Церковь и горожане средневекового Пскова. Историко-археологическое исследование [Cerkov’ i gorožane srednevekovogo Pksova. Istoriko-arxeologičeskoe issledovanie]
Résumé
THE CHURCH AND THE CITIZENS IN MEDIEVAL PSKOV
The identification of the Christian Church with the whole organized society is the fundamental
feature which distinguishes the Middle Ages from earlier and later periods of
history. However, in Russian historiography, Church history usually have been treated
separately from the history of society, while history of the Russian Church was considered
in isolation from the canonical law and the history of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of which
it had been part until the end of 16th century. One must take into account that the events of
ecclesiastic and social life during the medieval period were closely interconnected, so that
the knowledge of social history helps us to understand the history of Church and, vice
versa, the understanding of peculiarities of the Christian culture allows us better study of
the medieval society.
This approach is applied to the present study. It is dedicated to the history of mediaeval
Pskov of the 11th–15th centuries and its Christian organization and culture which can be
understood exclusively within the context of history of Novgorod the Great and the metropolis
of Rhosia. In the history of Novgorod and Pskov, the close interconnection between
the Church and society resulted in the fact that the urban communities regarded themselves
as “house (oikos) of Saint Sophia” and “house (oikos) of the Holy Trinity” in accordance
with the dedications of the main city cathedrals. In the consciousness of a mediaeval
Novgorodian, St. Sophia together with the God was a protector of the city. Under the term
of St. Sophia, not simply the main cathedral of Novgorod was implied but also the Church
as a mystical organism of the Body of Christ according to the Niceno-Constantinopolitan
Credo Symbolum by which the Church is characterized by four particular attributes as
“single, holy, catholic and apostolic. This mentality is recorded in the Novgorod chronicle
after 1204, the year of devastation of Constantinople by the 4th Crusade, and possibly
was connected with activities of Archbishop Anthony (Dobrynya Yadreykovich) who had
realized a pilgrimage to Byzantium. Long before the concept of Moscow as the “Third
Rome”appeared, Novgorod regarded itself as the successor of Constantinople and of its
St. Sophia cathedral.
In Pskov, the urban community personifi ed itself in the Holy Trinity. However, only in
1471, the chronicler identifi ed the Trinity with the Ecumenical Church. Pskov had not had
its own bishop until 1589, and the history of Pskov’s church community differed from that
of Novgorod in a more protracted establishment of self-identification.
Chapter 1, “New people” of Ancient Russia”, discusses the process of appearance of
towns in Rus occurring in the context of Trans-Eurasian trade synchronously with the for356
mation of new social groups and their Christianization. At the turn of the 10th and 11th
century, a process of trans-urbanization is recordable in Rus as a common European phenomenon marking the transition from the barbarian to early feudal state structures. In Northern Rus, this process was of a peaceful character because here, the dynasty of the Ryurikides was invited by the federation of northern Slavonic and Finish tribes: the Slavs, the Chuds and the Krivichians as a result of a ryad (agreement) dated by the Primary Russian Chronicle to 862. However in Southern Rus, the princely power was established after 882 through military conquest. Here, the trans-urbanization often was of forcible nature when local
tribal centres were annihilated by the princely authority giving place to classical feudal cities.
In this sense, the history of Pskov is more alike to that of towns of Southern Rus:
the classical city with a fortress and posad (unfortifi ed settlement) arose here after the fi re
of 1036 related with the raid of prince Yaroslav the Wise.
The phenomenon of trans-urbanization resulted in the emergence of a social dichotomy
in Old Russian town. The most ancient Russian legal code, “Russian Pravda”, knows three
categories of free populace: rousin (rhos) — a person from the princely environment; slovenin
of the archaic community and izgoy (an orphan or exile) or a person who had been
withdrawn from the common law and accordingly subjugated to the princely Rota System.
To that dichotomy, the urban spacial structure corresponded consisting of kontsy (ends;
sing. konets) and sotni (hundreds; sing. sotnya) excited in medieval town as city districts.
During the beginnings of Russian history, the kontsy were urban districts which may have
originated in settlements of the farmstead type usually called in Russian historiography as
patronymia and belonging to Slavic aristocracy. The sotni included the population of Ancient
Russia subject to the prince.
Archaeology allows us to identify in Novgorod diff erent subcultures characteristic of
the population of the boyar’s patronymia and inhabitants of prince’s sotni. The estates or
proprieties (urban yards) of the sotni residents were predominantly in Torgovaya storona
(Trade Side). The oldest kontsy were ranged on the left bank of the Volkhov River in
Sophij skaya storona (St. Sophia Side) — Nerevsky konets fi rst mentioned in 1172 and Lyudin
or Goncharsky (potters) konets (1195). After 1218, also Zagorodsky (out-of-town) konets
arises here. On the right bank, Slavensky (1231) and Plotnitsky (after 1196) kontsy are known.
Gradually, ten Novgorod sotni came to be subject to the boyars and administrations of the
kontsy.
In history of Novgorod, one can observe a gradual transference of princely rights to
the local boyars. This was related with their participation in the collection and distribution
of state tributes. Furthermore, the Novgorodians ranked themselves with the “Varangian
genesis” as belonging to social and political organization which was linked with the invitation
of the Varangian princes. This fact allowed the boyars to oppose themselves to the
“Russian genesis” established as the princely war retinue in the Middle Dnieper reaches
around Kyiv. The participation of the Slavic aristocracy, the ancestors of future Novgorodians,
in the invitation of the Varangians princely dynasty gave them particular rights in
regard of the Ryurikides. At least since 1264, these rights were fi xed by a special treaty between
Novgorod and the prince. However, the original organizing role of the princely
power in the appearance of Novgorod in the mid-10th century and subsequent establishment
of state structure in Northern Rus was undisputed. This was one of the important points of
the “feudal democracy”.
To a considerably greater extent, the role of princely power was manifested at the initial
stages of the establishment of Pskov. Chapter 2, The urban community of Medieval Pskov”,
discusses the bases of the social history of mediaeval Pskov. Traditionally it has been believed
that the dominating position in Pskov, like in Novgorod, was held by the Slavic aristocracy
which founded the city’s kontsy. However, analysis of written and archaeological sources has
shown that Pskov arose gradually as a result of the evolution of princely sotni. An important
period in history of Pskov was that of AD 1266 when the Lithuanian prince Dovmont (Daumantas)
began his reigning here. The Pskov boyars of the 14th–15th centuries were rooted
back into the princely administration which made a subject of inheritance from its social
position. There were thirty Pskov sotni, some of which it is possible to localize in modern
maps. From those sotni, six kontsy were formed: that of St. Peter or Bolovinsky, Gorodetsky,
Ostrolavitsky, Opotsky, Polonishchsky and Bogoyavlensky (the Epiphany) konets.
These diff erences between Novgorod and Pskov in social and political history have infl
uenced their church organization which is considered in Chapter 3, “The Clergy in mediaeval
Russian town”. In the history, the boundaries of dioceses and canon law promoted
the fi xation of political borders in Ancient Rus. One of the features of Russian church geography was in the existence of enclaves: certain territories were subject to bishopric situated
at a fair distance from them as a result of the distribution of princely power. It is known,
however, that only 19 bishopric cathedrae existed over the vast territory of Ancient Rus.
The insignifi cant number of Russian dioceses, as compared with Byzantium, is possibly
explained by the 57 Canons of the Council of Laodicea which prohibited foundation of
bishoprics in underpopulated cities. It is by the regulations of the canonical law and not by
a political juncture that one can explain the transference of the Metropolitan cathedra to
Moscow due to the reception in 1317–1322 of the yarlyk (patent) from the Mongolian khans
for the great-reign by the Moscow prince Yury Danilovich. Indeed, the primacy had to be
located in the town of the “ruler and senate”.
The studies of the process of the formation of parishes in Rus is a considerably more
complicated problem because of the absence of sources. The term prikhod (parish) fi rst is
mentioned in 1485 in connection with the reformation of the church organization in the
course of the establishment of the Russian centralized state and fi xing the congregations to
particular churches created by princely authorities. Before, the term of predel or uyezd,
rooted in the Greek periodes, had been used in the church law as related with the notion of
visitation.
“Russkaya Pravda”, the legal code of Kievan Rus, still did not know clergymen as
an isolated stratum. This fact had predetermined the main forms of the initial organization
of the Eucharistic life during the Ancient-Russian period. These forms were the divisions
of the then-existing social and political structure of the society constituted by the princely
court, city’s sotni or boyar patronymies as a form of domus ecclesiae (oikos).
This situation impeded the establishment of a special clergy order in Ancient Russia
directly subordinated to Episcopal jurisdiction. Only with the lapse of time, due to eff orts
of the church hierarchy, the “Regulation on the church people” appeared in the 12th century
allowing the clergy to consolidate as a separate estate under the canon law.
On the whole, the regulations of the canon law ousted the common law. However,
in a number of cases, these regulations, linked both with the status of the clergy in Byzantine
aristocratic oikoi and ktitorian law (ktetorikon dikaion) and the position of “royal clergy”
diff ering from the “clergy of the bema” subordinate to the Patriarch, coincided with the
common Ancient Russian law of patronymia and that of the princely court. It is known that
in Rus there was princely clergy non-subordinated to the local bishop. The coincidences of
this kind not only promoted the preservation of archaic ecclesiastic relations in Russian
patronymia but also the conservation of the politic culture of Novgorod and Pskov established
on its basis, i.e. the democracy of the Veche (City Assembly).
These connections between the clergy and the society have refl ected in archaeological
evidence. In Novgorod, archaeological excavations have allowed us to reveal up to ten urban
proprieties of the 12th–15th century where clergy was living. The houses of priests were not
situated near the churches but among ordinary urban proprieties this fact indicating a close
connection between the clergy and the civil community. In the 16th century, the administration
of the Moscow prince intentionally lodged priests near the churches. This resulted in
transformation of the clergy into a closed social group and disruption of the natural links
with the parishioners, fi rst of all with the aristocratic oikoi. This process began already after
the annexation of Novgorod by Moscow when, in 1470–1480, Novgorod boyars were exiled.
In Pskov, archaeological evidence has not allowed to identify estates of clergymen. Nevertheless,
analysis of Pskov city’s inventory of 1586/1587 demonstrates that here, in contrast
to Novgorod, the priests were not moved closer to the churches. Evidently, the clergy of
mediaeval Pskov was not closely connected with the local boyars and the exile of the town’s
social elite in 1510 had not aff ected the system of settlement of local priests.
Chapter 4, “The Seven Church Districts (Sobory) System in Medieval Novgorod”,
considers the ecclesiastical organization of Ancient Russian town which was subdivided into
church districts or so-called sobory (verbatim councils; sing. sobor). These sobory are to some
extent comparable with the deaneries once existing in Europe but their authorities were not
rigidly fi xed in the canon law. Also the main church of such a district was called sobor and
to it not only urban but also rural churches were subordinated. According to the ecclesiastic
law, the sobory had distinct territorial boundaries. It is of note that in Russia, a bishopric
cathedral also was called sobor. The fact that under the term of “sobor”, an entire series of
mediaeval notions were implied: Church council, district of churches, main church of such
district and a bishopric cathedral, as well as the concept of katholikh as a theological characteristic of Church (sobornaya), are to be considered as the historical expression of the
catholicity and conciliarity of the Church organization in Ancient Russia. Sobory in Ancient-
Russian town were liturgical, administrative and judicial units implying active participation
both of secular clergy and laity in the Church life and administration. During the late Middle Ages this collectivism (sobornost’) was infringed. Among the best studied are seven church districts in Novgorod. The documents which have survived until now include the Semisobornaya rospisʼ or a list of Novgorod churches according to seven church districts compiled in the 1480s. It enumerates 158 altars or holy tables of the main churches and theirs chapels, although indeed it states that in total there were 161 church sees in the town. The document informs us that in 44 churches, everyday liturgy was practised. Personal researches allow us to identify the boundaries of a special area which surrounded the bishop palace, Okolotok, mentioned in the chronicle for the years from 1339 to 1535. Presumably, it was originally prince’s territory at future Novgorod area in which, in the late 10th century, a new Christian centre of the town arose. The discrepancy between the altars enumerated and their total number is possibly explained by the fact that during the compilation of the list, the church of Sts. Kosmas and Damian in
Kozmodem′yan Street was closed because of the exile of the boyar family to which it belonged.
Analysis of chronicles demonstrates that the church organization consisting of
seven sobory or districts in Novgorod arose in 1361–1362 as a result of the reform conducted
by Archbishop Alexius with the aim of unifi cation of the kontsy and sotni.
The boundaries of sobory coincided with those of kontsy. In the Sophia Side there existed
fi ve church districts with the centres in the St. Sophia Cathedral in the Kremlin and
Okolotok, the Michael Archangel church in Zagorodsky konets, St. Blasius church in Lyudin
konets, the churches of the Sts. Forty Martyrs at Sebaste and of St. Martyr Jacob in Nerevsky
konets. In Trade Side in Slavensky konets there was the Dormition of Theotokos church as
the main district sanctuary, and the church of St. John the Forerunner was in Plotnitsky
konets. The existence of seven districts was linked neither with the speculative theology nor
with the reminiscence of the seven Ecumenical Councils nor with the Seven Sacraments of
the Church, but with the archaic social structure of Novgorod. The existence of the two
cathedrals in Nerevsky konets was caused by the fact that one of them arose at the place
of a sanctuary previously connected with a sotnya settlement and the other in the area
of an ancient boyar patronymia.
Chapter 5, “Church Districts (Sobory) and the clergy of Medieval Pskov” discusses the
history of sobor districts in Pskov where in the 15th century there were six cathedrals. First
it became possible to prove that the sobor districts in the city had their territorial boundaries
according with canon law. Traditionally, it has been believed that the sobory of the Pskov
clergy were just professional unions like the guilds of medieval European cities.
In 1356, the St. Sophia or Sophij sky sobor in Pskov is segregated from Troitsky the Holy
Trinity sobor. The former may have been coinciding with the Opotsky konets. In 1416,
the St. Nickolas or Nikolsky sobor arises embracing the Petrovsky konets. In 1453, a sobor
and everyday liturgy celebration are organized attached to the church of St. Demetrius of
Thessalonica, the Great Martyr, in the Dovmontov Gorod (Dovmont’s Town) near the
Pskov Kremlin and the Church of the Saviour on Torg (Market). The newly founded sobor
included the churches of Gorodetsky and Ostrolavitsky kontsy. In 1462, the sobor at Polonishche
was founded. The sobor district attached to the church of the Entry of Our Lord
into Jerusalem, created in 1471, may have been intended for Bogoyavlensky konets. The absence
of hereditary boyar’s families in Pskov resulted in the fact that not representatives of
aristocracy like in Novgorod but ordinary lay people, often headed sotni (sotnik), were
the ktitors (churchwarden) of urban and rural churches.
In the present study, sobory in Novgorod and Pskov and the regiones of Constantinople
are compared. The latter being artifi cial formations later disappeared. In this connection,
the conclusion is driven that hierotopy — a modern fashionable direction in studies of
Christian culture — is applicable only to late Middle Ages and modern times. In the earlier
epoch, the process of formation of sacral topography depended on the social structure
and not on abstract theoretical thought. Sacralisation of the urban environment in Ancient
Russia took place not earlier than the 16th and 17th centuries, having been expressed in
creation of icons which included the realities of urban topography into the iconic space.
Chapter 6, “Private devotional objects and the everyday Christian culture of Pskov
citizens”, is dedicated to analysis and systematization of private devotional objects of Christian
cult yielded by excavations in Pskov. The collection under study includes a total of about
100 objects of the 10th–15th century. In the study, the peculiarities of Christianization of the
urban population as well as the role of the Scandinavians and the West-European Christian
culture in that process are shown. Quite a series of objects including steatite and nacre
crosses of the 12th century — pilgrimage relics from the Holy Land — have been identifi ed.
These objects suggest active contacts of Pskov citizens with Byzantium. It is characteristic
that in Pskov, a stronger infl uence of the Christian culture of Moscow than in Novgorod is
traceable, this fact explaining the voluntary subjugation of Pskov to the Moscow prince in
1469. Generally, the Pskov Christian culture, including both objects of personal devotion
and icon-painting, turns to have been very conservative and archaic although it had evolved
within the frame of common Russian Christian culture development processes. Investigations
of archaeological monuments allow us to make our knowledge about the Christian
culture of Pskov considerably more precise whereas the local chronicle-writing emerged
only in the 14th century and offi cial documents contain scarce information about that aspect
of mediaeval life.
In Chapter 7, “Veche of the Holy Trinity: the urban community as the Ecclesia of Pskov”,
considers the history of the establishment of church administration in Pskov. Originally,
the church law and administration in Pskov were realized in the form of bishop’s visitations
and activities of the clergy of the main town’s cathedral — that of the Holy Trinity. In the
late 13th century in Rus, the offi ce of the namestnik (local representative or sometimes locum
tenenes) of the bishop comes into existence. He was occupied with the legal deeds and
management of the church property within a particular territory. This institution was not
known in the Byzantine Church. Greek texts do not translate the Russian term but simply
transcribe it as namestnikos. The origin of this offi ce, fi rst recorded in Galich-Volyn′ Rus,
may have been related with the existence of church castellanies in Poland.
Researchers always have believed that the namestnik of the Novgorod archbishop appeared
in Pskov due to the attempt to subjugate the city to the Novgorod boyars. However,
such an institution emerged practically simultaneously in Pskov, Ladoga and Torzhok not
later than in 1307, having nothing in common with the Novgorod-Pskov political confrontation.
Beginning since 1330–1340, the namestnik in Pskov was a layman appointed from
the number of local citizens as was approved by the Treaty of Bolotovo between Pskov and
Novgorod, signed between 1329 and 1342. The last namestnik belonging to clergy was the
hieromonk Arseny who in 1331 unsuccessfully competed with Vasily Kalika for Novgorod
Archbishop Cathedra. I am critically inclined as regards the information of the Novgorod
chronicle that in that year the Pskovians headed by Arseny wanted to organize a separate
diocese independent from Novgorod.
The activities of the Pskov namestnik are known not only owing to written sources but
also through fi nds of lead seals and evolution of their type. The seals were once attached to
documents sanctioned by them. The Pskov namestnik’s activities were criticized in the late
14th and 15th century by Kievan metropolitans because in this case a layman-namestnik judged
the clergy that was prohibited by the canon law. By contrast to Novgorod, where namsetnik
proved testaments and land bargains, in Pskov, these functions remained under the jurisdiction
of the Veche (City Assembly). In 1435, Archbishop Euthymius will unsuccessfully try
to introduce the Novgorodian practice to Pskov.
In 1437, Metropolitan Isidorus, departing for the Ferrara-Florence Council, excluded
Pskov from the jurisdiction of the Novgorod archbishop with whom he became in confl ict
because of the planned Unia with the Roman Catholic Church. The Metropolitan realized
his authority in the town through archimandrites, of whom one, Gregorius, who previously
was the hegumen of the St. Demetrius Monastery in Constantinople, became later
the Kievan Metropolitan in the territory of Lithuania (1458–1473). After the return
of Pskov to the Novgorod jurisdiction in 1448 and until 1470, namestnik of Archbishop of
Novgorod received an additional right to prove land bargains of churches and cloisters.
After the unsuccessful attempt at foundation of a bishopric cathedra in 1463–1464,
the Pskov clergy endeavoured in 1468-1470 to carry out a local “reformation”. With an
active participation of laymen, a special legal body of the Church was organized which was
to hear independently, without participation of the bishop, church legal proceedings on the
basis of the Nomocanones — a code of church laws. One of the main issues for the new body
was that of the widowed clergy which was prohibited to practise liturgy in Pskov. Notwithstanding the fact that the Pskov reform was a counterpart of the events of 1385–1406
in Novgorod, where it was decided to reject hearing of legal suits at the Metropolitan’s,
in the Pskov proceedings one feels distinctly an eschatological implication. On the eve of
the 7,000 years of the Creation (1492 AD), the Pskov citizens made up their mind to put
their church in order.
Together with the namestnik, considerable authority belonged to the clergy of the Trinity
Cathedral. Resolutions of the Pskov Veche were sanctioned by “seals of the Holy Trinity”,
i.e. by the seals of the city’s cathedral. Characteristic of the history of Pskov is the control of laymen over the clerics, as well as a high extent of participation of the clergy and
laymen in the ecclesiastic life thus realizing, in accordance with the church tradition,
a system of “checks-and-balances” in the relation with the bishop.
These observations allow us to put forward the question of the correlation between the
civil and church communities in history of Pskov. Under the conditions of the mediaeval
non-institutional democracy, the resolution of city’s problems “at the Veche near the Trinity”was a religious procedure since the boundaries of the church and urban organizations
coincided in mediaeval town. That high extent of coordination between the ecclesiastic
and civil issues had provided the longevity of Veche traditions in North Russia including
self-government tendencies even under the authoritarian regime of the Muscovite Kingdom.
In 1555–1556, this situation led to the abolition of kormleniya (bestowing of maintenance),
introduction of the farming system (otkupy) and the appearance of local self-government
provincial guba elders as elective public institutions. Under such conditions, the boyars
played a progressive role opposing to mancipation or enslavement of peasants, advocating
the foundation of a boyar council — the House of Lords of the incipient Russian parliament
— and participating actively in the formation of capitalistic economy. The conservatism
of the church and political culture of Novgorod and Pskov in the situation of the Time
of Troubles in the early 17th century allowed reviving here the traditions of the Veche selfgovernment and active participation of citizens and clergy in the church administration
and public social-political life. After the long interruption caused by the Muscovite rule,
the Pskov chronicler in 1610 reintroduces into his narrative the subject of the special patronage
of the Holy Trinity over Pskov as over “house of the Holy Trinity”, the subject
with acquaintance with which the present book is begun…
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