In the middle of the 11th century in Rus', large expanses of land became private property. Primacy belonged to the princes and members of their large family. Using power and influence, they appropriated communal lands and used the labor of prisoners on free lands. Under the control of the managers, mansions were built and their own household was organized.

Free community members fall under the patronage of the prince and become dependent workers. Like European countries, a princely domain is created. This is the name given to a land complex inhabited by people who belong directly to the head of the dynasty and state. Similar possessions appear among the prince's relatives.

The prince acted as the supreme owner of all the land in the principality. He owned part of the territory as a personal possession (domain), and disposed of the remaining lands as the head of state. There were domain church possessions, lands of the boyars and their vassals in conditional holding.

The emergence of the domain led to the complication of the structure and activities of the princely court. Senior warriors become firemen, then perform the position of butler in the princely house. The “old” (senior) groom, who later received the position of groom, enjoyed great influence. The combat effectiveness of the princely cavalry depended on his activities.

Defense of the prince's possessions

The heirs of Yaroslav the Wise formed a procedure for punishment for attempts on the property of the prince and his servants. About half of the articles established the size of the fine for the theft of grain, livestock, fodder and firewood, entry into the prince's hunting ground, theft of a boat, and destruction of an apiary.

One of the main provisions is issues of border violations. For this a fine of 12 hryvnia was imposed. The same fine was imposed for violating the honorable name of a prince’s warrior. The Yaroslavichs equated non-compliance with borders and an insult to honor and measures of violence against the prince's assistants.

Along with other property, rulers owned servants. IN this document the procedure for the return of fugitive slaves was established.

The emergence of such land holdings indicated that a new society had arisen in the Kiev state. It was based on the ownership of land by feudal lords and the oppression of dependent peasants who lived and worked on estates that did not belong to them.

The first fortified estates, isolated from the simple dwellings surrounding them and sometimes towering above them on a hill, date back to the 8th – 9th centuries. Following scant traces ancient life archaeologists are able to establish that the inhabitants of the estates lived a slightly different life than their fellow villagers: weapons and silver jewelry are more common in the estates.

The main difference was the construction system. The estate-fortification was built on a hill, the foot of which was surrounded by one or two hundred small dugout huts, scattered around in disorder. The castle was a small fortress formed by several wooden log buildings placed close to each other in a circle. The circular dwelling (mansion) also served as walls bordering a small courtyard. 20-30 people could live here.

It is difficult to say whether it was a clan elder with his household or a “deliberate husband” with his servants who collected polyudie from the population of the surrounding villages. But it was in this form that the first feudal castles should have been born, and this is how the first boyars, the “best men” of the Slavic tribes, should have distinguished themselves from the ranks of farmers.

The castle fortress was too small to shelter all the inhabitants of the village within its walls in times of danger, but it was quite sufficient to dominate the village. All Old Russian words denoting a castle are quite suitable for these small round fortresses: “mansions” (a structure built in a circle), “yard”, “grad” (fenced, fortified place).

Thousands of such mansion-type households spontaneously arose in the 8th – 9th centuries throughout Rus', marking the birth of feudal relations and the material consolidation by tribal squads of the advantage they had achieved. But only several centuries after the appearance of the first castles do we learn about them from legal sources - legal norms never get ahead of life, but appear only as a result of life’s demands.

By the 11th century, class contradictions had clearly emerged, and the princes made sure that their courtyards and barns were reliably fenced not only by military force, but also by written law. During the 11th century, the first version of Russian feudal law, the famous “Russian Truth”, was created. It was formed on the basis of those ancient Slavic customs that had existed for many centuries, but new legal norms born of feudal relations were also woven into it. For a long time, the relationship between feudal lords and peasants, the relationship of warriors among themselves and the position of the prince in society were determined by oral, unwritten law - customs, supported by the real balance of power.

Collection of legal content with the text of “Russian Truth”. XIV century Parchment. Binding "boards in leather".From the collection of A.M. Musina-Pushkin

As far as we know this ancient customary law from the records of ethnographers of the 19th century, it was very extensive and regulated all aspects of human relationships: from family affairs to border disputes.

For a long time, within the small closed boyar estate there was no need to record these established customs or those “lesson” payments that were made annually in favor of the master. Until the 18th century, the vast majority of feudal estates lived according to their own internal unwritten laws.

The recording of legal norms had to begin first of all either in the conditions of some kind of external relations, where the “Russian pokon” encountered the customs and laws of other countries, or in the princely economy with its lands scattered across different lands and an extensive staff of fine collectors and tribute, constantly traveling to all subject tribes and judging there on behalf of their prince according to his laws.

The first fragmentary records of individual norms of the “Russian Law” arose, as we have already seen in the example of the “Charter of Yaroslav to Novgorod,” on special occasions, in connection with any special need and did not at all set themselves the task of fully reflecting all Russian life. Once again we have to note how deeply wrong were those bourgeois historians who, comparing parts of Russian Pravda at different times, mechanically drew direct conclusions from the comparisons: if a phenomenon is not yet mentioned in the early records, then it means that the phenomenon had not yet taken place in reality. This is a major logical error based on the outdated idea that state and public life is formed in all its manifestations only as a result of laws issued by the supreme power as an expression of the will of the monarch.

In fact, the life of society is subject to the laws of internal development, and laws only formalize long-existing relationships, consolidating the actual dominance of one class over another.

By the middle of the 11th century, acute social contradictions emerged (primarily in the princely environment), which led to the creation of a princely domain law, the so-called “Pravda Yaroslavichi” (approximately 1054-1072), which describes the princely castle and its economy. Vladimir Monomakh (1113-1125), after the Kyiv uprising of 1113, supplemented this law with a number of broader articles designed for the middle urban strata, and at the end of his reign or during the reign of his son Mstislav (1125-1132) an even broader law was drawn up scope of the code of feudal laws - the so-called "Long Russian Truth", reflecting not only princely, but also boyar interests. The feudal castle and the feudal estate in general appear very prominently in this legislation. The works of Soviet historians S.V. Yushkov, M.N. Tikhomirov and especially B.D. Grekov revealed in detail the feudal essence of the “Russian Truth” in all its historical development for more than a century.

B. D. Grekov in his famous study “Kievan Rus” characterizes the feudal castle and estate of the 11th century as follows:

“...In “The Truth of the Yaroslavichs” the life of the princely estate is outlined in its most important features.

The center of this patrimony is the “prince’s courtyard”... where one imagines, first of all, the mansions in which the prince sometimes lives, the houses of his high-ranking servants, premises for minor servants, various outbuildings - stables, livestock and poultry yards, a hunting lodge, etc.

At the head of the princely estate is the representative of the prince - the boyar-fireman. He is responsible for the entire life of the estate, and in particular the safety of the princely estate property. With him, apparently, is the collector of all kinds of revenues due to the prince - the “price of the door”. Presumably, the fireman has tiuns at his disposal. In "Pravda" the "old groom" is also named, that is, the head of the princely stables and princely herds.

All these persons are protected by an 80-hryvnia vira, which indicates their privileged position. This is the highest administrative apparatus of the princely estate. Next come the princely elders - “rural and military.” Their life is valued at only 12 hryvnia. Thus, we gain the right to talk about the true agricultural physiognomy of the estate.

These observations are confirmed by the details that are scattered in different parts"Truth of the Yaroslavichs." Here they are called a cage, a stable and a full one, common in a large agriculture an assortment of working, dairy and beef cattle and poultry common on such farms. There are princely and stinking (peasant) horses, oxen, cows, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, pigeons, ducks, geese, swans and cranes.

Not named, but clearly referring to meadows where cattle and princely and peasant horses graze.

Next to rural farming, we also see here borti, which are called “princes”: “And in a prince there are 3 hryvnia borti, either to burn or to tear to pieces.”

Pravda also names for us the categories of direct producers who serve the estate with their labor. These are ordinary people, smerdas and serfs... Their life is valued at 5 hryvnia.

We can say with confidence that the prince visits his estate from time to time. This is evidenced by the presence in the estate of hunting dogs and hawks and falcons trained for hunting...

The first impression of "Pravda Yaroslavichy", as well as of " Dimensional Truth", it turns out that the owner of the estate depicted in it with a host of his servants of different ranks and positions, the owner of the land, lands, yard, slaves, livestock and poultry, the owner of his serfs, concerned about the possibility of murders and thefts, seeks to find protection in the system of serious punishments imposed for each of the categories of acts directed against his rights. This impression does not deceive us. Indeed, "Pravda" protects the patrimonial feudal lord from all kinds of attacks on his servants, on his land, horses, oxen, slaves, female slaves, peasants, ducks, chickens, dogs, hawks, falcons, etc."

Archaeological excavations of authentic princely castles fully confirm and complement the appearance of the “princely court” of the 11th century.

An expedition led by the author of this book for four years (1957-1960) excavated the 11th century castle in Lyubech, built, in all likelihood, by Vladimir Monomakh at the time when he was the Prince of Chernigov (1078-1094) and when the Yaroslavich Pravda has just started to work.

A Slavic settlement on the site of Lyubech already existed in the first centuries of our era. By the 9th century, a small town with wooden walls had emerged here. In all likelihood, it was this that Oleg was forced to take in battle on his way to Kyiv in 882. Somewhere here there should have been the courtyard of Malk Lyubechanin, Dobrynya’s father and grandfather of Vladimir I.

On the shore of the Dnieper backwater there was a pier where the “monoxyls” mentioned by Konstantin Porphyrogenitus were collected, and nearby, in a pine ship grove, there was the “Korablishche” tract, where these one-trees could be built. Behind the ridge of hills is a burial mound and a place with which legend connects a pagan sanctuary.

Among all these ancient tracts rises a steep hill, which still bears the name Castle Hill. Excavations have shown that the wooden fortifications of the castle were built here in the second half of the 11th century.

Mighty walls made of clay and oak frames surrounded the entire city and castle in a large ring, but the castle also had its own complex, well-thought-out defense system; he was like the Kremlin, the child of the whole city.

Castle Hill is small: its upper platform occupies only 35x100 meters, and therefore all the buildings there were placed closely, close to each other. Exceptionally favorable conditions for archaeological research made it possible to determine the foundations of all buildings and accurately restore the number of floors in each of them based on the earthen ceiling fills that collapsed during the fire of 1147.

The castle was separated from the city by a dry moat, over which a drawbridge was thrown. Having passed the bridge and the bridge tower, the visitor to the castle found himself in a narrow passage between two walls; A road paved with logs led up to the main gate of the fortress, to which both walls enclosing the passage adjoined.

Lyubech Castle. Reconstruction of B.A. Rybakova

The gate with two towers had a fairly deep tunnel with three barriers that could block the enemy's path. Having passed the gate, the traveler found himself in a small courtyard, where, obviously, the guards were stationed; from here there was a passage to the walls, here there were rooms with small fireplaces on elevations for heating the frozen gate guards and near them a small dungeon with a stone ceiling.

To the left of the paved road there was a remote tyn, behind which there were many cell-storerooms for all kinds of “readiness”: there were fish warehouses, and “med-shi” for wine and honey with the remains of amphorae-pots, and warehouses in which there were no no traces of the products stored in them.

In the depths of the "guard yard" towered the most high building castle - tower (vezha). This separate structure, not connected with the fortress walls, was like a second gate and at the same time could serve in the event of a siege as the last refuge of the defenders, like the donjons of Western European castles. In the deep basements of the Lubech donjon there were pits - storage areas for grain and water.

The vezha-donjon was the center of all paths in the castle: only through it was it possible to get into the economic area of ​​the cellars with ready-made goods; The path to the prince's palace also lay only through the vezha. Anyone who lived in this massive four-story tower saw everything that was happening in the castle and outside it; he controlled all the movement of people in the castle, and without the knowledge of the owner of the tower it was impossible to get into the princely mansions.

Judging by the magnificent gold and silver jewelry hidden in the dungeon of the tower, its owner was a rich and noble boyar. One involuntarily comes to mind of the articles of "Russian Pravda" about the fireman, the chief manager of the princely household, whose life is protected by a huge fine of 80 hryvnia (4 kilograms of silver!). The central position of the tower in the prince's court corresponded to the place of its owner in its management.

Behind the donjon there was a small front courtyard in front of the huge princely palace. In this courtyard there was a tent, apparently for the honor guard; there was a secret descent to the wall, a kind of “water gate”.

The palace was a three-tiered building with three high towers. The lower floor of the palace was divided into many small rooms; Here there were stoves, servants lived, and supplies were stored. The main, princely, floor was the second floor, where there was a wide gallery - “canopy”, the place of summer feasts, and a large princely chamber, decorated with majolica shields and antlers of deer and aurochs. If the Lyubech Congress of Princes of 1097 met in the castle, then it should have met in this chamber, where tables could be placed for about a hundred people.

The castle had a small church covered with a lead roof. The castle walls consisted of an inner belt of residential cages and a higher outer belt of fences; The flat roofs of the dwellings served as battle platforms for the fences, and gentle log ramps led to the walls directly from the castle yard. Along the walls, large copper cauldrons were dug into the ground for “pitch” - boiling water, which was used to pour on enemies during the assault.

In each internal compartment of the castle - in the palace, in one of the "medushas" and next to the church - deep underground passages, leading out in different directions from the castle. In total, according to rough estimates, 200-250 people could live here.

In all rooms of the castle, except for the palace, many deep holes were found, carefully dug in the clayey soil. I remember "Russian Truth", which punishes with fines for theft "living in a hole." Some of these pits could actually serve for storing grain, but some were also intended for water, since no wells were found on the territory of the castle. The total capacity of all storage facilities is measured in hundreds of tons. The castle garrison could survive on its supplies for more than a year; judging by the chronicle, the siege was never carried out in the 11th-12th centuries for more than six weeks - therefore, the Lyubech castle of Monomakh was supplied with everything in abundance.

Lyubech Castle was the residence of the Chernigov prince and was fully adapted to the life and service of the princely family. The artisan population lived outside the castle, both inside the walls of the settlement and outside its walls. The castle cannot be considered separately from the city.

We learn about such large princely courts from the chronicle: in 1146, when a coalition of Kiev and Chernigov princes pursued the troops of the Seversk princes Igor and Svyatoslav Olgovich, near Novgorod-Seversky the village of Igorevo with the princely castle was plundered, “where the good court was built. there is a lot of prepared goods in the Bretyanitsa and in the cellars of wine and honey. And that all kinds of heavy goods, including iron and copper, there is no burden to take out because of the abundance of it all." The winners ordered to load everything onto carts for themselves and for the squad, and then set the castle on fire.

Lyubech went to archaeologists after exactly the same operation carried out by the Smolensk prince in 1147. The castle was robbed, everything valuable (except for what was hidden in hiding places) was taken away, and after all it was burned. Moscow was probably the same feudal castle, to which in the same 1147 Prince Yuri Dolgoruky invited his ally Svyatoslav Olgovich to a feast.

Along with the large and rich princely castles, archaeologists also studied more modest boyar courtyards, located not in the city, but in the middle of the village. Often in such fortified castle courtyards there are dwellings of simple plowmen and a lot of agricultural equipment - ploughshares, plow knives, sickles. Such courtyards of the 12th century reflect the same tendency of temporary enslavement of indebted peasants as the "Long Russian Truth", which speaks of "purchases" using the master's equipment and being in the master's courtyard under the supervision of a "ryadovich" or "ratai elder", from where one could leave only if they went to the highest authorities to complain about the boyar.

We must imagine all of feudal Rus' as a collection of several thousand small and large feudal estates of princes, boyars, monasteries, estates of the “young squad”. All of them lived an independent life, economically independent from each other, representing microscopic states, little connected with each other and to a certain extent free from state control.

The boyar court is a kind of capital of such a small power with its own economy, its own army, its own police and its own unwritten laws.

Princely power in the 11th-12th centuries could, to a very small extent, unite these independent boyar worlds; it wedged itself between them, building its courtyards, organizing graveyards for collecting tribute, placing its mayors in cities, but still Rus' was a boyar element, very weakly united by the state power of the prince, who himself constantly confused state concepts with the privately owned feudal attitude towards his branched domain .

Princely virniks and swordsmen traveled around the land, feeding on local population, judged, collected income in favor of the prince, made money themselves, but to a very small extent united feudal castles or performed any national functions.

Bronze and silver beam rings, spiral. End of the 1st millennium AD e. Found during excavations of a settlement in ur. Devil's Settlement, Kozelsky district, Kaluga region. in 2000

The structure of Russian society remained largely “fine-grained”; in it the presence of these several thousand boyar estates with castles was most clearly felt, the walls of which protected not so much from an external enemy as from their own peasants and boyar neighbors, and sometimes, perhaps, from too zealous representatives of the princely power.

Judging by indirect data, the princely and boyar households were organized differently. The scattered possessions of the princely domain were not always permanently assigned to the prince - his transfer to a new city, to a new table could lead to both changes in the prince’s personal estates. Therefore, during the three frequent movements of the princes from place to place, they treated their estates as temporary owners: they sought to take as much as possible from the peasants and boyars (ultimately also from the peasants), without caring about the reproduction of the unstable peasant economy, ruining it.

The executors of the prince's will felt themselves to be even more temporary persons - "podezdnye", "ryadovichi", "virniks", "swordsmen", all those "young" (junior) members of the princely squad, who were entrusted with the collection of princely income and entrusted with part of the power of the prince himself. Indifferent to the fate of the smerds and to the entire complex of estates they visited, they cared first of all about themselves and, through false, invented reasons for fines (“created virs”), enriched themselves at the expense of the peasants, and partly at the expense of the boyars, to whom they appeared as judges as representatives of the main government in the country.

The rapidly growing army of these princely people scoured all over Rus' from Kyiv to Beloozero, and their actions were not controlled by anyone. They had to bring the prince a certain amount of quitrents and tribute, but no one knew how much they took for their benefit, how many villages they destroyed or brought to death by starvation.

If the princes greedily and unreasonably exhausted the peasantry through personal detours (polyudya) and travels of their virniks, then the boyars were more careful. Firstly, the boyars did not have such military strength that would allow them to cross the line that separated ordinary extortion from the ruin of the peasants; and secondly, it was not only dangerous, but also unprofitable for the boyars to ruin the economy of their estate, which they were going to pass on to their children and grandchildren. Therefore, the boyars had to manage their farm more wisely, more prudently, moderate their greed, moving at the first opportunity to economic coercion - “kupa”, that is, a loan to the impoverished stink, which tied the “purchasing” peasant more tightly to the castle.

The princely tiuns and ryadovichi were terrible not only for communal peasants, but also for the boyars, whose patrimony consisted of the same peasant farms.

One of the scribes of the end of the 12th century gives advice to the boyar to stay away from the princely places: “Do not have a courtyard near the prince’s courtyard and do not keep a village near the prince’s village: his tivun is like fire... and his rank and file are like sparks. Ashe was wary of the fire, but from You can’t stop yourself from sparks.”

Each feudal lord sought to preserve the inviolability of his microscopic state - the patrimony, and gradually the concept of "zaborona" arose, feudal immunity - a legally formalized agreement between the younger and senior feudal lord on the non-interference of the elder in the internal patrimonial affairs of the younger. In relation to later times - the 15th-16th centuries, when the process of centralization of the state was already underway - we consider feudal immunity to be a conservative phenomenon, helping the elements of feudal fragmentation to survive, but for Kievan Rus the immunity of boyar estates was an indispensable condition for the normal development of a healthy core of feudal land ownership - many thousands of boyar estates that formed the stable basis of Russian feudal society.

A) Legal status population. “Russian Truth” and the processes of social differentiation: free and dependent population.

B) Princely land ownership and domain economy according to the Yaroslavich Truth:

· reasons for the formation of the princely estate;

· main features of the princely domain economy;

· administrative apparatus of the princely domain.

4. Civil law according to “Russian Truth” (system of contracts, personal and property rights).

5. Criminal law: the concept of a crime, the elements of a crime, the system of crimes and punishments.

6. Judicial system (bodies administering justice, judicial process: system of evidence, fees)

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Kievan Rus and Russians Principalities XII-XIII centuries Rybakov Boris Alexandrovich

Feudal castle XI–XII centuries

Feudal castle XI–XII centuries

The first fortified estates, isolated from the simple dwellings surrounding them and sometimes towering above them on a hill, date back to the 8th–9th centuries. From the meager traces of ancient life, archaeologists are able to establish that the inhabitants of the estates lived a slightly different life than their fellow villagers: weapons and silver jewelry are more often found in the estates.

The main difference was the construction system. The estate-fortification was built on a hill, the foot of which was surrounded by 100–200 small dugout huts, scattered around in disorder. The castle was a small fortress formed by several wooden frames placed close to each other in a circle; the circular dwelling (mansion) also served as walls bordering a small courtyard. 20–30 people could live here. Whether it was a clan elder with his household or a “deliberate husband” with his servants, collecting polyudie from the population of the surrounding villages, it is difficult to say. But it was in this form that the first feudal castles should have been born, and this is how the first boyars, the “best men” of the Slavic tribes, should have distinguished themselves from the ranks of farmers. The castle fortress was too small to shelter all the inhabitants of the village within its walls in times of danger, but it was quite sufficient to dominate the village. All Old Russian words denoting a castle are quite suitable for these small round fortresses: “mansions” (a structure built in a circle), “yard”, “grad” (fenced, fortified place).

St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod. 1045

Thousands of such mansion-like courtyards spontaneously arose in the 8th–9th centuries. throughout Rus', marking the birth of feudal relations, the material consolidation by tribal squads of the advantage they had achieved. But only several centuries after the appearance of the first castles do we learn about them from legal sources - legal norms never get ahead of life, but appear only as a result of life’s demands.

In the 11th century Class contradictions clearly emerged, and the princes made sure that their princely courts, mansions and barns were reliably fenced not only by military force, but also by written law. Throughout the 11th century. the first version of Russian feudal law, the famous Russian Truth, is created. Was it formed on the basis of those ancient Slavic customs that existed? for many centuries, but new legal norms born of feudal relations were also woven into it. For a long time, the relationship between feudal lords and peasants, the relationship of warriors among themselves and the position of the prince in society were determined by oral, unwritten law - customs, supported by the real balance of power.

As far as we know this ancient customary law from the records of ethnographers of the 19th century, it was very ramified and regulated all aspects of human relationships: from family affairs to border disputes.

For a long time, within the small closed boyar estate there was no need to record these established customs or those “lessons” - payments that were annually made in favor of the master. Until the 18th century. the overwhelming majority of feudal estates lived according to their internal unwritten laws.

The recording of legal norms had to begin first of all either in the conditions of some kind of external relations, where the “Russian pokon” encountered the laws of other countries, or in the princely economy with its lands scattered across different lands, with its extensive staff of collectors of fines and tribute , who continuously traveled to all the subject tribes and judged there on behalf of their prince according to his laws.

The first fragmentary records of individual norms of “Russian law” arose, as we have already seen in the example of the Charter of Yaroslav to Novgorod, on special occasions, in connection with any special need and did not at all set themselves the task of fully reflecting all Russian life. Once again we have to note how deeply wrong were those bourgeois historians who, comparing parts of Russian Pravda at different times, mechanically drew direct conclusions from the comparisons: if a phenomenon is not yet mentioned in the early records, then it means that the phenomenon itself has not yet been it was in reality. This is a major logical error, based on the outdated idea that state and social life is formed in all its manifestations only as a result of laws issued by the supreme power as an expression of the will of the monarch.

A graffiti entry on the wall of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv about the death of “our Tsar” Yaroslav the Wise on February 20, 1054.

A deed of sale for the land of Boyan, which is being purchased by the widow of Prince Vsevolod with 12 witnesses. Written on the wall of St. Sophia Cathedral. Beginning of the 12th century (On p. 421 - shine)

In fact, the life of society is subject to the laws of internal development, and laws only formalize long-existing relationships, consolidating the actual dominance of one class over another.

By the middle of the 11th century. Sharp social contradictions emerged (primarily in the princely environment), which led to the creation of a princely domain law, the so-called Yaroslavich Pravda (approximately 1054–1072), which outlines the princely castle and its economy. Vladimir Monomakh (1113–1125), after the Kyiv uprising of 1113, supplemented this law with a number of broader articles designed for the middle urban strata, and at the end of his reign or during the reign of his son Mstislav (1125–1132) another one was drawn up a broader set of feudal laws - the so-called Extensive Russian Truth, reflecting not only princely, but also boyar interests. The feudal castle and the feudal estate in general appear very prominently in this legislation. The works of Soviet historians S.V. Yushkov, M.N. Tikhomirov and especially B.D. Grekov revealed in detail the feudal essence of Russian Truth in all its historical development over more than a century.

B. D. Grekov in his famous study “Kievan Rus” characterizes the feudal castle and estate of the 11th century as follows:

“...In the Truth of the Yaroslavichs, the life of the princely estate is outlined in its most important features.

The center of this patrimony is the “prince’s courtyard”... where one imagines, first of all, the mansions in which the prince sometimes lives, the houses of his high-ranking servants, premises for minor servants, various outbuildings - stables, livestock and poultry yards, a hunting lodge, etc....

At the head of the princely estate is the prince's representative - the boyar-fireman. He is responsible for the entire life of the estate and, in particular, the safety of the princely estate property. With him, apparently, there is a collector of all kinds of revenues due to the prince - “the access prince...” one must think that the fireman has tiuns at his disposal. In Pravda, the “old groom” is also named, that is, the head of the princely stables and princely herds.

All these persons are protected by an 80-hryvnia vira, which indicates their privileged position. This is the highest administrative apparatus of the princely estate. Next come the princely elders - “rural and military.” Their life is valued at only 12 hryvnia... Thus, we get the right to talk about the true agricultural physiognomy of the estate.

These observations are confirmed by the details that are scattered in different parts of Pravda Yaroslavich. Here they are called a cage, a stable and a complete assortment of working, dairy and beef cattle, as well as poultry, which is usual in such farms. There are princely and stinking (peasant) horses, oxen, cows, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, pigeons, ducks, geese, swans and cranes.

Not named, but clearly referring to meadows where cattle and princely and peasant horses graze.

Next to rural farming, we also see here borti, which are called “princes”, “and in a prince borti are 3 hryvnia, either burn or rip.”

Pravda also names for us the categories of direct producers who serve the estate with their labor. These are ordinary people, smerdas and serfs... Their life is valued at 5 hryvnia.

We can say with confidence that the prince visits his estate from time to time.* This is evidenced by the presence in the estate of hunting dogs and hawks and falcons trained for hunting...

The first impression from the Yaroslavich Pravda, as well as from the Extensive Pravda, is that the owner of the estate depicted in it with a host of his servants of different ranks and positions, the owner of the land, lands, yard, slaves, livestock and poultry, the owner of his serfs , concerned about the possibility of murder and theft, seeks to find protection in the system of serious punishments imposed for each of the categories of acts directed against his rights. This impression does not deceive us. Indeed, “Pravda” defends the patrimonial feudal lord from all kinds of attacks on his servants, on his land, horses, oxen, slaves, slaves, peasants, ducks, chickens, dogs, hawks, falcons, etc.”

Archaeological excavations of authentic princely castles fully confirm and complement the appearance of the “princely court” of the 11th century.

The expedition of B. A. Rybakov spent four years (1957–1960) splitting the 11th century castle. in Lyubech, built, in all likelihood, by Vladimir Monomakh at the time when he was the prince of Chernigov (1078–1094) and when the Truth of the Yaroslavichs had just begun to act.

A Slavic settlement on the site of Lyubech already existed in the first centuries of our era. By the 9th century. a small town with wooden walls arose here. In all likelihood, it was precisely this that Oleg was forced to take in battle on his way to Kyiv in 882. Somewhere here there should have been the court of Malk Lyubechanin, Dobrynya’s father and grandfather of Vladimir I.

On the shore of the Dnieper backwater there was a pier where the “monoxides” mentioned by Konstantin Porphyrogenitus were collected, and nearby, in a pine ship grove, there was the “Korablishche” tract, where these one-trees could be built. Behind the ridge of hills is a burial mound and a place with which legend connects a pagan sanctuary.

Among all these ancient tracts rises a steep hill, which still bears the name Castle Hill. Excavations have shown that the wooden fortifications of the castle were built here in the second half of the 11th century. Mighty walls made of clay and oak frames surrounded the entire city and castle in a large ring, but the castle also had its own complex, well-thought-out defense system; he was like the Kremlin, the child of the whole city.

Castle Hill is not large: its upper platform occupies only 35×100 m, and therefore all the buildings there were placed closely, close to each other. Exceptionally favorable conditions for archaeological research made it possible to clarify the foundations of all buildings and accurately restore the number of floors in each of them based on the earthen ceiling fills that collapsed during the fire of 1147.

The castle was separated from the city by a dry moat, over which a drawbridge was thrown. Having passed the bridge and the bridge tower, the visitor to the castle found himself in a narrow passage between two walls; A road paved with logs led up to the main gate of the fortress, to which both walls enclosing the passage adjoined.

The gate with two towers had a fairly deep tunnel with three barriers that could block the enemy's path. Having passed the gate, the traveler found himself in a small courtyard, where, obviously, the guards were stationed; from here there was a passage to the walls, here there were rooms with small fireplaces on elevations for heating the frozen gate guards and near them a small dungeon, which was obviously a “prison” - a prison. To the left of the paved road there was a remote tyn, behind which there were many storage cages for all kinds of “readiness”: there were fish warehouses, and “medushas” for wine and honey with the remains of amphorae-pots, and warehouses in which no traces remained products stored in them. In the depths of the “courtyard of the guard” stood the tallest building of the castle - the tower (vezha). This separate structure, not connected with the fortress walls, was like a second gate and at the same time could serve in the event of a siege as the last refuge of the defenders, like the donjons of Western European castles. In the deep basements of the Lubech donjon there were storage pits for grain and water.

Excavations of the castle of Vladimir Monomakh in Lyubech (end of the 11th century)

Lyubech Castle. Reconstruction by B. A. Rybakov

The vezha-donjon was the center of all paths in the castle: only through it was it possible to get into the economic area of ​​the cellars with ready-made goods; The path to the prince's palace also lay only through the vezha. Anyone who lived in this massive four-story tower saw everything that was happening in the castle and outside it; he controlled all the movement of people in the castle, and without the knowledge of the owner of the tower it was impossible to get into the princely mansions.

Judging by the magnificent gold and silver jewelry hidden in the dungeon of the tower, its owner was a rich and noble boyar. One involuntarily comes to mind of articles by Russkaya Pravda about the fireman, the chief manager of the princely household, whose life is protected by a huge fine of 80 hryvnia (4 kg of silver!). The central position of the tower in the prince's court corresponded to the place of its owner in its management. Behind the donjon there was a small front courtyard in front of the huge princely palace. In this courtyard there was a tent, apparently for the honor guard; there was a secret descent to the wall, a kind of “water gate”.

Chandelier-chorus of the 12th century. Kyiv

The palace was a three-tiered building with three high towers. The lower floor of the palace was divided into many small rooms; Here there were stoves, servants lived, and supplies were stored. The front, princely, floor was the second floor, where there was a wide gallery - “canopy”, the place of summer feasts, and a large princely chamber, decorated with majolica shields and antlers of deer and aurochs. If the Lyubech Congress of Princes of 1097 met in the castle, then it should have met in this chamber, where tables could be placed for about a hundred people.

The castle had a small church covered with a lead roof. The walls of the castle consisted of an inner belt of residential cages and a higher outer belt of fences; The flat roofs of the dwellings served as a fighting platform and fences; gentle log ramps led to the walls directly from the castle yard. Along the walls, large copper cauldrons were dug into the ground for “pitch” - boiling water, which was used to pour on the enemies during the assault. In each internal compartment of the castle - in the palace, in one of the "medushas" and next to the church - deep underground passages were discovered that led in different directions from the castle. In total, according to rough estimates, 200–250 people could live here. In all rooms of the castle, except for the palace, many deep holes were found, carefully dug in the clayey soil. I remember the Russian Truth, which punishes “living in a hole” with fines for theft. Some of these pits could, indeed, serve to store grain, but some were also intended for water, since no wells were found on the territory of the castle.

The total capacity of all storage facilities is measured in hundreds of tons. The castle garrison could survive on its supplies for more than a year; judging by the chronicles, the siege was never waged in the 11th–12th centuries. more than six weeks, therefore, the Lubech castle of Monomakh was supplied with everything in abundance.

Lyubech Castle was the residence of the Chernigov prince and was fully adapted to the life and service of the princely family. The artisan population lived outside the castle, both inside the walls of the settlement and outside its walls. The castle cannot be considered separately from the city.

We learn about such large princely courts from the chronicle: in 1146, when a coalition of Kiev and Chernigov princes pursued the troops of the Seversk princes Igor and Svyatoslav Olgovich, near Novgorod-Seversky the village of Igorevo with the princely castle was plundered, “where the good court was built. There is a lot of preparation in Bretyanitsa and in the cellars of wine and honey. And that heavy goods of all kinds, including iron and copper, were not burdensome to take out because of the multitude of them all.” The winners ordered to load everything onto carts for themselves and for the squad, and then set the castle on fire.

Lyubech fell to archaeologists after exactly the same operation carried out by the Smolensk prince in 1147. The castle was robbed, everything valuable (except for what was hidden in hiding places) was taken away, and after all it was burned. Moscow was probably the same feudal castle, to which in the same 1147 Prince Yuri Dolgoruky invited his ally Svyatoslav Olgovich to a feast.

Along with the large and rich princely castles, archaeologists also studied more modest boyar courtyards, located not in the city, but in the middle of the village. Often in such fortified castle courtyards there are dwellings of simple plowmen and a lot of agricultural equipment - ploughshares, plow knives, sickles. Such courtyards of the 12th century. reflect the same trend of temporary enslavement of indebted peasants as the Long Russian Pravda, which speaks of “purchases” using the master’s equipment and being in the master’s yard under the supervision of a “ryadovich” or “ratai elder”, from where it was possible to leave only if went to the highest authorities to complain about the boyar.

We must imagine all of feudal Rus' as a collection of several thousand small and large feudal estates of princes, boyars, monasteries, estates of the “young squad”. All of them lived an independent life, economically independent from each other, representing microscopic states, little connected with each other and to a certain extent free from state control. The boyar court is a kind of capital of such a small power with its own economy, its own army, its own police and its own unwritten laws.

Princely power in the 11th–12th centuries. to a very small extent could unite these independent boyar worlds; it wedged itself between them, building its courtyards, organizing graveyards for collecting tribute, placing its mayors in cities, but still Rus' was a boyar element, very weakly united by the state power of the prince, who himself constantly confused state concepts with the privately owned feudal attitude towards his branched domain .

Princely virniks and swordsmen traveled around the land, fed at the expense of the local population, judged, collected income in favor of the prince, made money themselves, but to a very small extent united feudal castles or performed any national functions.

The structure of Russian society remained largely “fine-grained”; in it the presence of these several thousand boyar estates with castles was most clearly felt, the walls of which protected not so much from an external enemy as from their own peasants and boyar neighbors, and sometimes, perhaps, from too zealous representatives of the princely power.

Judging by indirect data, the princely and boyar households were organized differently. The scattered possessions of the princely domain were not always permanently assigned to the prince - his transfer to a new city, to a new table, could entail changes in the prince’s personal estates. Therefore, with the frequent movements of the princes from place to place, they treated their estates as temporary owners: they sought to take as much as possible from the peasants and boyars (ultimately also from the peasants), without caring about the reproduction of the unstable peasant economy, ruining it. The executors of the princely will felt themselves to be even more temporary persons - “podezdniki”, “ryadovichi”, “virniks”, “swordsmen”, all those “young” (younger members of the princely squad) who were entrusted with the collection of princely income and entrusted with part of the power of the prince himself. Indifferent to the fate of the smerds and to the entire complex of estates they visited, they cared first of all about themselves and, through false, invented reasons for fines (“created virs”), enriched themselves at the expense of the peasants, and partly at the expense of the boyars, to whom they appeared as judges as representatives of the main government in the country. The rapidly growing army of these princely people scoured all over Rus' from Kyiv to Belozerko, and their actions were not controlled by anyone. They had to bring the prince a certain amount of quitrents and tribute, but no one knew how much they took for their benefit, how many villages they destroyed or brought to death by starvation.

If the princes greedily and unreasonably exhausted the peasantry through personal detours (polyudya) and travels of their virniks, then the boyars were more careful. Firstly, the boyars did not have such military strength that would allow them to cross the line that separated ordinary extortion from the ruin of the peasants, and secondly, it was not only dangerous for the boyars, but also unprofitable to ruin the economy of their estate, which they were going to transfer to their children and grandchildren. Therefore, the boyars had to manage their farm more wisely, more prudently, moderate their greed, moving at the first opportunity to economic coercion - “kupa”, that is, a loan to the impoverished stinkers, which tied the “purchase” peasant more tightly.

The princely tiuns and ryadovichi were terrible not only for communal peasants, but also for the boyars, whose patrimony consisted of the same peasant farms. One of the scribes of the late 12th century. gives advice to the boyar to stay away from the princely places: “Do not have a courtyard near the prince’s courtyard and do not keep a village near the prince’s village: his tivun is like fire... and his rank and file are like sparks. Even if you are careful from fire, you cannot protect yourself from sparks.”

Each feudal lord sought to preserve the inviolability of his microscopic state - the patrimony, and gradually the concept of “zaborona”, feudal immunity arose - a legally formalized agreement between the younger and senior feudal lord on the non-interference of the elder in the internal patrimonial affairs of the younger one. In relation to later times - the 15th–16th centuries, when the process of centralization of the state was already underway, we consider feudal immunity to be a conservative phenomenon, helping the elements of feudal fragmentation to survive, but for Kievan Rus, the immunity of boyar estates was an indispensable condition for the normal development of a healthy core of feudal land ownership - many thousands of boyar estates, which formed the stable basis of Russian feudal society.