The population of Kievan Rus was one of the largest in Europe. Its main cities - Kyiv and Novgorod - were home to several tens of thousands of people. These are not small towns by modern standards, but, given the one-story buildings, the area of ​​these cities was not small. The urban population played a vital role in the political life of the country - all free men participated in the assembly.

Political life in the state affected the rural population much less, but the peasants, who remained free, had elected self-government longer than the townspeople.

Historians distinguish the population groups of Kievan Rus according to the “Russian Truth”. According to this law, the main population of Rus' was free peasants, called “people”. Over time, more and more people became smerds - another group of the population of Rus', which included peasants dependent on the prince. Smerd, like an ordinary person, as a result of captivity, debts, etc. could become a servant (later name - serf). Serfs were essentially slaves and were completely powerless. In the 12th century, purchases appeared - part-time slaves who could buy themselves out of slavery. It is believed that there were still not so many slave slaves in Rus', but it is likely that the slave trade flourished in relations with Byzantium. “Russian Truth” also singles out ordinary people and outcasts. The former were somewhere at the level of serfs, and the latter were in a state of uncertainty (slaves who received freedom, people expelled from the community, etc.).

A significant group of the population of Rus' were artisans. By the 12th century there were more than 60 specialties. Rus' exported not only raw materials, but also fabrics, weapons and other handicrafts. Merchants were also city dwellers. In those days, long-distance and international trade meant good military training. Initially, warriors were also good warriors. However, with the development of the state apparatus, they gradually changed their qualifications, becoming officials. However, combat training was needed by the vigilantes, despite the bureaucratic work. From the squad, the boyars stood out - those closest to the prince and rich warriors. By the end of the existence of Kievan Rus, the boyars became largely independent vassals; the structure of their possessions as a whole repeated the state structure (their own land, their own squad, their own slaves, etc.).

Categories of the population and their position

The Kyiv prince is the ruling elite of society.

The squad is the administrative apparatus and the main military force of the Old Russian state. Their most important responsibility was to ensure the collection of tribute from the population.

Elder (boyars) - The closest associates and advisers of the prince, with them the prince first of all “thought” about all matters, resolved the most important issues. The prince also appointed boyars as posadniks (representing the power of the Kyiv prince, belonging to the “senior” warriors of the prince, who concentrated in his hands both military-administrative and judicial power, and administered justice). They were in charge of individual branches of the princely economy.

Younger (youths) - Ordinary soldiers who were the military support of the mayor’s power.

Clergy - The clergy lived in monasteries, the monks abandoned worldly pleasures, lived very poorly, in labor and prayer.

Dependent peasants - Slave position. Servants - slaves-prisoners of war, serfs were recruited from the local environment.

Serfs (servants) - These were people who became dependent on the landowner for debts and worked until the debt was repaid. Purchases occupied an intermediate position between slaves and free people. The purchase had the right to buy out by repaying the loan.

Purchases - Due to need, they entered into contracts with feudal lords and performed various works according to this series. They often acted as minor administrative agents for their masters.

Ryadovichi - Conquered tribes who paid tribute.

Smerda - Prisoners placed on the ground who bore duties in favor of the prince.

Presentation on the topic: The economy of Rus' and the position of various groups of society in the XIV-XV centuries

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Presentation on the topic: The economy of Rus' and the position of various groups of society in the XIV-XV centuries

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1. Economy - from decline to rise...Recently Batu led his hordes from Galicia-Volyn Rus'. Daniil Galitsky and his brother Vasilko rode through their devastated lands to Berest, on the Western Bug (modern Brest). Approaching him, both princes were choking from the stench - countless corpses lay all around. And a few years later, Plano Carpini, the papal ambassador, traveled through the southern Russian principalities to Mongolia. Shocked by what he saw and heard, he wrote: the Tatars “carried out a great massacre in the land of Russia, destroyed cities and fortresses and killed people... When we drove through their land, we found countless heads and bones of dead people lying on the field.” The once populous Kyiv “has been reduced to almost nothing: there are barely two hundred houses there; and people... they keep in the most severe slavery.” Archaeological excavations fully confirm these reports from written sources.

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1. Economy - from decline to rise Many thousands of dead, taken captive, devastated cities and villages, looted property, burned farms, workshops - this was the terrible result of the bloody tornado that struck Rus' For Western Europe, Rus' in the era of “Batu’s ruin” became a kind of shield, while she herself bled “Russia was destined for a high destiny... Its vast plains absorbed the power of the Mongols and stopped their invasion at the very edge of Europe; The barbarians did not dare to leave enslaved Rus' in their rear and returned to the steppes of their east. The resulting enlightenment was saved by a torn and dying Russia...”

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1. Economy - from decline to rise In those years when churches and manuscripts were lost in Rus', beautiful Gothic buildings were erected in Western Europe, new laws and literary works were created. The Renaissance was ahead. And in Russian cities almost until the end of the 13th century. stone construction ceased, many craft techniques were forgotten (filigree, filigree, etc.), compilation of chronicles, copying of manuscripts, etc. ceased, in whole or in part. Gradually, the peasants restored their farms, and again began to cultivate all the fields abandoned during the years of the invasion XIV The 15th century is a time of growth of productive forces in agriculture. The slash-and-burn farming system was preserved mainly in the north of Rus'. In the center and southern regions of the country, a steam two-field and three-field system was used, which received during the 14th-15th centuries. widespread and increasingly replacing not only cutting, but also fallow

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1. Economy - from decline to rise Along with cutting and fallowing, peasants increasingly used the fallow farming system with three-field crop rotation (yarl, winter and fallow). Given the general low level of agricultural technology in the 14th-15th centuries. Nevertheless, the use of plows and plows with iron tips (“coulters” and “ploughshares”), with the help of which the earth was raised and loosened, expanded. The number of horses and oxen increased as the plowing area expanded. Grain was ground in water mills. Vegetable gardening and horticulture occupied a significant place in agriculture. Villagers, in addition to their main occupations, lived by beekeeping, hunting, and fishing. An important branch of agriculture was cattle breeding. Arable farming required the raising of livestock necessary for agricultural work and manure of the soil

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1. Economy - from decline to rise Cities are also slowly recovering Blacksmiths, specialists in the production of weapons, armor (archers, armor), foundry and bell makers, tanners and shoemakers, potters and masons, carpenters and icon makers are reviving their skills. Innovations appear - casting cannons (for the first time their use is mentioned in Russian chronicles under 1382), minting silver coins (from the second half of the 14th century, in the next century “silver livets” worked in more than 20 cities). Cities served as centers of trade exchange. In rural areas, local exchange prevailed - between individual villages; sometimes peasants with their products traveled to more remote volosts, cities, and commercial and industrial settlements. The monasteries conducted extensive trade

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1. Economy - from decline to rise Most of the city “trades” - markets were primarily of local importance; others - the importance of regional markets (Novgorod the Great, Pskov, Moscow, Tver, Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan). Economic ties between the principalities developed and strengthened, which contributed to the desire for unification. The difficulties and obstacles created for Rus' in trade affairs by foreign neighbors also dictated the course towards unification and centralization of the Novgorod trade. Vasnetsov A.M.

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2. Peasants and serfs A lot of new things have appeared in the status of the estates. More and more communal, black lands passed to princes, boyars, the church - through seizures, donations, purchases and sales. The predominant form of land ownership of feudal lords - votchina is associated with the unconditional right to transfer land by inheritance, purchase and sale Along with with it appears conditional land ownership - an estate, i.e. land that the prince gives to his palace or military servants as a reward and under the condition of fulfilling certain duties and obligations. This is how landowners appeared, known under different names back in pre-Mongol Rus'

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2. Peasants and serfs Peasants, from old memory, were called “people”, “orphans”, “smerds”. Increasingly, rural residents are called “Christians.” True, until the 15th century. This word was also used to call the townspeople. But then this name, in the form “peasants”, began to be applied only to the rural population. A peasant who “sat” on land with a three-field crop rotation had an average of 5 dessiatines in one field, 15 dessiatines in three fields. Rich peasants “rented” additional plots - among patrimonial owners, in black volosts. Poor peasants often had neither land nor a yard (the latter lived in other people's yards and were called “podvorniks”, “zakhrebetniki”)

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2. Peasants and serfs Peasants who lived on the lands of patrimonial owners and landowners bore corvee duties to the owners - they plowed and sowed their land, harvested crops, cut hay, caught fish and hunted animals. They contributed food to the dues - meat and lard, vegetables and fruits, much more. Since the 15th century the owners began to constrain the peasants in their ancient right of transfer to another owner. In different places, certain days for such a transfer are introduced, timed to coincide with the end of the harvesting work. Autumn St. George's Day (November 26, old style) - the date with which in Russia the exercise of the right of transfer of peasants was associated from feudal lord to feudal lord, because by this time the annual cycle of agricultural work was completed

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2. Peasants and serfs Serfs were called “full people” or simply “people”. They were the property of their masters, who could sell and buy them, give them as gifts and transfer them as a dowry, by inheritance. The law regarded the murder of a slave by a master as a sin, not a crime. Some slaves performed the duties of servants in the houses, in the courtyards of the owners (“courtyard”, “domestic” "), others worked on the lord's arable land ("sufferers"), others managed certain sectors of the economy ("ordered people" - tiuns, housekeepers, ambassadors) Some of the slaves served the masters until their death, others - for a certain period of time "according to the row" (agreement) , the third were passed on by inheritance. The owners “planted” some slaves on the land, and they became closer in status to the peasants - they were given plots of arable land, hayfields, and cattle

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3. Craftsmen and merchants They often lived within the same “street” or “end”, “row” or “hundred”, had their own churches, had judicial rights (“brotherhoods”, “communities” of artisans at churches) Merchants also had their own associations , or corporations, in the manner of European guilds. They built their temples. Merchants' goods, measures of length and weight, etc. were stored in them. Traders and artisans lived in the settlement, near the fortress, the Kremlin, where they were “planted,” that is, settled, by princes and boyars; hence their name - “posad people” They made up a small proportion of the population of Rus', but played a significant role in the economic and political life of all principalities. Posad people gave money for construction, for all sorts of emergency expenses, often lent money, and considerable amounts, to rulers

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3. Craftsmen and merchants Interested in peace and tranquility, they, like the peasants, supported those princes who sought the unification of Russian lands, an end to endless strife, and opposed the Horde. During the unrest, the townspeople destroyed the yards of rich boyars and merchants, since they captured in the cities lands, courtyards, settlements, turned city residents into slaves. Cities became centers of heresies that penetrated Rus' in the 14th-15th centuries. Heretics denied church dogmas (for example, the immaculate conception of Jesus Christ), sacraments and rituals (communion, confession, funeral prayers), and icons. The most famous heretics of the 14th century. were the Novgorod Strigolniki

MUNICIPAL BUDGETARY EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION "KURAKINSKAYA SECONDARY SCHOOL" OF PARANGINSKY DISTRICT OF THE REPUBLIC OF MARI EL

Methodological association of teachers of the humanitarian and aesthetic cycle

Story

Technological map and lesson plan

Grade 10

Lesson topic:

Completed by: Gordeev V.M. teacher of history and social studies of the first qualification category
Checked by: Zolotareva S.Ya. Head of the School of Education for Teachers of the Humanitarian-Aesthetic Cycle

village Kurakino

2013

FULL NAME: Gordeev Vasily Mikhailovich

Place of work: MBOU "Kurakinsky secondary school", Paranginsky district, Republic of Mari El

Job title: history and social studies teacher

Item: story

Class: 10

Lesson topic:“The economy of Rus' and the position of various groups of society in the 14th-15th centuries.”

UMK: 1. A.N.Sakharov, V.I.Buganov. History of Russia from ancient times to the end of the 18th century. Textbook for 10th grade of general education institutions. – M.: Education, 2005

2. Computer presentation

Technological lesson map

A COMMON PART Teacher(okaya in Old Church Slavonic): Hello, my dear youths. Are there princes and princesses, boyars and noblewomen, cloth workers and artisans among you? Are there any Christians among you with backyard serfs and sufferers? Or did tiuns and rank-and-file people and townspeople come to us? I wish you all good health and ask you to sit down.- What words from this speech do you not know?- Today we will go through a new lesson topic and find out who they really are?- But first, we will repeat the material you previously studied, because repetition is the mother of learning.

LESSON PLAN

Lesson Information Card

Lesson structure and flow

Organizing time. Motivation of students. Creating a problem situation and formulating the problem.

Teacher(okaya in Old Church Slavonic): Hello, my dear youths. Are there princes and princesses, boyars and noblewomen, cloth workers and artisans among you? Are there any Christians among you with backyard serfs and sufferers? Or did tiuns and rank-and-file people and townspeople come to us? I wish you all good health and ask you to sit down.

Slide No. 2

Teacher: From this speech, which words do you not know? (students' answers)

Teacher: What problem do you think we will solve in class? (sample answer: In class we must find out who these people are and what they did)

Repetition of previously studied material.

Teacher: But first, we will repeat the material we have previously studied, because repetition is the mother of learning.

Slide No. 3

Teacher: Please compare the participants in military campaigns with the dates.

(the teacher checks the students' answers by clicking the mouse). Now please tell me, what do you see as the reasons for Alexander Nevsky’s success in his victories? ( approximate student answers:

Slide No. 4

Battle of the Neva: having learned about the appearance of the Swedes, Alexander with his squad and militia quickly approached the Neva. Despite the small number of his troops, Alexander unexpectedly attacked the enemy, trying to cut him off from the ships. Panic began among the Swedes and they were soon defeated.

Slides No. 5,6,7,8,9

Battle of the Ice: In 1242 A new enemy - the knights of the Teutonic Order - attacked the Russian lands. They took possession of Pskov due to the betrayal of the local mayor and began to prepare an invasion of the lands that belonged to Novgorod.The knights built their army in a special way - their battle formation resembled a pig. In the center and on the sides stood heavily armed horsemen, behind - light cavalry and in the center - heavily armed infantry. The enemy was surrounded, breaking through his formation.

The decisive battle with the Order took place on April 5, 1242 on Lake Peipus. Knowing the tactics of the knights, Alexander led his squad onto the ice. He placed his convoy right next to the steep bank. The main forces, the princely squad, lined up in front of him. On the flanks there were regiments of the right and left hands. And on the right flank Alexander hid an ambush regiment. Archers positioned themselves in front of the squad. The battle began with the knights attacking the center of the Novgorod army. The “Pig” broke through the Novgorod system, it seemed that victory was close, but then the knights ran into a steep bank, and carts from the convoy prevented them from turning around. Taking advantage of the enemy's stop, Alexander gave the order to go on the offensive to the regiments of the right and left hands, and soon the ambush regiment struck.The crusaders, who did not expect such a turn of events, wavered. Soon their retreat turned into a stampede. In addition to everything, the ice could not withstand their weight and began to crack.)

Teacher: Right. In other words, A. Nevsky turned the enemy’s strengths into weaknesses, or even against them.

This is a good example for all of us that will come in handy in life - the ability to find a way out of difficult situations.

3. Studying new material.

Teacher: Now let's move on to our topic.

Slide No. 10

Teacher: As an epithet, I would like to give you an example of the epithet of Marcus Tullius Cicero, an ancient Roman statesman: “ O tempora! O mores!”(Oh, times! Oh, morals). What were the times in the economic life of our country, the morals, and the position of various social groups in the 14th and 15th centuries?

As you know - Rus' in the 14th-15th centuries. was dependent on the Mongol-Tatars. And it all started with Batu’s invasion. Please find in the textbook where it talks about the results of Batu’s invasion? (Plano Carpini - papal ambassador to Mongolia: the Tatars “carried out a great massacre in the land of Russia, destroyed cities and fortresses and killed people... As we rode through their land, we found countless heads and bones of dead people lying on the field.”

The once populous Kyiv “has been reduced to almost nothing: there are barely two hundred houses there; and people... they keep them in the most severe slavery” Slide No. 11).

Teacher: What morals did the Mongol-Tatars have? Here is Plano Carpini's testimony about the morals of the Tatars. Read and distribute them into 2 columns. Slide No. 12

There are rarely or never arguments between them, but never fights, wars, quarrels, wounds, murders never happen between them...

At first, however, they are flattering, but in the end they sting like a scorpion. Some respect each other enough, and they are all quite friendly with each other.

They don't seem to have mutual envy.

They are cunning and deceivers and, if they can, bypass everyone with cunning.

Their women are chaste, and nothing is heard of their shamelessness among them...

Discord between them arises either rarely or never.

Compared to other people, they are very short-tempered and irritable in temperament, and they are also much more deceitful than other people.

Teacher: By what criteria did you distribute these statements? (sample answer: Positive and negative morals) Slides No. 13-14

For more than two centuries, our country was dependent on the Mongol-Tatars. This is how the outstanding Russian poet A.S. Pushkin describes the fate of Russia: ( Slide No. 15)“Russia was destined for a high destiny... Its vast plains absorbed the power of the Mongols... and stopped their invasion at the very edge of Europe; The barbarians did not dare to leave enslaved Rus' in their rear and returned to the steppes of their east. The resulting enlightenment was saved by a torn and dying Russia...”

If at that time in Western Europe Gothic buildings were erected, manuscripts and works were copied, then in Rus' until the end of the 13th century. Stone construction stopped, some crafts, the compilation of chronicles, and the copying of manuscripts died out. But, despite this, the inhabitants of Rus' got down to business - they rebuilt huts, plowed up abandoned arable land, established crafts...

(before the start of group work, it is possible to conduct a physical training session)

Guys, let us structure our further lesson as follows: we will divide into groups and each group will complete tasks. Using the textbook, answer the questions and together write a short report for the presentation. Slide No. 16

Group 1: How was the restoration of agriculture and cities of Rus' going?

Group 2: Describe the situation of peasants and slaves?

Group 3: Describe the situation of artisans and merchants?

4. Consolidation.

(Students’ speeches and additions on questions asked)

Sample answers:

Slide No. 17

Restoration of peasant farms:

They began to cultivate fields abandoned during the invasion

New areas appeared (“clean”, “sich”)

Along with cutting and fallowing, three-field crop rotation was more widely used

Yield growth

Hunting, fishing, beekeeping, etc.

Slide No. 18

Urban restoration:

The following are reviving their skills: blacksmiths, gunsmiths, foundries, tanners, shoemakers, potters, carpenters, masons, icon makers.

Innovation: casting cannons, minting silver coins.

Cities - centers of trade

Development of economic ties between principalities

Slide No. 19

Peasants and serfs:

The peasants were called “people”, “orphans”, “isorniks”, “smerds”, “Christians”. In the 15th century began to be called "peasants".

Peasants who had neither land nor a yard were called courtyard workers and backyard workers.

Peasants paid taxes ( quitrent ) and bore duties ( corvée )

Serfs were called “full people.” They were the property of their masters.

Slaves were divided into:

Household servants performing the duties of servants

The sufferers who worked on the master's arable land

Orderly people (tiuns, housekeepers, villagers) who manage certain sectors of the economy

Military men who went on campaigns with the master

Reasons for frequent pogroms of boyar villages by peasants and slaves:

Seizure of lands and transfer of them to boyars, monasteries, nobles

Increase in taxes and duties

Craftsmen and merchants:

Traders and artisans were called “posad people”, due to the fact that they lived in the posad, near the fortress, where they were “planted” by princes and boyars. They played a significant role in economic and political life: they provided money for construction, for all kinds of emergency expenses of the authorities, and often lent money to rulers.

During the unrest, the townspeople destroyed the courtyards of rich boyars and merchants in the cities, since they seized their lands, courtyards, settlements, and enslaved city residents.

It should be noted the unequal position of artisans in the cities - among them there were rich owners of individual courtyards, large workshops, and there were also small artisans who barely made ends meet, often enslaved as slaves.

Among the merchants, the richest were the “guests of Surozh” (traded with the city of Surozh (Sudak) in Crimea and other southern countries) and “cloth makers” (traded, in particular, cloth with Western countries). They had rich mansions in the cities and built churches with their own money. The bulk of merchants were small traders.

5. Reflection.Slide No. 20

Teacher: Thank you all for your work and your performances. And now I’ll ask you to tell me what worked for you in this lesson and what didn’t work for you.

6.Homework:Slide No. 21

Teacher: Homework assignment. Using the textbook materials, answer the question: to What public groups were interested in uniting and why?

Economy - from decline to rise. Recently Batu withdrew his hordes from Galicia-Volyn Rus'. Daniil Galitsky and his brother Vasilko rode through their devastated lands to Berest, on the Western Bug (modern Brest). Approaching him, both princes were choking from the stench - countless corpses lay all around. And a few years later, Plano Carpini, the papal ambassador, traveled through the southern Russian principalities to Mongolia. Shocked by what he saw and heard, he wrote: the Tatars “carried out a great massacre in the land of Russia, destroyed cities and fortresses and killed people...

As we rode through their land, we found countless heads and bones of dead people lying on the field." The once populous Kyiv “has been reduced to almost nothing: there are barely two hundred houses there; and people... they keep in the most severe slavery.” Archaeological excavations fully confirm these reports from written sources.

Many thousands of dead, taken captive, devastated cities and villages, looted property, burned farms, workshops - this was the terrible result of the bloody tornado that struck Rus'.

For Western Europe, Rus' in the era of “Batu’s ruin” became a kind of shield, while it itself was bleeding. No one has said this better than Pushkin: “Russia was destined for a high destiny... Its vast plains absorbed the power of the Mongols and stopped their invasion at the very edge of Europe; The barbarians did not dare to leave enslaved Rus' in their rear and returned to the steppes of their east. The resulting enlightenment was saved by a torn and dying Russia...” In those years when churches and manuscripts were destroyed in Rus', beautiful Gothic buildings were erected in Western Europe, new laws and literary works were created. The Renaissance was ahead. And in Russian cities almost until the end of the 13th century. Stone construction stopped, many craft techniques were forgotten (filigree, filigree, etc.), the compilation of chronicles, the copying of manuscripts, etc. froze, completely or partially.

Of course, life demanded its own, and the Russian people, having cried and lamented their fate, got down to business: they rebuilt huts and boyar mansions, plowed up arable land, and established fisheries.

Gradually, the peasants restored their farms and again began to cultivate all the fields abandoned during the invasion. And in some places “cleans” and “sichs” appeared - new areas cleared of forest and bushes. In wastelands and forest clearings, repairs are growing - newly built settlements of one or two courtyards or more.

Harvest. Miniature from the chronicle

Despite many obstacles - strife among princes, attacks by Tatars, Lithuanians, German and Swedish knights, crop failures and epidemics - agriculture and livestock farming in the XIV-XV centuries. gave more and more products.

Along with cutting (1) and fallowing (2), peasants increasingly used the fallow farming system with a three-field crop rotation (yarl, winter and fallow). Their number of horses and oxen increases as the ploughing expands. More draft animals means more manure on the fields; Yields are growing, albeit slowly. In addition to their main occupations, rural residents engaged in hunting, fishing, beekeeping, etc. The culture of agricultural and commercial labor spread to previously undeveloped areas.

Cities are also slowly recovering. Blacksmiths, specialists in the production of weapons and armor (archers, armor-smiths), foundry and bell makers, tanners and shoemakers, potters and masons, carpenters and icon makers are reviving their skills. Innovations appeared - the casting of cannons (their use was first mentioned in Russian chronicles in 1382), the minting of silver coins (from the second half of the 14th century, in the next century “silver livets” worked in more than 20 cities).

The cities served as centers of trade exchange. Artisans from Moscow, Novgorod, Pskov, Tver and other cities worked at the market. In rural areas, local exchange prevailed - between individual villages; sometimes peasants with their products traveled to more remote volosts, cities, and commercial and industrial settlements. Extensive trade was carried out by the monasteries - Trinity-Sergiev, Kirillo-Belozersky, Solovetsky, Simonov, etc.; they brought salt, fish, bread to various principalities for sale, and bought the necessary goods in the cities.

Most of the city's "trades" - markets - were primarily of local importance; others - the importance of regional markets (Novgorod the Great, Pskov, Moscow, Tver, Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan). Thus, economic ties between the principalities developed and strengthened, which contributed to the desire for unification. Merchants and princes fought for possession of trade routes along the Volga, Oka, and Don, which clashed the interests of Moscow, Tver, Ryazan and other merchants. Russian merchants traded with the Golden Horde and Central Asia, Transcaucasia and Crimea, Byzantium and Italy, Lithuania and the countries of Northern Europe. The difficulties and obstacles created for Rus' in trade affairs by foreign neighbors also dictated the course towards unification and centralization.

Peasants and serfs. A lot of new things have appeared in the status of the estates. More and more communal, black lands passed to princes, boyars, and the church through seizures, donations, and purchase and sale. Thus, the Moscow Grand Duke Ivan Kalita had more than 50 villages with land, and his great-great-grandson Vasily the Dark already had more than 125 villages. The predominant form of land ownership of feudal lords - votchina - is associated with the unconditional right to transfer land by inheritance, purchase and sale (primarily by relatives of the votchinnaya).

Along with it, conditional land ownership appears - an estate, that is, land that the prince gives to his palace or military servants as a reward and under the condition of fulfilling certain duties and obligations.

Construction of the monastery. Miniature from the chronicle

This is how landowners appeared, known under different names back in pre-Mongol Rus'.

From old memory, the peasants were called “people”, “orphans”, “smerds”. Increasingly, rural residents are called “Christians.” True, until the 15th century. This word was also used to call the townspeople. But then this name in the form “peasants” began to be applied only to the rural population.

A peasant who “sat” on land with a three-field crop rotation had an average of 5 dessiatines (a dessiatine is 1.1 hectares) in one field, 15 dessiatines in three fields. Rich peasants “rented” additional plots from patrimonial owners in black volosts; poor peasants often had neither land nor a yard (the latter lived in other people's yards and were called “podvorniks”, “zakhrebetniks”).

Peasants who lived on the lands of patrimonial owners and landowners bore corvee duties to the owners of the land - they plowed and sowed their land, harvested crops, cut hay, caught fish and hunted animals. Products were contributed to the dues - meat and lard, vegetables and fruits, and much more.

Since the 15th century the owners began to constrain the peasants in their ancient right to change hands. In different places, certain days are introduced for such a transition, timed to coincide with the end of harvesting work.

Serfs were called “full people” or simply “people”. They were the property of their masters, who could sell and buy them, give them as gifts and transfer them as a dowry, by inheritance. The law regarded the murder of a slave by a master as a sin, not a crime. Some of the serfs performed the duties of servants in the houses and courtyards of the owners (“courtyard”, “domestic”), others worked on the lord’s arable land (“sufferers”), others managed certain sectors of the economy (“orderly people” - tiuns, housekeepers, ambassadors ). Finally, there were military serfs who went on campaigns with the master.

Some slaves served their masters until their death, others served for a certain period of time “according to a series” (agreement), and others were inherited. The owners “planted” some slaves on the land, and they became closer in status to the peasants - they were given plots of arable land, haymaking, and livestock.

The authorities and feudal lords looked at the peasants' transitions to other lands during field work as escapes and fought against them. The peasants protested against the seizure of their lands, the transfer to boyars, monasteries, and nobles, and against the increase in the norms of corvée labor and quitrent contributions.

Craftsmen and merchants. Craftsmen living in cities differed in their property status. Among them were wealthy owners of individual courtyards, large workshops, and there were also small artisans who could barely make ends meet and were often enslaved as slaves. Among the merchants, the richest were the “state-surozhans” (traded with the city of Surozh (Sudak) in Crimea and other southern cities) and “cloth makers” (traded, in particular, cloth with Western countries). They had rich mansions in the cities and built churches with their own money. The bulk of merchants were small traders.

Craftsmen gathered in artels or squads (icon painters, carpenters, masons, etc.) and had apprentices. They often lived within the same “street” or “end”, “row” or “hundred”, had their own churches, and had judicial rights (“brotherhoods”, “communities” of artisans at churches). These were a kind of craft associations, somewhat reminiscent of the guilds of Western Europe.

Merchants also had their own associations, or corporations, in the manner of European guilds. They built their own churches (for example, the Church of St. John Chrysostom of the Moscow “guests-surozhans”, the Church of Ivan the Baptist on Opoki of the Novgorod wax merchants). They stored merchant goods, measures of length and weight, etc.

Traders and artisans lived in the settlement, near the fortress, the Kremlin, where they were “planted,” that is, settled, by princes and boyars; This is where their name comes from - townspeople. They made up a small proportion of the population of Rus', but played a significant role in the economic and political life of all principalities. The townspeople gave money for construction, for all sorts of emergency expenses, and often lent money, and considerable money, to the rulers.

Interested in peace and tranquility, they, like the peasants, supported those princes who sought the unification of Russian lands, an end to endless strife, and opposed the Horde.

During the unrest, the townspeople destroyed the courtyards of rich boyars and merchants, as they seized land, courtyards, settlements in the cities, and turned city residents into slaves.

The cities became centers of heresies that penetrated Rus' in the 14th-15th centuries. Heretics denied church dogmas (for example, the immaculate conception of Jesus Christ), sacraments and rituals (communion, confession, funeral prayers), and icons. The most famous heretics of the 14th century. were the Novgorod Strigolniki (there is no consensus among historians about the origin of this name). Opponents accused them of locking the doors of churches during a fire in the city so that icons and other sacred objects could not be taken out, and looting church property. Strigolniki believed that church services could be conducted by the laity themselves and opposed the acquisition of lands and other property by the church. Similar views, to a certain extent rationalistic in content, were expressed by the heretics of Tver, Rostov the Great, Pskov, and later Moscow.

Questions and tasks:

1. What results did the Mongol-Tatar invasion of Rus' and foreign rule that established over Russian lands lead to?
2. What indicates the rise of the Russian economy that occurred in the 14th-15th centuries?
3. Describe the main social groups of Rus' at the time under study. What conclusions can be drawn about the life of the country and the structure of the state based on studying the social structure of that time?
4. What prerequisites for the unification of Russian lands are manifested in the conditions of development and strengthening of the economy?
5. Which public groups were interested in uniting and why?

(1) Cutting is a farming system in which a forest area is cut down, dried trees are burned, and grain is sown on an area fertilized with ash. The site is used until the soil is depleted; then, having abandoned it, they cut down a new area, etc.

(2) Fallow season - with this system, the field is sown for several years in a row, then it rests for several years, then it is plowed up again, etc.

Russian political institutions of the Kievan period were based on a free society, in which there were no insurmountable barriers between different social groups of free people, there were no hereditary castes or classes, and it was still easy to leave one group and find yourself in another. In our opinion, we can speak conditionally about the presence of social classes in Russia at this time.

The main social groups of this period:

1) The upper classes are princes, boyars and other owners of large land estates, rich merchants in cities.

2) Middle class - merchants and craftsmen (in cities), owners of medium and small estates (in rural areas).

3) The lower classes are the poorest artisans and peasants who inhabited state lands. In addition to free people in Kievan Rus there were also semi-free and slaves.

Let's take a closer look at all of the above social groups.

At the top of the social ladder were the princes, led by the Grand Duke of Kyiv. From the middle of the 11th century. Appanage principalities appeared in Rus' - the “fatherlands” of individual princes. These are, for example, Chernigov, Pereyaslav, Smolensk and other principalities. “Fatherland” was the property of the entire princely family. They were inherited in accordance with the “queue”.

Ideas about the political system of Kievan Rus in which the community-veche power is separated from the princely power and, thus, opposed to each other, in our opinion, are unlawful, since this destroys the unity of the social structure of Kievan society, and the princely and druzhina nobility finds itself isolated from the zemstvo environment position, thereby turning into a kind of closed supra-class social category. It is intended to consider the veche and the prince in Kyiv within the framework of a single socio-political integrity, where the veche is the supreme authority, and the prince is the personification of the highest executive power, accountable and subordinate to the veche. The prince, being the head of the community administration, at the same time himself represented the community power, performing various functions. That is why the prince was a necessary element of the socio-political structure. In the XI-early XII centuries. The process of forming a republic, not a monarchy, was underway. Republican orders developed in Kyiv somewhat earlier than even in Novgorod, the republican system of which is undeservedly recognized by modern historiography as a phenomenal phenomenon in Ancient Rus'. Of course, the Grand Duke as an institution harbored potentially monarchical qualities and properties. But in order for them to get a “way out” and prevail, other social and political conditions were necessary. These conditions arose outside the Old Russian period of Russian history.

In addition to the princely boyars - governors, governors of the regions, there was also a pedigree aristocracy - “deliberate children”: children of former local princes, clan and tribal elders, relatives of the first two groups. They also went on overseas campaigns with the Kyiv princes, but were closely connected with a certain territory, on which their fortified settlements with rich lands stood from time immemorial.

In general, the boyars were a group of heterogeneous origins. Its basis was made up of the descendants of the old clan aristocracy of the Antes. Some of the boyars, especially in Novgorod, came from merchant families. With the growth of princely power in Kyiv, the princely entourage became an important factor in the formation of the boyar class. The squad included Normans and Slavs, as well as knights and adventurers of other nationalities, such as Ossetians, Circassians, Magyars and Turks - those who craved military glory and wealth under the banner of the Kyiv prince.

In the 9th century, merchants were closely connected with the princely power, since the princes who collected tribute themselves organized trade expeditions to sell tribute in Constantinople or in the East.

Later, “private” merchants appeared. A significant part of them were small traders (like later peddlers). Rich merchants carried out large operations inside and outside Rus'. Less wealthy merchants founded their own guilds or formed family companies.

Craftsmen of each specialty usually settled and traded on the same street, forming their own association or “street” guild. In other words, artisans united in professional groups of one type or another, which later became known as artels.

With the growth of the church, a new social group emerged, the so-called “church people.” This group included not only the clergy and members of their families, but also members of various charitable institutions supported by the church, as well as freed slaves. The Russian clergy was divided into two groups: the “black clergy” (that is, monks) and the “white clergy” (priests and deacons). According to Byzantine rules, only monks were ordained bishops in the Russian Church. Contrary to the practice of the Roman Church, Russian priests were usually chosen from among those willing.

The free population of Rus' was usually called “people”. The bulk of it were peasants. In rural areas, the traditional large family community (zadruga) was gradually replaced by smaller families and individual land owners. Even if several neighbors owned land jointly, each developed their plot individually.

In addition to the communal landowners, there was also a group of peasants who lived on state lands, known as smerds. These were still free people, under the special protection and special jurisdiction of the prince. For the use of the plot, they paid rent in kind and performed work: transportation, construction or repair of houses, roads, bridges. In addition, they had to pay a state tax (the so-called "tribute"), which was not paid by either city residents or middle-class landowners. If the smerd did not have a son, the land was returned to the prince. As noted by B.A. Rybakov, ancient Russian smerds of the 11th-12th centuries. are depicted as a significant part of the semi-peasant feudal-dependent population of Kievan Rus. Smerd was personally free. Together with his family, he ran his own farm. The prince gave the smerd land on the condition that he would work for him. In the event of the death of a smerd who had no sons, the land returned to the prince. For his right to own an independent farm, the smerd paid tribute to the prince. For the debts, the stink was in danger of becoming a feudal-dependent purchase. With the development of feudalism, the role of smerds in Kievan Rus decreased. It should be noted that sources provide very little information about smerdas. Based on all of the above, we can assume the following: smerds are a special category of the enslaved rural population, which could be divided into feudal-dependent and personally free, or smerd is an ordinary free citizen, since everywhere it is presented by Russian Pravda as a person with unlimited legal capacity.

The dependent category of the peasantry included purchases - people who took out a kupa (in debt). If it was possible to return the kupa, while paying the cuts (interest), the person became free again; if not, he became a serf. In the patrimony they worked in the master's plowing or in the master's house under the supervision of ryadovichi (Ryadovichi are people who entered the service under a “row” - contract). The main source for studying procurement is the Russian Truth of the Long Edition. Zakup is a person who has fallen into debt bondage and is obliged by his work in the lender's household to return the purchase received from him. He performed rural work: worked in the field, looked after the master's livestock. The feudal lord provided the purchase with a land plot, as well as agricultural implements and draft animals. The purchase was limited in its rights. First of all, this concerned the right to leave the “master,” but it was forbidden to sell purchases as slaves. The purchase could act in court as a witness in minor cases and go to court against his master. The growth of purchasing was associated with the development of private land ownership.

The most powerless members of society were slaves and servants. Slavery in Kievan Rus was of two types - temporary and permanent. The latter, known as "total slavery", was hereditary. The bulk of temporary slaves were prisoners of war. In the end, prisoners of war were released for ransom. If someone was not able to pay it, he remained at the disposal of his captor, and what he earned was counted towards the ransom. When the entire amount was collected, the prisoner of war was released. Full slaves were considered the property of their master and could be bought and sold. Some of them were used in the family craft, the rest worked in the fields. There were cases where slave artisans reached a certain level of skill and gradually became able to pay for their freedom. On the other hand, if a free person lost his property as a result of a raid by steppe nomads or for another reason and found himself in a desperate situation, he could give himself into slavery (by this act, of course, he excluded himself from the ranks of citizens). He had another choice: to borrow money to work for his lender and pay him back. This made him “semi-free,” temporarily bound to his creditor. If he managed to fulfill his obligations, his civil rights were restored; if he violated the agreement and tried to hide from his master, he became the latter's slave.

In Kievan Rus, the unfree part of the population were slaves. In the X-XII centuries. captive slaves were called “servants.” They were completely powerless. People who became slaves for other reasons were called serfs. The sources of servility were: self-sale, marriage to a slave “without a row”, entry into the position of a tiun or housekeeper. An escaped or guilty purchaser automatically turned into a slave. A bankrupt debtor could be sold into slavery for debts. The slave in some cases was endowed with certain rights. Thus, being a boyar tiun, he could appear in court as a witness. Debt servitude became widespread, ending once the debt was paid. Serfs were usually used as domestic servants. In some estates there were also so-called arable serfs, planted on the land and having their own farm.

Outcasts are “outdated” people, knocked out of their usual rut, deprived of their previous condition. The Charter of Prince Vsevolod (1193) calls outcasts “church people, almshouses”, about whom the church should take care. In reality, most of them were feudal-dependent people who, over time, fell into bondage to church and secular feudal lords. A significant contingent of feudal-dependent outcasts was formed at the expense of slaves who had bought their freedom. As a rule, they did not break ties with the master and remained under his authority. However, there were cases when a freed slave left his master. Such outcast freedmen, who broke with their former masters, usually became dependent on the church. Along with them there were outcasts - people from the free strata of ancient Russian society. Sources also name freedmen, strangling people, slingers and patrimonial artisans as the feudal-dependent population.