Political system of ancient Rus'. Socio-economic and political development of ancient Rus'
Ancient Rus' (9th-12th centuries) was a proto-state (early), which was just beginning to take shape as a political system. The former disparate communities began to gradually unite into a single state, headed by the Rurik dynasty.
Scientists agree that Ancient Rus' was an early feudal monarchy.
The origin of the socio-political system of Ancient Rus'
The state (Ancient Rus') was formed at the end of the 10th century on the territory of the Eastern Slavs. It is headed by a prince from the Rurik dynasty, who promises patronage and protection to the surrounding feudal lords. In exchange for this, the feudal lords give part of their lands for the use of the prince as payment.
At the same time, part of the lands conquered during wars and military campaigns is given for the use of the boyars, who receive the right to collect tribute from these lands. To remove the tribute, warriors were hired, who could settle in the territory to which they were attached. Thus, a feudal hierarchy begins to form.
Prince -> patrimonial owners -> boyars -> small land holders.
Such a system contributes to the fact that the prince turns from an exclusively military leader (4-7 centuries) into a political figure. The beginnings of a monarchy appear. Feudalism develops.
Socio-political system of Ancient Rus'
The first legal document was adopted by Yaroslav the Wise in the 11th century and was called “Russian Truth”.
The main objective of this document is to protect people from unrest and regulate public relations. The Russkaya Pravda stated different kinds crimes and punishments for them.
In addition, the document divided society into several social categories. In particular, there were free community members and dependent ones. Dependents were considered not full citizens, had no freedoms and could not serve in the army. They were divided into smerds (common people), serfs (servants) and temporarily dependents.
Free community members were divided into smerds and people. They had rights and served in the army.
Features of the political system of Ancient Rus'
In the 10th-12th centuries, the head of the state (which united several principalities) was a prince. The council of boyars and warriors were subordinate to him, with the help of whom he administered the state.
The state was a union of city-states, since life outside the cities was poorly developed. City-states were ruled by princely mayors.
Rural lands were ruled by boyars and patrimonial lands, to whom these lands belonged.
The prince's squad was divided into old and young. The ancient one included boyars and older men. The squad was engaged in collecting tribute, carrying out trials and managing locally. The junior squad included young people and less noble people. The prince also had a personal squad.
Legislative, executive, military and judicial branch were in the hands of the prince. With the development of the state, these branches of government began to separate into separate institutions.
Also in Ancient Rus' there were the beginnings of democracy, which were expressed in the holding of popular assemblies - veche.
The final formation of the political system in Rus' was completed by the end of the 12th century.
16. Social order Russia XV-XVII centuries.
Feudal lords.
The feudal class was not homogeneous. At the top of the feudal ladder was the Moscow prince. Next are the appanage princes, who entered the service of the Grand Duke and lost their independence. They had to perform military service; over time, appanage princes became part of the boyars, forming its elite. Next group feudal lords - boyars - the largest and most influential landowners. They were distinguished by actual advantages - wealth and power. Following the boyars were free servants and boyar children, that is, medium and small feudal lords. Lowest group- servants of feudal lords who performed various administrative and economic duties and received land for their service.
In the 15th century there were serious changes in the composition of the feudal class. The boyars became the most important court rank, but the boyars lost the right to freely choose the prince, and the nobility was formalized. The lower, but most common part of the feudal lords was the nobility, which thirsted for new lands and sought to enslave the peasants. During the period of the estate-representative monarchy in Russia, the procedure for filling government positions in accordance with birth - that is, the principle of localism, which was abolished only in 1682, remained in force.
Dependent population.
The peasants were divided into black draft peasants, who lived on the land of the Grand Duke and appanage princes, and private peasants, who lived on the estates and estates of other feudal lords. They carried duties - corvée and quitrent.
They were divided into 3 categories: 1. Taxes – state taxes that did not have the right of transfer; 2. Privately owned - quitrents and duties in favor of the masters; 3. Free peasants - colonists, exempt from taxes and duties for a certain grace period, after which they were enrolled either in taxation or in private ownership.
Serfs. It became smaller than before, but the legal situation remained the same. They were joined by enslaved people, who were formed from free people, but formalized their position with a letter of servitude. It is forbidden to servile the children of boyars. Among the enslaved, servitude was not passed on by inheritance or by will. Slaves placed on the ground are sufferers.
Urban population. Lost the right that it had in the era Kievan Rus, began to pay the same taxes and duties as peasants. They began to be called townspeople. They were divided into Beloslobodsky - those who were exempt from the duties of a number, and Chernoslobodsky - small traders and artisans.
17. The highest and central authorities of Russia during the period of the estate-representative monarchy (mid-16th - mid-17th centuries).
I. Boyar Duma. Compound:
1) Boyar (Highest Duma rank);
2) Okolnichy;
3) Duma nobleman;
4) The bureaucratic Duma apparatus.
Functions of the Boyar Duma:
1) Exercise of legitimate power;
2) Resolving issues of domestic and foreign policy;
3) The highest judicial authority (highest judicial function).
II. Zemsky Sobor- This is the council of the Russian land, dedicated to solving state affairs.
Registration periods:
1) 1549-1584 – Formation and design of zemstvo cathedrals;
2) 1584-1610 – The time when the main function is election to the kingdom;
3) 1611-1612 – Zemsky councils under the people’s militias are turning into the supreme body of power;
4) 1613-1622 – Act continuously as an advisory body to the king;
5) 1632-1653 – Zemsky Sobors meet rarely, on major issues of domestic and foreign policy;
6) 1653 - until the end of the 80s - The time of the fading of Zemsky Sobors.
They included: the tsar, the boyar duma, the top clergy, the lower house - elected from the nobility, the top, the townspeople.
Activity:
1) Domestic policy;
2) Foreign policy;
3) Taxation;
4) Election of the patriarch.
Formation methods:
1) As intended;
2) Through elections.
III. Orders - This central authorities
industry management.
Classification:
1) Palace and financial:
a. Konyushenny;
b. Great Palace;
c. Big treasury.
2) Military orders:
a. Bit;
b. Streletsky;
c. Cossack;
d. Pushkarsky;
e. Bronny.
3) Judicial and administrative orders:
a. Local;
b. Serfs;
c. Zemsky.
4) Those in charge of individual or special industries:
a. Ambassadorial;
b. Pharmaceutical;
c. Printing;
d. Yamskaya;
e. Petition. Orders
(headed by judges - chiefs) were divided into tables (deacons), which were divided into povoyas (deacons). The clerks, in turn, were divided into young, middle-class and old.
6. Political system Russian state at the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th century
The process of forming a unified territory of the Russian state was inextricably linked with the creation of a system of all-Russian governance.
The head of state was Moscow Grand Duke, who was in a service-subject relationship with all layers of society. Subordinate to him was the princely-boyar nobility, formed by the merger of the Old Moscow nobility and the princely-boyar nobility of the annexed lands. Appanage princes and boyars, retaining estates in their possession, were obliged to serve the supreme owner of all the lands of the state - the Grand Duke. They had to swear allegiance to him. The Grand Duke could impose “disgraces” on them, remove them from his court, confiscate estates, limit or expand the property rights of boyars and princes. Their “departure” from Moscow, from the Grand Duke, was considered as high treason, and those who left lost the rights to own their estates. The Grand Duke bore the title “Sovereign of All Rus'”. The signs of the sovereign that distinguished him from other subjects were the scepter, the orb and the grand ducal cap of Monomakh. According to the official Moscow version, it (the Byzantine crown) passed from the Byzantine emperor Constantine Monomakh to his grandson Vladimir Monomakh.
Another group of feudal lords who served the Grand Duke were the nobles. The nobles of appanage princes and boyars merged with the nobles of the Grand Duke of Moscow, whose possessions became part of a single state, and they went into the service of the Grand Duke. Under Ivan III, a local system was actively created - the distribution of state free lands to service people by the supreme owner (Grand Duke) on the terms of military service.
Such service people began to be called landowners, and their possessions were called estates, which were forbidden to sell or give away. In the first third of the 16th century. Mass local distributions took place in almost all districts of the country. The army, composed of such “deployed” service people, became the basis of the state’s armed forces.
The sharp increase in the official dependence of the feudal lords on the Grand Duke was the Russian version of the feudal hierarchy. It took the form of localism - the order of appointment to service in accordance with the nobility of the family, its proximity to the Grand Duke and the length of service to him.
In 1472, the widowed Ivan III married the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Sophia Paleologus. The very fact of marriage, the adoption of the Byzantine imperial coat of arms in the form of a double-headed eagle, and the introduction of a magnificent ceremony at court clearly demonstrated the claims of the Moscow Grand Duke to the Byzantine inheritance.
However, the growing autocracy of the Grand Duke was still limited by written law and legal customs, as well as by tradition, consolidated by practice political life. The Boyar Duma, dating back to the times of Ancient Rus', was preserved. She performed advisory functions, acting according to the formula “The sovereign indicated, and the boyars sentenced.” In the Duma, the highest rank was the rank of boyar, the next most important was the rank of okolnichy. IN different time the Duma included from 5 to 12 boyars and no more than 12 okolnichy. All of them before the middle of the 15th century. were representatives of the Moscow aristocratic boyar families. At the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th centuries. The Duma begins to include princes of previously independent principalities among the boyars. The Grand Duke promoted him to Duma ranks.
The Boyar Duma was significant part the sovereign's court, which included the highest and middle elite of the Moscow state. The sovereign's court played a significant role in domestic and foreign policy.
The system of orders - special institutions - has not yet developed. The first mention of them is found in documents of 1512. Until the middle of the 16th century. there were two government agencies(within the Sovereign's Court): the Palace, which was in charge of the grand-ducal lands, and the Treasury, headed by treasurers, where money, jewelry, state archives and seals were kept.
In the emerging state apparatus, the main role was played by clerks who carried out office work. They often had great influence on the adoption and implementation of government decisions.
There was no unified and clear system of administrative-territorial division at that time. The state was divided into counties, the boundaries of which were determined by the boundaries of the former principalities, the counties were divided into camps, and the camps into volosts. The district was ruled by the Grand Duke's governor, and the camps and volosts were ruled by volostels. Feudal lords and their people civil cases and a number of criminal offenses were beyond their jurisdiction. Governors were appointed from among the boyars. They lived off court fees (“judgment”) and “feeding” income collected for their own benefit. In essence, this was the granting of the right to collect rent-tax for previous military service, and not for administrative and official activities. The feeding boyars, legally subordinate to the Grand Duke, actually became the owners of the territories entrusted to them, which led to the emergence of a kind of feudal autonomies and a weakening of the central government.
The “feeders” were negligent in their duties. The lack of an extensive and clearly organized state administrative apparatus made it difficult for the central government to control their activities.
To establish a uniform procedure for legal proceedings in single state in 1497 the Grand Duke's Code of Law was adopted. The code of law of Ivan III has come down to us in one list; it was a set of judicial norms and rules that corresponded to the changes in the life of the Russian lands that occurred after the appearance of “Russian Pravda”. It was intended to unify judicial and administrative activities throughout the entire created state. It reflected issues of legal proceedings for violations of the norms established by the authorities. Particularly dangerous crimes included robbery, forgery, night theft, and theft from a fortified place. Punishments were also stipulated for conspiracy and rebellion, which were considered crimes against the state and the sovereign. The judge established penalties for bribery, embezzlement, and biased consideration of cases. In addition to the system of fines for crimes, he introduced the death penalty for especially serious crimes and the trade penalty - lashing for retail space. The Code of Law contained instructions for organizing the trial. The judicial system consisted of the court of the Grand Duke's governor, the court of orders, the court of the Boyar Duma and the court of the Grand Duke. In addition, there were church and patrimonial courts.
Article 57 of the Code of Law approved the practice that existed everywhere of limiting peasant transitions from one feudal lord to another. From now on, the transition was allowed only a week before the autumn St. George's Day (November 26) and a week after. At the same time, the peasant had to pay for living on the land of the feudal lord “elderly”. The amount reached 1 ruble. At the end of the 15th century. it was a lot of money. For one ruble you could buy a working horse, or 100 pounds of rye, or 7 pounds of honey.
For a long time, in Russian historiography, the restriction of peasant movements was considered as the beginning of their enslavement. A number of modern researchers do not share this opinion. Academician L.V. Milov believes that the peasant transitions were generated by the need to undermine the peasant community as an organ of organizing peasant resistance and to strengthen the feudal lords’ ownership of the land. We can talk about enslavement (personal dependence) of each member of the community (peasant) only starting from late XVI c., after the state strengthened its power and consolidated the ruling class. At the end of the 15th - first half of the 16th centuries. the restriction of peasant transitions, which became an element of peasant freedom, was aimed only at strengthening the feudal lords' ownership of the land. They had nothing to do with establishing the personal dependence of the peasants.
The formation of a unified Russian state, the strengthening of the grand ducal power, which sought to deprive not only secular feudal lords of independent power, but also the church, subordinating them completely to the interests of the state, raised the question of the position of the church in the state. At the end of the 15th century. the question of the church and its wealth became the subject of public discussion. At this time, the first attempts were made in the Russian state to go beyond traditional ideas about man, nature and society.
Heretics appeared in Novgorod, Pskov, Tver, and Moscow, whose speeches were extremely dangerous for the church, because they were bold freethinkers and spoke out sharply against a number of basic tenets of Christianity. They denied the cornerstone dogma of afterlife, doubted the reliability of the Holy Scriptures, which were criticized from rationalistic positions. Heretics opposed the church as an institution and clergy, without whom, as they believed, a person could and should communicate with God. Heretics were opponents of church land ownership.
The speeches of heretics raised the issue of strengthening the authority of the church and its position in society. The non-covetous people and the Josephites (covetous people) tried to solve it. Non-acquisitive people, led by Nil Sorsky, the founder of a distant northern monastery on the Sorka River, spoke about the inadmissibility of the church owning wealth, lands, and dependent peasants. They were against the immoral behavior of many churchmen, they preached an ascetic lifestyle, the refusal of church ministers from worldly pleasures. The Josephites, led by Joseph Volotsky, abbot of the Volotsky monastery near Moscow, advocated a strong, wealthy church, independent of secular power. In their opinion, only such a church could successfully implement Christian teachings and occupy a dominant position in the spiritual life of the country. The struggle between the non-possessors and the Josephites, which began at the end of the 15th century, continued until the middle of the next century.
The Grand Ducal government, which was in constant search of land to accommodate service people, was interested in confiscating part of the church lands. She supported non-possessors, which caused a conflict between Ivan III and Metropolitan Gerontius. After Gerontius, the metropolis was headed by Zosimus, a supporter of the heretics. The Josephites, seeking full support from the authorities, protecting the interests of the church and reprisal against heretics, actively supported the appanage princes who staged rebellions against the growing power of the Grand Duke. At a church council in 1503, Ivan III demanded that the church give up its lands. But the Josephites, who made up the majority of church leaders, gave a sharp rebuff to the Grand Duke and the non-covetous people. The latter suffered a brutal defeat. The fight against heretics became fierce. The experience of the Spanish Inquisition was adopted. Bonfires burned on the ice of the Moscow River, where heretics were burned.
An analysis of the situation in the country, the correlation and alignment of opposing forces showed the grand-ducal authorities the need to refuse to support non-covetous people and their idea of secularizing church lands. In an environment of revolts among appanage princes, the central government needed the support of such a powerful organization as the church. In turn, the churchmen were interested in strong support from the state. All this made a compromise between the church and secular authorities inevitable. The first renounced its theocratic aspirations and support for the rebellious princes, and the latter supported the fight against heretics and stopped raising the question of the secularization of church lands and the subordination of the church to the state.
After the church reached a compromise with secular power Joseph Volotsky from 1508 began to support the Grand Duke in the fight against the rebellious appanage princes and developed ideas about the divine origin of the Grand Duke's power, the autocrat - an earthly king, similar to God and responsible only to him. It followed from this that the church, which sanctifies the power of the monarch, should have a privileged position, and the central government is obliged to support it. In turn, Basil III after 1508 actively supported the Josephites and gave the church great privileges.
Thus, in the XIV - first half of the XV centuries. the process of unification of Russian lands ended with the creation of a single Russian state. This created favorable conditions for economic, social and cultural development Russian people.
The newly formed state was faced with a number of national-state tasks, which it solved for almost three centuries. Russia, and this is how the new state began to be called, continued to fight the remnants of the Golden Horde and sought to gain access to the Baltic Sea. The Moscow monarchs considered themselves successors not only to the great Vladimir, but also to the great Kyiv princes. Therefore, they considered one of their tasks to unite all the lands that were part of the Old Russian state within the borders of a single power.
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State system of the Moscow Principality.
The supreme power in the Russian state at the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th centuries. carried out by the Grand Duke. However, he did not carry it out individually, but together with the Boyar Duma, the highest advisory body under the prince. There is also a restructuring of local government, the feeding system that existed during the formation of the Russian centralized state, is gradually becoming obsolete.
Top of the urban population waged a continuous struggle with the feudal aristocracy (for lands, for workers, against its atrocities and robberies) and actively supported the policy of centralization. She formed her own corporate bodies (hundreds) and insisted on liberation from heavy taxes (taxes) and the elimination of privileged feudal trades and trades in the cities.
Folding political situation all three social forces: feudal(secular and spiritual) aristocracy, the serving nobility and the elite of the settlement - formed the basis of the estate-representative system of government.
Until the middle of the 15th century. in North-Eastern Rus' the state mechanism existed in the form of the following system. One boyar was responsible for the princely kitchen (for example, chashniki), another - for the wardrobe (bedroom), the third - for entertainment (falconer), etc.
During Moscow's conquest of North-Eastern and North-Western Rus', it was important for the Moscow princes to overcome the separatism of neighboring princes. And if they bowed their heads loyally, then both Ivan III and Vasily III generously left them their inheritances. Only the following has changed.
Firstly, the formal legal position of appanage princes. The newly annexed territories were governed on the basis of agreements between the Moscow prince and the former appanage prince.
Secondly, the principalities annexed to Moscow were renamed into counties, and those, in turn, were divided into volosts and camps. Governors were sent from Moscow to the districts, and volostels to the volosts and camps.
Boyar Duma. At the top of this apparatus was the “Duma” (or, as historians later began to call it, the “Boyar Duma”). From the end of the 15th century. it turns into a permanent body under the prince. It includes representatives of the most ancient princely and boyar families: the princes of Chernigov-Seversky (Glinsky), Rostov-Suzdal (Shuysky), descendants of the Lithuanian sovereign Gedemin (Belsky) and Moscow boyars (Morozov, Vorontsov, Zakharyev-Yuryev), etc., but not as princes and boyars, they are assigned certain ranks. Princes receive the rank of “boyar”, boyars - “okolnichy”.
During the reign of Vasily III, in addition to these two ranks, “Duma nobles” and “Duma clerks” (secretaries) appeared.
The Duma very rarely considers any issues on its own initiative. As a rule, these were problems the need for solution of which was indicated by the sovereign. The decisions of the Duma received the force of law only after their approval.
Foreign boyars still retain the right to leave, but their own - Moscow - in the 70s. XV century it is already being lost.
All this means that a relationship of citizenship is being formed.
Orders. Bureaucratic apparatus in the XIII-XIV centuries. consisted of two parts - “free servants”, which were the boyars, and dependents, courtyard people - nobles. Over time, a certain differentiation took place in this dependent category of employees: its upper layer received the status of “secretaries”, and the lower - “clerks”. From the time of Dmitry Donskoy (1359-1389), the names of three clerks have been preserved, therefore, the status of this position was insignificant, and from the time of Vasily II (1425-1462) - 20 clerks and clerks.
During the reign of Ivan III, management of the principality gradually passed from the hands of “free servants” to the hands of the bureaucratic apparatus. The Grand Duke's office appears.
The key role in the grand ducal system was played by the “Palace” and the “Treasury”. The first was in charge of the lands of the Grand Duke, the second was in charge of finances, foreign policy, and was also the place where the archive and press were kept. When new lands were annexed to Moscow, structures were created there by analogy with Moscow ones: Novgorod Palace, Tverskoy, Nizhny Novgorod, Dmitrovsky, etc.
In the 60s XV century industry orders began to appear: Local, in charge of land distributions to the nobles, Discharge, providing them with salaries and keeping records of them, Robber, Ambassador and Petition, Yamskoy, etc. At the beginning of the 16th century. there were already about 10 of them. The orders were headed by “good” boyars (“path” is the direction of activity). They had a large staff of clerks and clerks under their command.
Local authorities. The unified Moscow state arose during the reigns of Ivan III and Vasily III. But the power of the Moscow prince was still weak at that time, so neither Ivan III nor Vasily III actually interfered in the internal affairs of the annexed principalities.
Meanwhile, the difficult international situation with an undeveloped economy required the concentration of efforts of the entire state. Under these conditions in the 30-50s. XVI century the remnants of feudalism were eliminated. And on the site of the former appanage principalities, a system of local government bodies arose - “labial” and “zemstvo huts”.
The task of the “labial huts” was to fight against “robberies” and “dashing people”. Their competence was determined by the statutory "labial letters"(the first of which dates from 1539). This local government structure consisted of two elders chosen from the local "children of the boyars", as well as wealthy peasants, townspeople and appointed police officials. Office work in the “lip hut” was carried out by sextons. Administratively, these structures were subordinate to Robber's order.
Judicial system. There were no uniform judicial bodies throughout the country. The court was not separated from the administration, therefore, judicial functions were carried out within their jurisdiction government bodies, estate, church and private (patrimonial).
State ones were divided into central (in the form of the court of the Grand Duke, the Boyar Duma, palace departments and orders) and local (in the form of the court of the governor and volost).
Army. Until the end of the 15th century. The country's armed forces consisted of the army of the Grand Duke, regiments of appanage princes and boyars. If necessary, a people's militia was assembled. At the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, in conditions of constant military danger, these formations were no longer enough, and a noble local militia was created. Wars received estates for military work. Their service lasted from spring until the first snow (there were no military operations in winter).
The state's attack on the privileges of the church. The church was one of the elements of the country's political structure. Therefore, as the power of the Moscow princes strengthened, the former independence of the church began to irritate them.
Social system of the Moscow principality.
Under Ivan III, the Grand Duke's relationship with the boyar class changed significantly. This was expressed in a change in treatment of the boyars; it becomes arrogant.
But Ivan III still had legends that the boyars were advisers and that the prince should consult with them before starting any business; under Ivan’s successor, Vasily III, the autocracy of the Grand Duke manifested itself more in a strong way. The Grand Duke decided matters without consulting the boyars, which Bersen is known to have complained about; He also did not like to be contradicted. The power of the Grand Duke also becomes autocratic in relation to the clergy: he has the right to participate in the selection and deposition of the metropolitan. First he led. the prince only recommends his candidates, as did, for example, Ivan II regarding Alexei and Dmitry Donskoy regarding Mityai. Dmitry, by his own will, either invites Cyprian to the Moscow metropolis, or overthrows him. Vasily Vasilyevich the Dark directly says that the choice of the metropolitan always belonged to his ancestors; but neither in his reign, nor in the reign of Ivan III, metropolitans are appointed simply by the will of the Grand Duke.
This order was established only under Vasily III. With the development of princely power, the position in the Moscow state of the upper class, the boyars, also changed. From a wandering squad, it little by little turns into a settled class of large landowners and, as a reward for its service, receives land grants from the prince. At the same time, the right of the boyar to leave for other princes begins to be limited: the departing boyar lost his possessions.
The main importance of the boyars, as assistants to the prince in government and his Duma members, noticeably decreases with each reign, and Vasily III can already do without their advice. The institution with which the prince conferred was Boyar Duma. The prince entrusted and ordered the management of current affairs to individuals. From here the orders were subsequently formed (perhaps from Ivan III); At first, individual branches of management were called paths. This is how the courtier, or butler, the stablemaster, the falconer, the hunter, and somewhat later the stolnichy, the chashnichiy, and the okolnichiy appeared. From Ivan III, the organization of the princely court became more complicated and the number of court positions increased; at the same time, the service receives a strictly hierarchical order. At the head of this hierarchy are members of the sovereign's Duma: boyars, okolnichy, Duma nobles and Duma clerks. They are followed by a whole series of court positions assigned to manage the household of the Grand Duke or for his personal services: butler, key keeper, treasurer, armorer, tent keeper, equerry, nursery keeper, hunter, falconer, printer, bookkeeper, steward, cup keeper, bed keeper, sleeping bags, solicitors, bells, tenants.
The boyars who occupied various branches of government were called worthwhile; the highest class of boyars were the introduced boyars, who occupied, by the will of the prince, and senior positions. The number of boyars in the Moscow principality increased by immigrants from various appanage principalities and Lithuania. Inevitable clashes occurred between the old boyars and the new arrivals. These clashes marked the beginning of tribal disputes - localism. For their service, the boyars received three types of remuneration: feeding, estates and estates. The lower class of the military service class, which in the appanage-veche period was called youths, children's and gridi, in Moscow begins to be called nobles and boyar children. The junior category of service people were “free servants” or “household people.” They performed minor positions as customs officers, bailiffs, door closers, and so on.
There was also a whole class of semi-free « servants under the court»: beekeepers, gardeners, grooms, trappers, fishermen, other industrialists and artisans. From among these semi-free and serfs, various officials of the princely private economy were appointed: tiuns, ambassadors, housekeepers, treasurers, clerks, and clerks. In addition to the boyars and service people, there was also a commercial and industrial class in Moscow. Their highest rank were guests, and then lesser merchants - merchants.
The merchant class was divided into hundreds of living and clothiers. The lowest category of townspeople - small traders and artisans - is known as black people, which were imposed taxes in favor of the prince and his governors. The black people also included the peasantry.
The lands they sat on were black, proprietary and monastic. The peasants sitting on the black lands were directly subordinate to the princes and their tiuns; the remaining categories paid quitrent to their owners and bore certain duties in favor of the state.
Along with the free peasantry there is also semi-free indentured servitude. As the appanage principalities merged with Moscow, a new administrative division emerged - county, that is, a district assigned to some city, from where he was tried and tribute was collected from him; parts of the county are now called volosts. This division was extremely uneven. There were governors in the city, and volostels in the volosts; the latter were not always subordinate to the governors, and sometimes, especially in large volosts, they communicated directly with the prince.
Sometimes, next to the division into volosts, there is also division into camps. There is no veche in the Moscow Principality; monuments and volostels hold all administration and court in their hands. In urban and rural communities we meet elected councilors and elders, the significance of which is primarily financial and administrative. They gather secular gatherings, which carry out the allocation of taxes and duties (measurements and cuts). The most important taxes and duties were: tribute and yam- fees to the princely treasury in money and in kind from households, land and industries; food - maintenance of princely officials; city affairs- duty to build fortresses; bridging- duty to build bridges. Taxes and duties were distributed according to the requirements; three obzhi were equal to a plow.
Under Ivan III, the Novgorod volosts were charged half a hryvnia per plow. Taxes from other taxable items were also equal to the plow: the plow was equal, for example, to a leather vat, a trading shop, and so on. Duties in kind were sometimes converted into money. Extortions from residents before Ivan III increased with tribute in favor of the Tatars. An important advantage of the Moscow princes was that the Horde gave them the right to collect their income.
The princes often withheld these revenues, and sometimes charged more than they should have. Thanks to this, they always had extra money, with which they bought lands from other princes. Customs and trade duties were also an important source of income: myt - duty on outposts and transportation; coastal - from those stuck to the shore; bones - from trading people, not goods; turnout - from goods and people who arrived at the auction; living room - for placing goods in the living room; tamga - duty on the sale of goods; osmnic, measured, weighty, spot, horny, manured crowns - from newlyweds. Josaphat Barbaro says that Ivan III took into the treasury the right to brew honey and beer and consume hops.
The largest feudal lord was the Grand Duke. He owned palace lands, which belonged to him and his family directly, and black-sown (black-tax) lands, which belonged to the prince as the head of state.
The peasants of the palace lands paid dues (corvée) and were governed by palace servants, and the peasants of the black-mown lands bore duties in favor of the grand ducal power and were governed by his governors.
Appanage princes, as the state centralized and the principalities were subordinated to the Moscow Grand Duke, became large patrimonial owners, and then subjects of the Grand Duke, obligated to serve him. The boyars - large landowners - were also vassals, and then subjects of the Grand Duke. The boyars headed the Sovereign's court, which was a military-administrative corporation that grew out of the squad of times Old Russian state. In the middle of the 15th century. This body was divided into the Palace, an economic and administrative organization that provided for the needs of the Grand Duke and his family, and the Court, which became the organizational core of the armed forces of the Moscow Principality.
During the period under review, vassal relations were being destroyed and replaced by service to the Grand Duke. As the lands were unified and the Grand Duke's power was strengthened, the legal status of the boyars changed: the right of departure to another overlord was abolished, estates began to acquire the character of conditional land tenure, feudal immunity and privileges were reduced.
The boyars were members of the Boyar Duma, occupied the most important positions in the system of government bodies in the armed forces, etc. However, with the increasing role of the nobles, the influence of the boyars gradually decreased. The equalization of fiefdoms and estates brought these social groups closer together.
The nobles represented the service class. They owned the land under local law, i.e. conditionally, for service and for the duration of service. Owners of local lands could not alienate them and transfer them by inheritance, were not members of the Boyar Duma, could not receive higher ranks in the palace administration and be governors. Gradually, the nobility became an increasingly numerous class associated with the grand ducal power and became its important political support. The nobility was interested in strengthening the power of a single sovereign, just as the Grand Duke was interested in supporting such a large social group.
Monasteries and churches in the XV-XVII centuries.
They were one of the largest landowners - they owned 1/3 of the lands in the Russian state. The clergy becomes an influential political force and links its policies with the Grand Duke and with the ideology of the autocratic state. Church feudal lords enjoyed certain privileges - they did not pay sovereign taxes, were subject only to church court, their lives and property were protected by enhanced penalties, etc. At the beginning of the 16th century. immunities were limited: the lands of monasteries and churches were no longer exempt from paying taxes, cases of the most serious crimes were removed from the jurisdiction of the church court, etc. An attempt was made to limit the growth of church-monastic land ownership, and the question of the secularization of church lands was raised.
Urban population were called the townspeople. The growth of cities, the development of handicraft production and trade led to an increase in the urban population. The following hierarchy of the townspeople population emerged:
- guests and living room hundred - large merchants;
– cloth hundred, black hundred – medium and small traders;
– settlements – craft districts and workshops. Part of the trade and craft yards in the city, which were owned by spiritual and secular feudal lords (“white settlements”), were exempt from state taxes. The grand ducal government made attempts to limit the influence of the boyars and monasteries in the cities and strengthen the power of the sovereign administration. But the problem of the relationship between the inhabitants of the settlement and the feudal lords as a whole was resolved only in 1649.
The peasants were divided into the following main groups: black-tax (black-growing), palace and privately owned. The black-taxed peasants bore duties in favor of the Grand Duke's power and were governed by the Grand Duke's governors. The number of these peasants was constantly decreasing, as the prince often handed them over to the feudal lords. Privately owned peasants lived on the land of individual feudal lords and paid them rent, rent in kind or cash, or worked off corvee labor. The peasants of the palace lands paid dues (corvee labor) and were managed by palace servants. In general, in the XIV–XVI centuries. there is an increase in the exploitation of peasants and an increase in the size of quitrents and corvée. The Code of Law of 1497 established the rule of “St. George’s Day” - the period for the transfer of peasants to another owner. The differences in the position of peasants, serfs and bonded people became less and less.
More on the topic SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE RUSSIAN STATE (XIV-XVI CENTURIES):
- Socio-political system and law during the period of formation and strengthening of the centralized Russian state (XIV-XVII centuries
- CHAPTER 3. Formation of the Russian centralized state and development of law (XIV - mid-XVI centuries). Law books of 1497 and 1550 Reasons for state centralization
