Vladimir-Basil, 'new Constantine' and patriarch
Vladimir was acclaimed by later churchmen as an 'apostle among rulers' who had saved them from the devil's wiles.[20] The devil bemoaned expulsion from where he had thought to make his home. Such imagery was fostered by the spectaculars staged in the wake of Vladimir's own baptism, and in the second half of the eleventh century a Kievan monk could still recall 'the baptism of the land of Rus".[21] Kiev's citizens were ordered into the Dnieper for mass baptism. The idol of Perun was dragged by a horse's tail and thrashed with rods, then tossed in the river and kept moving as far as the Rapids, clear of Rus'. Vladimir ordered 'wood to be cut and churches put up on the sites where idols had stood'; 'the idols were smashed and icons of saints were installed.'[22]
This scenario of purification and transformation must be qualified. A fair proportion of the Rus' elite were probably more or less Christian just before the conversion: there had been baptised Rus' in the 940s. Conversely, the extent and nature of the 'Christianisation' of ordinary folk, especially those living outside towns and the immediate sway of princely agents, is very uncertain. Even the chronicle merely has Vladimir getting people baptised 'in all the towns and villages'. Priests were assigned to towns, rather than villages. It was pagan idols, sanctuaries and communal rituals - alternative focuses of loyalties and expectation - that were swept away.
The churchmen's portrayal of Vladimir's achievement is not, however, sheer make-believe. The initiatives taken by Vladimir were intended to associate his regime indissolubly with the Christian God and His saints, making promotion of the Church a function of princely rule. And he succeeded in embedding a version of Christianity in the political culture of Rus'. No aspiring prince in Rus' mounted a pagan revival, unlike some usurpers in Scandinavia. Vladimir's Christian leadership predicated victories and the vein of triumphalism in the Primary Chronicle's depiction of Vladimir's activities at Cherson probably relays his own propaganda. But he also exploited his new-found ties with a court renowned among the Rus' for God-given wealth. Anna Porphyrogenita would eventually be laid to rest in a marble sarcophagus beside Vladimir's own, a symbol of parity of status as well as conjugal bonds. Anna probably lived in the halls built on the Starokievskaia Hill and graced the feasts held there every Sunday, presumably after religious services in the church of the Mother of God which the halls flanked. These stone and brick buildings were the work of 'masters' from Byzantium and were embellished with wall-paintings and marble furnishings. The church's design seems to have followed that of the main church in the emperor's palace complex, the church of the Pharos, and they shared a dedicatee, the Mother of God. Vladimir was inviting comparisons between his own residence and that of the emperor. The message that he could match the Greeks was underlined when he placed a certain Anastasius in charge of his palace church. Reputedly, Anastasius had betrayed Cherson to Vladimir by revealing where the pipes supplying its water ran; once these were cut, the thirst-stricken Chersonites surrendered.[23] A number of other priests from Cherson were assigned to the church, which became known as the 'Tithe church' (Desiotinnoio) because of the tenth of revenues allocated to it. The relics of St Clement brought back from Cherson had a prominent position, while looted antique statuary was displayed outside. Thus the show church served as a kind of victory monument to Vladimir's role in the conversion of his people.
The middle Dnieper is the region where Rus' churchmen's rhetoric concerning 'new Christian people, the elect of God' rings most true. In order to protect his cult centre, Vladimir established new settlements far into the steppe, taking advantage of the black earth's fertility. Kiev itself was enlarged to enclose some 10 hectares within a formidable earthen rampart and ramparts of similar technique were raised to the south of the town. The construction of barriers and strongholds along the main tributaries of the Dnieper brought a new edge to Rus' relations with the nomads. Although never unproblematic, these had hitherto involved constant trading and had more often than not been peaceable. There was now, according to the Primary Chronicle, 'great and unremitting strife'34 and although Kiev was secure, even the largest of the fortified towns shielding it came under pressure from the Pechenegs. Belgorod, south-west of Kiev, underwent a prolonged siege. It did not, however, fall and this owed something to the layers of unfired bricks forming the core of the ramparts, which still stand between five and six metres high. They enclosed some 105 hectares, and a very high level of organisation was needed to supply the inhabitants. The princely authorities adapted techniques from the Byzantine world, not only brick- and glass-making but also plans for large cisterns and a beacon system perhaps fuelled by naphtha. Few new towns matched Belgorod or Pereiaslavl' in size and many settlements lacked ramparts, the nearby forts serving as places of refuge. But the grain and other produce grown by the farmers fed the cavalrymen and horses stationed in the forts, sickles and ploughshares were manufactured in the smithies, and nexuses of trade burgeoned. Finds of glazed tableware and, in substantial quantities, amphorae and glass bracelets attest the prosperity of the settlements' defenders. The risks of voyages to Byzantium were mitigated - though never dispelled - by ramparts beside the Dnieper and a large fortified harbour near the River Sula's confluence with the Dnieper, at Voin. Cavalry could escort boats to the Rapids, and from the late tenth century the Byzantine government let the Rus' establish a trading settlement in the Dnieper estuary.
The middle Dnieper region had not been densely populated before Vladimir's reign. He is represented by the Primary Chronicle as rounding up 'the best men' from among the Slav and Finnish inhabitants of the forest zone and installing them in his settlements.35 The newcomers to the hundred or more forts and settlements in the great arc protecting Kiev were prime targets for evangelisers, as well as raiders. Divine intervention supporting princely leadership was in constant demand, and one of the few bishoprics quite firmly attributable to Vladimir's reign is that of Belgorod. At Vasil'ev Vladimir founded a church and held a great feast in thanksgiving, after hiding under its bridge from pursuing Pechenegs. The apparent intensity of pastoral care and the deracination of most of the population from northern habitats made inculcation of Christian observances the more effective. Judging by the funerary rituals in the burial grounds of these settlements, few flagrantly pagan practices persisted. Barrows were not heaped over graves in cemeteries within a 250-kilometre radius of Kiev, or in regions such as the Cherven towns where Christianity was already well established. Elsewhere barrows were much more common, although heaped over plain Christian burials. The small circular barrows often contained pottery, ashes and food symbolising - if not left over from - funeral feasts, occasions of which the Church disapproved.
The regions and key points where Vladimir's conversion transformed the landscape, physically as well as figuratively, were finite but the number of persons affected was considerable. New Christian communities were instituted in the middle Dnieper region and existing ones in the trading network massively reinforced, especially in the northern towns frequented by Christians from the Scandinavian world. Novgorod was made an episcopal see. Churches were most probably built and priests appointed in Smolensk and Polotsk, albeit without resident bishops. Even in north-eastern outposts, Christianity became the cult of retainers and other princely agents, and it appealed to locals trafficking with them and aspiring to raise their own status. At Uglich on the upper Volga (as at Smolensk, Pskov and Kiev itself) the pagan burial grounds were destroyed in the wake of Vladimir's conversion and in the first quarter of the eleventh century a church dedicated to Christ the Saviour was built. Soon members of the elite began to fill St Saviour's graveyard in strict accordance with Church canons. Vladimir's tribute collectors and other itinerant agents did not just owe allegiance in return for treasure such as his new-fangled silver coins, share-outs of tribute and sumptuous feasts featuring silver spoons, important as these were (for examples of Vladimir's silver coins, see Plate 2). They had religious affiliations with him: greed, ambition and concern for individual survival in life and after death fused with loyalty to the prince. Vladimir probably saw the advantages of instilling the faith into the next generation. There is no particular reason to doubt that the children of 'notable families' were taken off to be instructed in 'book learning' while their mothers, 'still not strong in the faith . . . wept for them as if they were dead'.[24]
20
(1976), 197-244; reprintedin his
30 Ilarion, 'Slovo o zakone i blagodati', in D. S. Likhachev et al. (eds.),