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Immunities in Old Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Horace W. Dewey
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Extract

The oldest Russian document has been called an “immunity charter.“ It dates from the first half of the twelfth century. Many other immunity charters have survived and are among our most prized sources on medieval Russia. Although few date back to the twelfth through fourteenth centuries, about five hundred remain from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and a recent survey lists 1,039 for the years 1504-84. Such documents have been found from each of the sixty-three districts (uezdy) which comprised the Russian state before Ivan IV's conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan, and newly discovered charters, or references to previously unknown charters, are still turning up. The terms of individual charters are usually clear, but scholars have advanced conflicting views on what these documents, taken together, really tell us about Old Russian immunities. Is one justified in claiming that such immunities even existed? If they did, two vexing questions remain.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , December 1964 , pp. 643 - 659
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1963

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References

1 See, for example, M. H. CCCP, I (Moscow, 1962), 100, and (Moscow, 1956), p. 125.

2 III (Moscow, 1955), 86.

3 Parts I and II, (Moscow, 1958), pp. 302-76, and (Moscow, 1962), pp. 129-200.

4 C. M. (Moscow, 1963), pp. 98-110.

5 II (Moscow, 1956), 186-87.

6 (4th ed.; St. Petersburg, 1905), p. 229.

7 p. 103.

8 , I (Paris, 1948), 305.

9 For more detailed schemes of classification see , II (Moscow, 1951), 112-13, hereafter cited as , No. 3 (May-June), 1956, p. 217, and , III, 87-88.

10 Eck, Alexandre reminds us that judicial administration was regarded primarily as a source of revenue; Le moyen âge russe (Paris, 1933), p. 171 Google Scholar.

11 A good discussion of these clauses may be found in op. cit., pp. 97-100 and 260-61.

12 For a list (with definitions) of obligations and fees, see , III, 126 ff.

13 (Moscow and Leningrad, 1957), p. 23.

14 op. cit., pp. 16-17, 37-41, 60-65, 200-202, 213, 215-26, 249-51, 253-54, 257. For a recent Soviet reaction to Eliashevich's views, see (Moscow, 1962), pp. 55 ff. A contemporary Soviet medievalist suggests that the patrimonial princes and service princes also received charters, but none of the documents has survived; , X (Moscow, 1962), 266-68.

15 , I (Moscow and Leningrad, 1947), 111-17, 120-21.

16 These views are expressed in , ed. (img), II (Moscow, 1953), 5-12, 110.

17 op. cit., pp. 141-42, and Jerome, Blum, Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, 1961), p. 89 Google Scholar.

18 This view unquestionably prevails in the USSR today. It is clearly stated, inter alia, in (Moscow and Leningrad, 1958), pp. 337-41, 347; see also his earlier studies : , No. 10 (Oct.), 1948, pp. 113-24, and , XXIV (1947), 297-300.

19 pp. 213-16.

20 (Moscow, I960), p. 340.

21 (Moscow and Leningrad, 1952), pp. 153, 218-32. For tables on the geographical distribution and types of surviving immunity charters from the first half of the sixteenth century, see the valuable study by KashtanOV,

22 (Moscow, 1960), p. 391.

23 , No. 2 (Mar.-Apr.), 1963, pp. 112-13.

24 II, 129. A good survey may also be found in , IV, 127-30.

28 Immunity in Russia is defined in this fashion by both op. cit., p. 112, and …, p- 337. Basically similar features characterized immunity in West European feudalism : Ogg, F. A., ed., A Sourcebook of Mediaeval History (New York, 1908), pp. 210–11 Google Scholar. Russia knew widespread use of the institution of lay advocacy (Fr. avouerie) : Eck, op. cit., pp. 143, 146, 171-72, 180.

26 Blum, , Lord and Peasant, pp. 85–86Google Scholar. See also George, Vernadsky, Kievan Russia (New Haven, 1959), pp. 203–4 Google Scholar.

27 (Moscow and Leningrad, 1951), II, 48.

28 See, for example, (St. Petersburg, 1861), p p . 13-15.

29 Nosov has criticized Kashtanov for exaggerating the political motives of grantors in routine instances , but there can be no doubt that political considerations were among those underlying the general practice of issuing immunity charters. Another important consideration, more of an administrative nature, was the assistance of the church's far-flung network of agents (agentura); ., I (Moscow, 1929), p. iii.

30 See iarlyki texts in , III, 465-71.

31 Blum, , Lord and Peasant, pp. 87–88Google Scholar.

32 Ibid., p. 88. An excellent illustration of the practice may be found in a 1424 charter, issued to a secular grantee by Grand Prince Ivan Dmitrievich : , III, 99-100.

33 Vladimirsky-Budanov reminds us that, in contrast to Russian developments, new rulers in Western Europe reconfirmed immunity charters as a matter of course; … , p. 230.

34 We have excluded from discussion such specialized documents as that issued by Ivan IV to Grigorii Stroganov in 1564; , II (Moscow, 1923), 56, or those issued by Patriarch Filaret to gentry members and their widows in the seventeenth century; , III (Moscow, 1961), 317 ff.

35 , IV, 102.

36 II, 129; , p. 263.

37 , IV, 101.

38 See examples listed in ; Parts I and II. Just such a charter is cited as evidence of the “expansion of feudal immunity” in the years of boyar rule preceding Ivan IV's accession to the throne; 1538 r …., » p. 340.

39 p. 326.

40 , II, 172-73.

41 , II, 84.

42 …, p. 347.

43 See the recent survey by A. K. (Moscow, 1961), 200 pp. According to one view, much information on other centralization measures in the first half of the sixteenth century is provided by texts of immunity charters : C. M. XVI B., ” (img), No. 6 (Nov.-Dec), 1959, pp. 134-48. This article, incidentally, criticizes certain aspects of Nosov's book, to which our note 13 refers; the article and other works by its author are in turn subjected to a lengthy and caustic review by Nosov in the article cited at the end of note 14.

44 Veselovsky and Blum put it more broadly, to the effect that the crown recognized the landholders’ privileges as “inseparable appurtenances of their tenurial rights“; Blum, , Lord and Peasant, p. 89 Google Scholar.

45 II, 133.