Medieval Novgorod
v. L. IANIN
It would be difficult to find a medieval Russian city with a more distinctive history than Novgorod.
For the last seventy years medieval Novgorod has been the subject of intensive archaeological investigation. The results of these excavations have provided significant compensation for the regrettable scarcity of conventional sources for the history of early Rus'. This scarcity was caused by environmental factors. Throughout the Middle Ages (and well into modern times, too) Russians lived in wooden houses, and the towns which constituted their cultural centres comprised a collection of wooden structures which regularly fell victim to fires.
It is a distinctive feature of the cultural layer of Novgorod that because of its high humidity and the consequent absence of aeration, all kinds of ancient items have been preserved, including those made from organic materials (wood, bone, leather, cloth and grain) which are usually irreversibly destroyed in normal circumstances. This peculiarity has enabled researchers to establish precise dates for all the objects which have been discovered in the excavations, by means of dendrochronology. It also permitted the great discovery in 1951 of documents written on birch bark, which were preserved in ideal conditions in the cultural strata. By the end of the fieldwork season in 2003, 949 birch-bark documents had been found in Novgorod itself, plus one in nearby Gorodishche, and a further 57 in the surrounding district (38 in Staraia Rusa and 19 in Torzhok). Of these, about 500 were found in strata dating from the eleventh century to the first third of the thirteenth century This has significantly increased the number of written sources available for the early medieval period, and it has enabled scholars to carry out a fundamental re-examination of many problems which had long been the subject of disputes.
The origins of Novgorod
The vast territory of the Russian north-west has an abundance of forests, lakes and marshes, but a great scarcity of arable land. For a long period (from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages) it was inhabited by tribes of the Finno-Ugrian linguistic group. From the fifth and sixth centuries ad the region was invaded by Slavonic tribes, but this did not lead to any conflict with the indigenous population. While the primary economic activity of the indigenous inhabitants was fishing and hunting, the Slavs tilled the land and cultivated cereals. Thus the two ethnic groups gravitated towards different types of settlement areas and did not interfere with one another.
For a long time historians believed that the Slav immigrants (the Novgorod Slovenes and Krivichi) had come from the middle Dnieper. It was assumed that before the division of Rus' into separate principalities in the twelfth century the eastern Slavs all spoke the same language, and that it was only in the twelfth century that dialects began to form, a development which was accelerated by the Tatar invasion of the thirteenth century. The study of the hundreds of birch-bark documents has, however, shown that the process worked in a completely opposite way. It turned out that the distinctive features of the Novgorod dialect were most evident in texts dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and that subsequently they gradually disappeared as a result of contacts with other East Slav dialects. A search for parallels to the characteristics of the Novgorod dialect led to the conclusion that Slavonic migration to the Russian north-west originated from the territory of modern Poland and northern Germany, and that this was where the ancestors of the medieval Novgorodians came from.[1] This conclusion has been confirmed by archaeological and anthropological evidence.
The most important event in the early history of the north-west region of Rus' was its temporary subjection to the power of the Scandinavians. A later account in the Novgorod Chronicle states that the Varangians (i.e. Norsemen) exacted a general tribute (a squirrel-pelt per head) which they collected from the Slavonic tribes of the Slovenes and Krivichi and from the Finno-Ugrian tribe of the Chud', who had not previously been united. Their common misfortune led to an uprising against the Varangians, who were driven out. Once they had obtained their independence, the Slavonic and Finno-Ugrian tribes united and began to build towns, but subsequently they quarrelled among themselves and, not wanting to grant pre-eminence to any one of the three tribes (the Slovenes, the Krivichi and the Finno-Ugrians), they decided to invite a Varangian prince from overseas. This plan was put into effect when an invitation was issued in 859 or 862 to the Scandinavian Prince Riurik,[2] who presumably came from Denmark or Friesland. Riurik first settled at Ladoga, but soon moved to a more convenient spot at the source of the River Volkhov,[3] where the main East European trade routes intersected.
The likelihood that this event actually occurred has been confirmed by excavations at Gorodishche (3 kilometres from Novgorod), where the residence of the Novgorod princes was situated until the end of the fifteenth century. The archaeological evidence from Gorodishche proves that the site was indeed founded in the middle of the ninth century. It clearly demonstrates that the inhabitants belonged to the social elite, and that the predominant element was Norman.[4]
When did restrictions on the power of the prince first arise? This is one of the most important problems facing students of the political system of Novgorod. The restrictions were set out as conditions in the invitations issued to princes, and they are found in the oldest of the extant agreements between Novgorod and its prince, which date from the I260s (the earlier agreements have not survived). [5]
The most important restriction was that the invited prince and his retainers were forbidden to collect state taxes in the Novgorod lands. This right belonged to the Novgorodians themselves, who used the revenues they collected to pay the prince his so-called 'gift', that is, his remuneration for performing his duties. In the course of the Novgorod excavations in strata dating from the end of the tenth century to the first quarter of the twelfth century, wooden seals were frequently found; these were used to safeguard the contents of sacks containing the furs which had been collected as state revenues. These devices have inscriptions on them which indicate that the contents of the sack belonged to the prince or to the tax collectors themselves, who, according to Russkaia pravda (the oldest law code of Rus'), were allowed to keep a certain proportion of the collection for themselves. Altogether fifty-one of these items have been found, all of them in the homes of the Novgorodians themselves.
In several cases these finds were accompanied by birch-bark documents containing detailed information about the revenue collection, addressed to the individuals whose names were inscribed on the seals. Although the earliest of these seals to have survived dates from the end of the tenth century, similar finds in tenth-century strata in Szczecin in Poland, and in Dublin in Ireland, enable us to conclude that the custom of using such devices is of Norman origin; but the limitation of the power of the prince in such an important sphere as tax collection and the preparation of the state budget most probably goes back to the presumed agreement with Riurik.[6]
If this is the case, it explains why Riurik's successors - Oleg, and Riurik's son Igor' - left Novgorod. Breaking his agreement to serve as prince for life, Oleg moved south in order to conquer first Smolensk and then Kiev. His power in Kiev was therefore based not on an agreement, but on the right of a conqueror. Thus the prince was not limited in his actions, and he and his retinue were able to collect revenues (the poliud'e) in the lands subject to his authority.
1
A. A. Zalizniak, 'Novgorodskie berestianye gramoty s lingvisticheskoi tochki zreniia', in V L. Ianin and A. A. Zalizniak,
2
5
6
V L. Ianin,