pupkov and other land magnates - Trinity, Kirillovo-Belozersky and other monasteries? In the sixteenth century, we find only the last links in a long chain - naturally, they first of all catch our eye, closing older and, perhaps, much more widespread forms of expropriation. One of the most notable forms of this later period is award inhabited land to the patrimony of the sovereign. We saw (in Chapter I) that “granting”, as a legal ritual, was a necessary condition for the emergence of any landed property in ancient times, but now we have in mind, of course, not this legal ritual, but such an act that, over a mass of small independent farms, in fact, one large owner was erected, who could expropriate any part of the income of these farms for his own benefit. How simple it was done, one example will show. In 1551, Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, then still very obedient to the boyars and the large clergy who were friends with him, granted the abbess of the Intercession Monastery (in the Vladimir district) with 21 black villages. Back in the 17th century, the black-eared peasants disposed of their lands as complete property, paying nothing to anyone except state taxes. And now a short royal letter obliged the entire population of this 21 village “to listen to the abbess and her clerks in everything and plow arable land on them where they will inflict themselves, and tribute to pay them than they portray you." With one stroke of the pen, twenty-one free villages became the feudal property of Mother Superior Vasilisa and her sisters.

This completely “state”, archi-legal, if I may say so, form of the emergence of large-scale property is so clear, simple and so well known to everyone that there is no need to insist on it. The love of our historians of previous generations for everything "state" - it is not for nothing that they were, for the most part, students of Hegel, directly or indirectly - forces, on the contrary, to emphasize that the forcible seizure of foreign land was by no means always clothed in such a legally impeccably correct shell. It was a long time to wait until the sovereign grants the land - strong and influential person could much sooner get his hands on it, not embarrassed by this legal formality. Through the scribe books of the 16th century, a long line stretches a number of such, for example, marks: there lived two Dmitriev brothers, grand ducal grooms - small landowners who had only one village. “Grigory Vasilievich Morozov took away that harvest to the same village, and now that harvest belongs to Prince Semyon Ivanovich Mikulinsky.” Yes, to the same village there was a wasteland: “and that wasteland was taken away by Prince Ivan Mikhailovich Shuisky ...” Or: “der. Sokevitsyno ... is empty, but derelict from Prince Mikhail Petrovich Repnin. One legal charter of the 40s of the 16th century will give a very vivid illustration of these dry marks of Moscow state statistics. The Spassky Yaroslavl Monastery complains of its insult - a large landowner himself, of course, but smaller and weaker than the neighbor sent to him by fate. The man of this neighbor, Prince Ivan Fedorovich Mstislavsky, Ivan Tolochanov, having arrived at the monastery villages, “swept the monastery peasants out of the villages”, and settled in one village himself, while others imposed dues in his favor. But, having “swept out” the peasants themselves, the new owner did not at all want to part with their property: he kept it for himself, driving the owners out almost naked. The list of robbed, which is given, one after another, by individual "swept" peasants in the same petition, is curious, first of all, as a concrete indicator of the level of well-being at which the average peasant household of the 16th century stood. One of these peasants, Ivanko, for example, shows that “that Ivan Tolochanov took a gelding from him, and two cows, and five sheep, and seven pigs, and fifteen hens, and a dress, lord, mine and wife, took a fur coat and a sermyaga, Yes, a dyed caftan, Yes, a homemade summer coat, Yes, a Novogonsk black fringe, Yes, five men's shirts, Yes, fifteen women's shirts, Yes, five lower ports, Yes, half-thirty (25) embroidered and swear and simple ribs, Yes, twenty canvases, Yes, seven canvases, Yes, nine combs, Yes, three axes, Yes, two plows with policemen, Yes, three scythes, Yes, eight sickles, Yes, twelve dishes, Yes, ten staves, Yes, twelve spoons, Yes, two pancake pans, Yes, six panev, Yes, three earrings, one alone, and two on silver with pearls, and men's boots, and four women's and children's boots, and twenty altyns of money ... "As you can see, the Russian peasant of the times of Grozny still had something to take, and it took more than one generation of Ivan Tolochanovs to bring this peasant to its present state.

But the forcible seizure, in its legal or illegal form, was hardly the main method for the formation of large land ownership in Ancient Russia. In history, as in geology, slow molecular processes produce more enduring results than isolated catastrophes. We have no - or very little - material for a detailed study of the molecular process that decomposed small property into ancient period. But we have already said that the so-called chernososhnye (later - state) peasants, who survived mainly in the north of Russia, preserved patrimonial property even in the 17th century. We can observe the evolution of small patrimonial landownership here quite closely - and, as we will see, there is every reason to think that what happened here in the time of Alexei Mikhailovich was not much different from what happened in the rest of Russia under Ivan III and Ivan IV or even much earlier . Here, in the north of Russia, we see with our own eyes how, under the pressure of purely economic reasons, without interference state power or open force, more and more land is concentrated in the hands of some, while the possessions of less happy estates melt like a block of snow under the spring sun. Comparing the situation of the Russian peasantry in the North according to the censuses of 1623 and 1686, his researcher comes to the following conclusion: “The difference between the thin, average and best peasants has become more palpable: the relationship between the minimum and the maximum (in three volosts: Kevrole, Chakole and Maryina Gora) changed from 1:48 (without arable lands) to 1:256 "- before the minimum peasant plot was 1/6 of a quarter, now 1/16. A quarter - half a tithe, "a quarter in the field" is equal to one and a half tithes of arable land in total, with a three-field system. This means that the smallest peasant plot in 1623 was ¼ of our tithe, in 1686 - less than 1/6. And the largest plot in the first case is 8 quarters, and in the second - 16, and the yards with the largest plot in 1623 were less than 1% of the total, and in 1686 - more than 6%. “Before, the difference between the most common peasant lot and the most significant did not exceed 2–2 ½: 8–10, now it is 2–2 ½: 16–20, that is, the subsistence man managed to greatly overtake the average peasant.” And in parallel with this melting of small property, the dependence of the small patrimony on his richer neighbors is just as clearly growing. Whereas in 1623 ordinary peasants did not have ladles at all either in Kevrol or in Chakol, in 1686 6 peasants had 11 ladles: one had 4, one had 3, the rest had one each.

Landless peasants already come across in the 20s of the 17th century: “In the Chakolskon volost, in the village of Burtsovskaya, Fyodor Moiseev wandered between the yards, and the arable land of his foals behind N. Alekseev, or in the village. Fominskaya A, Mikhailov became impoverished, his yard and arable land ½, thurs. village Sidorovskaya for the peasants Iv. Kirillov and L. Oksenov. In both cases, the buyers are the most subsistence residents: N. Alekseev has 5 ½ quarters, while the rest have from 1 ½ to 3 hours, Kirillov has 6 ¼ hours, his neighbor has only 2. These are not only buyers, in and creditors of low-income people: "Patricake Pavlov's yard is mortgaged to D. Nikiforov and arable land ¼ four." The impoverished peasants do not abruptly completely leave the village: “They were taken away by debtors, and they wandered away from the last debts,” as the Solvychegodsky scribe notes. Often they turned into ladles, sometimes hiring themselves to their creditors on their former plot; in the village of Svatkovskaya of the Kevrolsky camp in 1678, the brother of the departed peasant owned his sycamore and arable land, and in 1686 he, together with his nephew, the son of the former patrimony, lives as a ladle in the old plot, passed to the rich peasant Dm. I assure you.

What happened in the remote North in the second half of the 17th century and what we can observe here from year to year and from yard to yard, is still familiar to Russkaya Pravda of the 13th century and the Pskov charter of the 15th century: only there we have only more or less indirect indications of the process, which we can take into account here with almost statistical accuracy. Russkaya Pravda already knows a special category of peasants, which has always greatly embarrassed our legal historians; These are the so-called purchases. They occupied an intermediate position between a free peasant, a “smerd”, and a serf, and turned into serfs with great ease: a simple failure to fulfill the obligation assumed, leaving work before the deadline made the purchase by the slave of the owner, from whom he left. On the other hand, the purchase could be beaten like a serf - only "for the cause", and not on a whim. Modernizing the relations of the 13th century, some researchers would like to see just a hired worker in the purchase. Undoubtedly, he was such in the sense that he worked in someone else's economy, or at least for someone else's economy, for a certain remuneration. But this was by no means a representative of the rural proletariat: at the purchase, one of the articles in Russkaya Pravda suggests “his own horse,” that is, a horse that he personally owned, and in general, “old woman” - his own property, which the owner, as can be seen from another article of the same Pravda, was often inclined to regard it as belonging to him.

It was, therefore, a hired worker of a special kind, hired with his own inventory; in other words, he was a peasant forced by circumstances to work on the lord's arable land. What made him like this dependent position, “Pravda” indicates with sufficient clarity: “purchase” was called that because he took a “kupa” from the master, that is, a loan - partly, maybe in money, but mainly in the form of the same inventory: a plow, a harrow etc. In other words, it was a peasant who owed money - this was the economic root of his dependence. From one article in Pravda, one can conclude that he also had some kind of household of his own: this article suggests that the purchase could “destroy” the cattle lent to him by the owner, “the tools of his own deed”, at some kind of his own work. Probably, therefore, in some cases, at least, he still had his own plot of land. But he had already lost his independence to such an extent that at the trial he stood almost on the same level as a serf: one could refer to him, put him up as a “obedience”, only in a “small weight” - and then “out of necessity”, when there was no one else . Two centuries later, in the Pskov Judicial Charter, we find already detailed legislation on such indebted peasants, who here are called “izorniks”, “gardeners”, and sometimes even “polovnikovs”, as in the northern black-moss volosts of the 17th century. All these dependent people of various names still had their own property, from which in other cases the owner ruled his debt, his “twist”. But they were already so close to the serfs that their claim to the master was not taken into account, while Russkaya Pravda still allowed such claims.

The indebtedness of the peasants was by no means a phenomenon peculiar exclusively to the era of the birth of serfdom, the 16th-17th centuries. That is why this latter cannot be explained by debt alone. The dependence of the ladle of the Kevrol volost in the 17th century, as well as the purchase of Russkaya Pravda in the 13th century, did not reach slavery, which just did not develop in the north of Russia. In order for the enslavement of the entire peasant mass to arise out of debt, socio-political conditions were needed that were not always met. But enslavement was the final moment of a long drama, and now we are still quite far from this moment. Much earlier than the peasant became the full property of another person, he himself ceased to be the full owner. The first consequence of the debt was not yet the loss of freedom, but the loss of land. “Pray us, your orphans, bless us among yourselves, our lands for the sake of selling and mortgaging,” the Chukhchenem church peasants of the Kholmogory archbishop Athanasius asked: “ For the fact that we have nothing to feed ourselves, only not by selling earth and mortgage". In the words of the researcher from whom we borrow this quote, the development of polovnichestvo "goes hand in hand with an increase in the mobilization of real estate, so that in the same county they (these phenomena) occur less often or more often, depending on how stable the peasant estate is: for example, in Solvychegodsk uyezd, in Luzskaya Peremets, where 95.9% of the peasants in 1645 own according to antiquity and scribe books of 1623, there is not a single ladle yard. On the contrary, in the Alekseevsky camp, where the main basis of ownership is fortresses (purchases), there are about 20 ladle households, in the Polish volost there are 16 ladle households for 80 peasants, belonging to topics to the peasants,” etc. Fortunately, one of the Moscow scribe books of the 16th century preserved for us indications of those documents that the owner of the land could present to prove his rights. In the overwhelming majority of cases, these documents are bills of sale. According to two volosts of the Tver district, Zakhozhye and Suzemyo, by Moscow scribes half of the XVI century, 141 estates were described, not counting the monastic ones, and several documents were submitted for some estates; of the latter: merchants - 65, mortgages - 18, exchange - 22. In twenty-one cases, the documents turned out to be lost, and only in 18 the votchinnik owned according to spiritual literacy, that is, he was the "patrimony and grandfather" of his land in the literal sense of the word, received his estate by inheritance. There is no need to think that these hereditary votchichi are some especially noble people: among them we meet, for example, the guest of Tver, the merchant Ivan Klementievich Savin. The earth is firmly held in the hands of the richer, and not the more well-born man. And most likely small estates are slipping away from hands, and from cadastral books we can sometimes very clearly trace how the mobilization and centralization of landed property took place in our country in the 16th century. “Mikhalka Kornilov, the son of Zelentsov, the village of Zelentsovo, arable land, half a half of a plow,” we read in one place. “And nonecha Zubatovo Ofonasiev son of Khomyakov: der. Zelentsovo, the Sakharov wasteland: arable land in the village 25 four in one field, and in two because of the same, hay 15 kopecks. Zubata serves as the mistress of Tver; the land is middle - and the fortress of bondage is mortgaged. "Beds and Ivashka Matveev's children Tarasova village. Brankovo, der. Repairs ... Gridka and Ivashka were gone in the stomach, and Ivan Zubatov, the son of Khomyakov, the village of Bryankovo, was repaired by Stepanov. Arable land in the village and repairing 20 children in one field ... Ivan serves as the mistress of Tver, and his fortress is a bill of sale. So, in the person of a successful "servant" of the Tver lord, one larger one grew out of two expropriated small estates.

Slow, lingering for centuries economic process worked for the benefit of large property, rather than the most spectacular "arrivals" with robberies and bloodshed. By the 15th-16th centuries, we repeat once again, the expropriation of small proprietors was almost a fait accompli - there were only enough small estate owners to be able to refute the rather firmly held prejudice that the whole land had already been “princessed” or “boyared” by that time. The first of the main signs of feudalism - the domination of large property - can be proved for Ancient Russia, the pre-Moscow period inclusive, just as satisfactorily as for Western Europe in the 11th - 22nd centuries. Even more beyond dispute, the second sign is the connection of political power with the land by an inseparable bond.

That a large patrimonial aristocracy on their lands not only managed and collected dues, but also judged and collected taxes, no one in Russian historical literature has ever denied this fact, he finds too much documentary evidence, moreover, published a long time ago. But from the state point of view common in our historical and legal literature, these rights have always been presented as a special kind of exclusive privileges, the award of which was an extraordinary act of state power. “These privileges were granted not to the whole estate, but to individuals, and each time on the basis of special letters of commendation,” says prof. Sergeevich in the latest edition of his work Antiquities of Russian Law. Two pages later, the same researcher finds, however, compelled to draw the attention of his reader to the fact that among those endowed with such a privilege, there are not only big people, whose names were written with "vicsm", but also "Ivashki and Fedka". He makes from here completely correct conclusion that “such awards constituted a general rule, and not an exception,” i.e., that the privilege belonged precisely to the “whole class” of landowners, and not to “individuals” in the form of a special sovereign favor. And two more pages later, the same author reveals an even more curious fact: the very act of granting could come not from the government at all, but from any votchinnik. With the charter of Metropolitan Jonah cited by him to a certain Andrei Afanasiev (1450), one can compare an even more expressive example of the same kind - the charter of Prince. Fyodor Mikhailovich Mstislavsky to the same Ivan Tolochanov, whose exploits have already been discussed above. “Our tiuns and closers, and the righteous do not leave (to the villages granted to Tolochanov) for nothing,” writes Prince. Mstislavsky, - they don’t accept their exactions from them and they don’t judge his peasants, but Ivan himself knows and judges his peasants or to whom he orders him, and the court will be reduced to our peasants from his peasants and our tiuns judge them, and he judges them , and the award is divided into sexes, besides murder and tatba, and red-handed robbery and tributes, and who cares about him, Prince Fyodor Mikhailovich will judge him or whom I will order. Publisher of this interesting document, Mr. Likhachev, rightly notes in the preface that this Prince Mstislavsky not only was not some kind of independent owner, but even among the servants of the Moscow Grand Duke did not occupy any prominent place; he was not even a boyar. It must be added that the land that he, with such rights, "granted ... to his boyar son" was not his hereditary, but granted to him by Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich himself. And this latter, apparently, did not at all consider such a further delegation of the “privilege” granted by him to an even smaller landowner as something abnormal: it was not for nothing that he himself, and his father, and his son gave such letters to their very small landowners. Above, we mentioned, according to the scribe books of the first half of the 16th century, about two grand ducal grooms who were systematically offended by their strong neighbors - boyar Morozov and princes Mikulinsky and Shuisky: in proof of their rights, these grooms presented, however, an uncontested letter of "Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of all Russia," it is not clear whether it was Ivan III or Ivan IV. And a little lower in the same scribe we find a granted non-conviction letter for half a village, where there were only 50 acres of arable land. Thus, in our country, as in Western Europe, not only a great gentleman, but every independent landowner was a “sovereign on his estate,” and Mr. Sergeevich is absolutely right when he says, not quite in accordance with his original definition of a patrimonial court, as exclusive privilege of individuals that, rural population, long before the peasants were attached to the land, was already under the patrimonial court of the owners.

From an evolutionary point of view, the origin of this “patrimonial right” is completely analogous to the emergence of patrimonial land ownership: just as the latter arose from the ruins of “stove” land ownership - a patriarchal form of land ownership - so the former was a relic of patriarchal law, which could not distinguish between political power and property rights. One could even say that there was more than "experience" here; when the Grand Duke of Moscow granted “his servant (such and such) a village (such and such) with everything that attracted to that village, and with earthen bread(i.e. with winter rye already sown) other than murder and red-handed robbery”, then he continued to mix the economy and the state in a completely “primitive way” and even considered, obviously, his state functions mainly from an economic point of view, for it was possible to liken murder and robbery to "earthly bread" only if you did not see in guarding public safety nothing but income from court fees. There is no need to insist that this allocation of especially important criminal cases as exclusively subordinate to the princely court is, of course, explained by the same economic motives: the heaviest fines were imposed for murder and robbery - these were the fattest pieces of the princely judicial income. But having become generous, the prince could refuse this profit: grand duchess Sofia Vitovtovna charter Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery (1448-1469) wrote: “My volosts and their tiuns ... in murderousness do not interfere some things." There is no need to say also that the award itself was only the same exact legal formality as the letter of grant for land in general. It only demarcated the rights of the prince and the private landowner, as far as possible, because it was precisely thanks to the confusion of political power and private property that these rights threatened to be hopelessly confused. But the source of law was not at all necessarily princely power in itself: in a dispute over court and tribute, the patrimonials referred not only to the princely award, but also, quite often, to the originality of their right - to "old times". This is how one Belo-Zersky boyar of the half of the 15th century proved his right, from whom the Kirillov Monastery "took away" his patrimonial village "from court and from tribute." What was true of "judgment and tribute," i.e., court duties and direct taxes, was the same with respect to indirect taxes. We meet private customs not only in princely estates, where they can be mistaken for the remnant of the supreme rights that once belonged to the owner, but in the possessions of middle-class landowners, whom even a simple Moscow official, a clerk, could sometimes offend. From the complaint of one such Ryazan landowner offended by the deacon of the second half of the 16th century, Shilovsky, we learn that in the patrimony of him and his brothers “on their own shore they pour life into ships, eat from the shackle for money, yes they eat myto 4 altyns from a large ship, and altyns from a small ship, and half of the Telekhovsky monastery was washed. And the customs income could be divided in half with a neighbor, as, in certain cases, court fees.

"The sovereign in his estate" could not, of course, do without the main attribute of statehood - military force. Even Russkaya Pravda speaks of the "boyar squad" on a par with the prince's squad. Documents of a later time, as usual, give a concrete illustration of this general indication of the most ancient monument of Russian law. In the composition of the servants of a wealthy patrimony of the 15th-16th centuries, we, along with cooks and titniks, kennels and buffoons, also find armed servants who served their master “on horseback and in sadak”. “And that my people are full and reportable, and bonded,” writes Vasily Petrovich Kutuzov in his spiritual book around 1560, “and those are all people in the settlement, and that they have my tribute dress and saadaks and sabers and saddles, then they are ready, but my clerks will give my man Andryusha a horse with a saddle and with a milk, yes tag, yes a helmet... " Such a patrimonial combatant, undoubtedly, by virtue of his profession, stood above a simple courtyard. He could provide the master with such services that cannot be forgotten, and become a privileged servant, almost a free servant. This Andryusha had, in addition to the master's, also "a horse he bought" and some junk, and Vasily Petrovich Kutuzov is very concerned that the executors do not mix this property with the master's. People of precisely this category, in all likelihood, were those slaves on a salary, about which the spiritual of another votchinnik, already quoted by us, says. Ivan Mikhailovich Glinsky. Asking his executor, Boris Godunov, “to give my people a gift according to the books that my salary went to them,” the testator above speaks of the same people that they are set free “with everything who served me”: but it cannot be assumed that the cook went away with the kitchen in which he cooked, or the kennel with that pack of hounds, which he was in charge of. Again, this could only be said about people who served their master on horseback and in armor; in another spiritual one (Pleshcheeva), it is directly stipulated that “do not give horses to them (serfs).” Glinsky was more generous to his former comrades-in-arms and, as we have already seen, bequeathed even to one of them his village as a fiefdom. But a servant serf could receive the same land plot from the master even during the life of the latter. According to the Tver scribe book of the first half of the 16th century, Sozon, a “man” of Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Mikulinsky, sat on one quarter of the village of Tolutin. It was already a stone's throw from such a clergyman placed on a land plot to a real small-scale nobleman. Twice mentioned above, Ivan Tolochanov, in a complaint against him from the Spassky Monastery, is called the “man” of Prince Ivan Fedorovich Mstislavsky, and the latter’s father in his letter of commendation calls Tolochanov “his boyar son,” that is, a nobleman. So imperceptibly the tops of the armed yardmen passed into the lower layer of the military service class: on one side of the thin line stood serf, on the other - vassal.

The existence of such vassalage among Russian large landowners of the 16th century - the existence of free estates who carried military service from their land, on their horses and sometimes with their armed slaves, not to the Grand Duke of Moscow, but to "private individuals" - is irrefutably proved by the same scribe book of the Tver district, which we have repeatedly mentioned above. This book, compiled around 1539, lists 574 estates, for the most part small ones. Of these, 230 people served the Grand Duke, 126 private owners of various categories, and 150 people served no one. Of the 126 "Arrier-vassals" of the Moscow feudal nobility, 60 people served the Lord of Tver, and 30 - Prince Mikulinsky. From other sources, we know that the metropolitans and bishops had not only simple "servants", but also real boyars. “Bishop boyars,” says one of the historians of the Russian Church, “in ancient times did not differ in any way from princely boyars in their origin and in their social status ... They entered the service of the bishops in the same way and on the same conditions as to the princes , i.e., with the obligation to serve military service and serve at the court of the bishop, for which they received land from him for use. On these lands they could place their military servants - and their own master, in turn, was a vassal of the Grand Duke. The metropolitan military squad was supposed to go on a campaign together with the squads of the latter, “and about the war, if the Grand Duke himself sits on a horse, then the metropolitan boyars and servants,” says the letter. book. Vasily Dmitrievich (c. 1400). In the service of the Grand Duke of Moscow, the same ladder of vassals was extended, as in the service of the medieval king of France.

The nature of the relationship between the individual steps of this ladder - between free military servants of various degrees and their respective overlords - was studied in detail by the late N. Pavlov-Silvansky, who managed to summarize the results of his special works in his popular book "Feudalism in Ancient Russia" (St. Petersburg, 1907). “The service vassal contract was sealed with us and in the West by similar rituals,” says this author. - The ritual of homage, which consolidated the vassal agreement in feudal times, as well as the ancient ritual of commendation, delivery, consisted in the fact that the vassal, as a sign of his obedience to the master, knelt before him and put his hands folded together in the hands of the seigneur; sometimes, as a sign of even greater humility, the vassal, on his knees, put his hands under the feet of the seigneur. We find a ritual that is quite appropriate for this ritual petitions. Our boyar beat his forehead on the ground in front of the prince as a sign of his submission. In later times, the expression "to beat with a forehead" was used in the allegorical sense of a humiliated request. But in specific time this expression denoted the real petition, a bow to the ground, as can be seen from the usual designation of entry into service with the words "to beat with a forehead into service ...". In the second half of the appanage period, one rite of petition was considered insufficient to secure a service contract, and a church rite, the kissing of the cross, is added to this ritual. The same church oath, an oath on the Gospel, on the relics or on the cross, was made in the West to secure feudal treaty, in addition to the old rites of commendation or homage. Our boyar service is so close to vassalage that in our antiquity we even find exactly corresponding Western terms: to order - avouer, to refuse - se desavouer. As an example of the first, the author gives a modern formula for the news of the subjugation of the Novgorod service people Ivan III: "Bili forehead grand duke into service Novgorod boyars and all boyar children and lives, yes ordering left him." A good example of the second term is the story of the life of Joseph of Volokolamsk, which he cites a little further, about how this hegumen, not getting along with the local prince of Volokolamsk, passed from him to the Grand Duke of Moscow: Joseph " refused from his sovereign to a great state. One place in the Nikon chronicle has preserved for us the very formula of such a "refusal." In 1391, the Moscow prince Vasily Dmitrievich, the son of Donskoy, bought from the Tatars Nizhny Novgorod Principality, moved with his troops to Nizhny Novgorod in order to exercise the “right” he had just acquired. Nizhny Novgorod Prince Boris Konstantinovich, having decided to resist to the last opportunity, gathered his squad and addressed it with the following speech: “My Lord and brothers, boyars and friends! Remember the Lord's kiss on the cross, as you kissed me, and our love and assimilation to you. The boyars, under the first impression of a rude insult inflicted on their prince, warmly stood up for his cause. “We are all of one mind towards you,” the eldest of them, Vasily Rumyanets, told Boris, “and we are ready to lay down our heads for you.” But Moscow, in alliance with the Tatars, was a terrible force - resistance to it threatened the final death of those who resisted. When the first inspiration passed, the Nizhny Novgorod boyars decided that strength was breaking straw and that the cause of their prince was lost anyway. They decided to "abandon" Prince Boris and go over to his rival. It was the same Vassily Rumyanets, on behalf of everyone, who told the unfortunate Boris Konstantinovich about the change that had taken place. “Lord Prince! - he said, - do not rely on us, now we are not yours, and we are not with you, but we are on you". “So it is exactly in the West,” adds, citing these words, the historian of Russian feudalism, “the vassal, refusing the seigneur, openly told him: I will no longer be faithful to you, I will not serve you and I will not be obliged to loyalty ...”.

The case cited now vividly illuminates the features of the regime from which Muscovite Russia began and which lived for a long time under the shell of the Byzantine autocracy, officially adopted by the Muscovite state from the beginning of the 16th century. That the prince of the Kievan era cannot be imagined without his boyars, all historians have long agreed on this. As an example, the fate of Prince Vladimir Mstislavich is usually cited, to whom his boyars, when he undertook one campaign without their consent, said: “Thou art about thyself, prince, conceived, and we are not going along you, we did not know that.” But the "gatherers" of Muscovite Russia cannot be imagined acting alone; not without reason Dmitry Donskoy, saying goodbye to his boyars, recalled that he did everything together with them: he defeated the filthy ones, fought with them in many countries, had fun with them, and mourned with them - “and you were not called boyars, but princes of the earth mine." Just as any feudal state in Western Europe was headed by a group of persons (a sovereign, a king or a duke, a “suzerain” with a “curia” of his vassals), so was a Russian specific principality, and later the state of Moscow, there was also a group of people: the prince, later the grand duke and tsar, with his boyar duma. And as a Western European feudal "sovereign" in urgent and especially important occasions was not satisfied with the advice of his closest vassals, but convened representatives of the entire feudal society, "state officials", so in our ancient times the prince sometimes conferred with his squad, and the king - with Zemsky Cathedral. We shall later have occasion to study both of these institutions in more detail. For now, we only note that the roots of both - and thoughts and cathedral- are deeply rooted in that feudal principle which says that a free servant could only be required of the service for which he contracted, and that he could quit this service whenever he found it unprofitable for himself. That is why the feudal lord could not undertake any important business that could affect the fate of his servants without their consent.

How strong was this "social contract", a kind of contract between vassal and overlord in a feudal society? Medieval contractual relations are very easy to idealize. The "rights" of free servants are very often presented in the image and likeness of rights, as they exist in modern times. rule of law. But we know that this last right the weakest are often protected only on paper, but in reality "the strong always blame the weak." This applies to a much greater extent to the feudal state. The contractual relations of the vassal and the overlord, in essence, were much more like the norms of the present international law who does not violate only those who cannot. In inter-princely agreements, it was possible to write as much as you like: “And the boyars and servants between us are free,” but in practice it happened every now and then that the prince of “those boyars and boyar children” who “moved away from him”, “robbed, villaged them and took away their houses from them, and their bellies, and all the remnants, and caught their livestock.” And no court and no justice could be found against him, except to turn to another, even more powerful rapist. In feudal society, still much more than in our modern society, force always went ahead of right. Studying the complex ceremonial of feudal relations, it is easy to get carried away and think that people, who so carefully established what gestures should have been made in this or that case and what words were uttered, were just as carefully able to protect the essence of their right. But where was there to protect one's right from the abuses of the feudal sovereign, when it was sometimes an impossible task to defend him and from the attempts of his smallest servants, ordinary and even medium-sized feudal estates? We cannot finish our study of the legal regime of feudal Russia better than with one picture borrowed from the same series of legal documents from which we repeatedly took examples above. In 1552, the Nikolsky Monastery was suing with its neighbors Arbuzovs, it was sued properly, according to the whole form: “They judged us, sir,” the monastery elders write in their petition, according to the Tsar’s sovereign’s charter, Fedor Morozov and Khomyak Chechenin. The judges "corrected" the monastery, and its opponents were "accused". “And so,” the elders continue, “they, gentlemen, came to that village of Ilyins, the children of Arbuzov ... yes Ilyins, the people of Arbuzov ... yes, me, sir, Mitrofanov, yes elder Danil, yes elder Tikhon they beat and robbed both the clerk of the monastery and the servants , and peasants and peasant women were beaten and robbed, and the old-timers, sir, who were with the judges on the ground, were beaten. And the judge, sir, Khomyak Chechenin, with the boyar children who were with us on earth, went out to take away (offended old-timers), and they, sir, beat Khomyak Chechenin and those boyar children ... And hegumen, sir, with the judge, with Fyodor Morozov, locked up, sat out... "It was not always convenient to solve the case despite the interest of the pugnacious feudal lord. Western European feudal law clothed this gross offense in a certain kind of solemn ceremony: one who was dissatisfied with a judicial decision could “defame the court”, fausser le jugement, and challenge the judge to a duel. In one of our court cases in 1531, the judge rejected the testimony of one of the litigants who referred specifically to him, the judge, stating that such a document as he spoke of had never been in the case. “And in Oblyazovo’s place (that was the name of the litigant), his man Istoma asked Sharap (the judge) for a field ... and Sharap caught himself behind the field with him.” It was also possible to call a judge to a duel in the Muscovite state of the time of Vasily Ivanovich.

That's why legal sign of agreement and should not be put among the main distinguishing features of feudalism. This latter is a much better known system of economy than the system of law. Here the state merged with the economy of the lords - in-kind quitrent and court duties flowed into the same center, often in the same form of rams, eggs and cheese; from the same center came both the clerk - to redistribute the land, and the judge - to resolve the dispute over this land. When the circle of economic interests expanded beyond the limits of one estate, the sphere of law had to expand geographically. The first time such an expansion took place was when city volosts grew out of the volosts of private landowners, and the second time, when Moscow took all the private estates under its hand. In both cases, quantity turned into quality: the territorial expansion of power changed its nature - the estate turned into a state. The first of these transformations happened quite quickly, but it was not, and very firmly. The second took place very slowly, but on the other hand, the final formation of the Muscovite state in the 17th century was also the final liquidation of Russian feudalism in its ancient form. But until this moment, feudal relations formed the basis on which both of these political superstructures were erected - both the city volost and the patrimony of the Moscow tsars. And Mr. Veliky Novgorod and his happy rival, the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan Vasilievich, we must firmly remember this, ruled not over a gray crowd of monotonous subjects in their lack of rights, but over a motley feudal world of large and small "boyars", each of which had its own a little sovereign, behind the forests and swamps of Northern Russia, who knew how to defend his independence no worse than his western comrade behind the walls of his castle.