Our Notes & References

A fascinating glance into life and economy of a 17th-century Russian monastery at the heart of pre-Petrine Muscovia.

Very rare: we could not locate any similar manuscript at auctions worldwide (including Russia). We could not trace any such example in Western libraries and the Western research we consulted relies chiefly on sources from Russian archives and libraries.

“One of the most significant centres of Old Russian writing [pismennost]” (Zimin, our translation here and elsewhere), the Joseph-Volokolamsk (Iosifo-Volotskii) Monastery near Moscow was founded in 1479 and dedicated to the Dormition of the Mother of God. It soon rose to prominence as one of the wealthiest and most influential monasteries of early modern Russia, and its holdings stretched across vast tracts of arable and populated lands; its vaults served as a prison for dissenters and for enemy captives from the Polish–Russian War (1609–1618) and, later, the Napoleonic Wars. The monastery was rebuilt in baroque style just a few years after our manuscript was written.

This very well-preserved income and expenditure book records the entire year 1674-75 and attests both to the monastery’s impressive landholdings, which brought it diverse revenues, and to the daily life of its residents and vassals.

It details the monastery’s dealings with Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich’s administration and representatives, the local diet, the prices of goods ranging from black caviar to Venetian paints, the colourful spectrum of peasant names and nicknames, and the donations received by the community.

The records are written in clear skoropis by the monastery treasurer, Elder Andronik Moskvitin – the ‘skoropis’ writing is described by the Russian National Library as “the most nationally distinctive type of writing in pre-Petrine Russia”. Free of corrections, erasures, or crossings-out, this manuscript appears to be the official, or finalised, version (the belaia kniga, literally “white book”) of notes that had first been set down in draft form earlier that year (the chernaia kniga, or “black book”) (cf. Zimin).

Across its pages unfolds the triple endorsement by the monastery’s senior officials: the lower margins of each verso carry their three recurring inscriptions: Archimandrite Kornilii, the head of the monastery, whose handwriting is more refined; Elder Nekhtarei, the kelar (a head of monastic economy); and Elder Ioasaf Baranov. Kornilii and Nekhtarei are also frequently mentioned in the text itself, in connection with orders and approvals.

The book primarily records the payments of obrok (rent or tax) by peasants and others for the use of monastery property—uncultivated land, settlements, arable fields, mills, forests, and horses—across dozens of districts, listing both the locations and the individuals who made the payments. It also notes income from the sale of monastery goods, including candles, horses, cattle, iron, nails, hemp cloth, frankincense, and wheat.

The book also records all donations—money, horses, books, and food—listing each donor by name and, for officials or clergy, also by occupation or title. In some cases, the purpose is specified, whether for provisions, fur coats, or for inscribing relatives’ names in the Sinodik to be commemorated during services.

Some notes describe curious incidents within the monastery: a record of making of a green woollen kaftan with silk embroidery for a staff member, intended to prevent disputes over payment; and an account of two peasants who escaped, were captured, interrogated, released, and whose host landowner was subsequently charged by the monastery.

The tsar’s orders are usually conveyed to the monastery through a striapchii (government official) and record his donations for various purposes, chiefly ritual commemorations of the deceased or of saints. One order, however, required large groups of the monastery’s peasants to transport timber for construction on the tsar’s lands.

The monastery’s expenses are recorded with equal diligence, from payments to the patriarch’s treasury to the purchase of services—not only monastic and clerical roles but also floor layers, gatekeepers, bakers, medical assistants, gardeners, blacksmiths, cleaners, ice-cutters, and leatherworkers. Goods acquired (often with taxes and transport fees) include salmon, beluga, cod, barrels of pike and zander, caviar, geese, wine, paints such as vermilion, Venetian cobalt and German carmine, buns, wax, red leather for boots, mittens, clothing and shoes for clerks, boots for a child named Martashka, and icon wood. Other outlays cover the rebinding of the Sobornoe Ulozhenie (1649), the first printed edition of Russia’s first codified law, several religious books, and rizas—metal icon coverings of silver and gold.

Bibliography

Mankova I. L. Prikhodno-raskhodnye knigi kontsa XVII – nachala XVIII vv. kak istochnik po istorii khoziaistva uralskikh monastyrei // Istochniki po sotsialno-ekonomicheskoi istorii Urala dooktiabrskogo perioda: sbornik nauchnykh trudov, Ekaterinburg, Institut istorii i arkheologii UrO RAN, 1992, pp. 27-35; “Obrazy russkogo pisma. Skoropis”. Pamiatniki russkogo pisma v sobranii otdela rukopisei RNB, Rossiiskaia Natsionalnaia Biblioteka; Zimin A. A. “Iz istorii sobraniia rukopisnykh knig Iosifo-Volokolamskogo monastyria” // Zapiski otdela rukopisei, Kniga, 1977, p. 15; Zimin A. A. “K istorii vosstaniia Bolotnika” // Istoricheskie zapiski, Tom 24, 1947; for the watermark: T.V. Dianova, ‘Filigrani XVII-XVIII vv. “Golova shuta”‘, in Trudy Gos. Istor. Muzeia, vyp. 94, Moskva 1997.