by Riazanovsky
Novgorod: Institutions and Way of Life
Novgorod was an impressive city. Its population at the time of its independence numbered more than 30,000. Its location on the river Volkhov in a lake district assisted commerce and communication and supported strong defense. The Volkhov flows from Lake Ilmen to Lake Ladoga, opening the way to the Baltic Sea and trade centers beyond. This complex of waterways represented the northern section of the famed commercial route "from the Varangians to the Greeks," and it also connected well with the Volga and trade routes going east. As to defense, its location and the skill of the Novgorodians made the city virtually inaccessible to the enemy, at least during much of the year. Novgorod reportedly possessed sturdy wooden walls with towers of stone, although recently a fourteenth-century stone wall was discovered. It found further protection in defensive perimeters constructed roughly two and a half, seven, and twelve miles from the city. These defensive lines frequently had monasteries as strong points, and they skillfully utilized the difficult terrain. In particular, the Novgorodians were excellent hydraulic engineers and knew how to divert water against an advancing enemy.
Like other medieval towns, Novgorod suffered from crowding because everyone wanted to dwell within the walls. The rich families and their servants lived in large houses built in solid blocks and the poorer inhabitants used whatever area they could obtain. The Volkhov divided the city into two halves: the commercial side, where the main market was located, and that of St. Sophia. On the St. Sophia side stood, of course, the cathedral itself as well as the ancient kremlin, or citadel, of the city. The Novgorodians enjoyed the advantages of fire protection, streets ingeniously paved with wood, and a wooden water pipe system, the principles of which they had learned from Byzantium.
Local initiative, organization, and autonomy constituted the distinguishing traits of Novgorod. Several block houses in the city composed a street
which already had the status of a self-governing unit with its own elected elder. Several streets formed a sotnia, that is, a hundred. Hundreds in their turn combined into quarters, or kontsy, which totaled five. Each konets enjoyed far-reaching autonomy: not only did it govern itself through its own veche and officials, but it also possessed separately a part of the piatina lands, a large area outside the city limits and subject to Novgorod. The piatina holdings of a particular konets usually radiated from its city boundary. It should be added that distant Novgorodian territories did not belong to the piatina lands and were managed by the city as a whole. Also, because of the autonomy of the kontsy, formal Novgorodian documents had to be confirmed at times with as many as eight seals: one for each of the five kontsy and three for central authorities.
The chief central official remained the prince, who commanded the army and played a major role in justice and in administration. However, after the popular revolution and the expulsion of 1136, the veche proceeded to impose severe and minute restrictions on his power and activities. We have the precise terms of a number of such contracts between princes and the city, the earliest concluded with Alexander Nevskii's brother Iaroslav in 1265. As in most of these contracts, the prince promised to follow ancient Novgorodian custom in his government, to appoint only Novgorodians as administrators of the city's lands, not to dismiss officials without court action, and not to hold court without the posadnik, an elected official, or his delegate to represent the city. He had to establish his headquarters outside the city limits; he and his druzhina could not own land in Novgorod or trade with the Germans; his remuneration as well as his rights to hunt and to fish were all regulated in great detail. Thus, although in the course of time the grand prince of Moscow or at least a member of the Muscovite ruling family came to hold the office of prince in Novgorod, his power there remained quite limited.
The posadnik and the tysiatskii, elected by the veche, shared executive duties with the prince and if need be, especially the posadnik, protected the interests of the city from the prince. The posadnik served as the prince's main associate and assistant, who took charge of the administration and the army in the prince's absence. The tysiatskii, or chiliarch, had apparently at least two important functions: he commanded the town regiment or thousand - hence probably his name - and he settled commercial disputes. He has sometimes been regarded as a representative of the common people of Novgorod. The archbishop of Novgorod must also be mentioned. In addition to performing the highest ecclesiastical functions in the principality, he continuously played a leading role in political affairs, presiding over the Council of Notables, advising secular authorities, reconciling antagonistic factions, and sometimes heading Novgorodian embassies abroad.
Truly outstanding was the power of the Novgorodian veche, or town council, which usually met in the main market place. As we have seen, it invited and dismissed the prince, elected the posadnik and the tysiatskii, and determined the selection of the archbishop by electing three candidates for that position. It decided the issues of war and peace, mobilized the army, proclaimed laws, raised taxes, and acted in general as the supreme authority in Novgorod. A permanent chancellery was attached to it. The veche could be called together by the prince, an official, the people, or even a single person, through ringing the veche bell. One might add parenthetically that the removal of the bell by the Muscovites symbolized the end of the independence of Novgorod and of its peculiar constitution. The veche, composed as usual of all free householders, did settle many important matters, but it also frequently bogged down in violent factional quarrels promoted by its practices of direct democracy and unanimity of decision. The Novgorodians won respect as independent and self-reliant people who managed their own affairs. Yet the archbishop made many solemn appearances at the veche in a desperate effort to restore some semblance of order; and a legend grew up that the statue of the pagan god Perun, dumped into the river when the Novgorodians became Christian, reappeared briefly to leave a stick with which the townspeople have belabored one another ever since.
The Council of Notables also rose into prominence in Novgorodian politics, both because the veche could not conduct day-to-day business efficiently and, still more fundamentally, as a reflection of the actual distribution of wealth and power in the principality. Presided over by the archbishop, it included a considerable number of influential boyars, notably present and past holders of the offices of posadnik and tysiatskii, as well as heads of the kontsy and of the hundreds. The Council elaborated the legislative measures discussed or enacted by the veche and could often control the course of Novgorodian politics. It effectively represented the wealthy, so to speak aristocratic, element in the principality.
The judicial system of Novgorod deserves special mention. It exhibited a remarkable degree of elaboration, organization, and complexity, as well as high juridical and humanitarian standards. The prince, the posadnik, the tysiatskii, and the archbishop, all had their particular courts. A system of jurymen, dokladchiki, functioned in the high court presided over by the posadnik; the jurymen, ten in number, consisted of one boyar and one commoner from each of the five kontsy. Novgorodian jurisprudence also resorted frequently to mediation: the contending persons were asked to nominate two mediators, and only when the four failed to reach an agreement did court action follow. Judicial combat, after a solemn kissing of the cross, was used to reach the right decision in certain dubious cases. There seem to have been instances of such combat even between women.
Novgorodian punishments remained characteristically mild. Although the death penalty was not unknown, they consisted especially of fines and, on particularly grave occasions, of banishment with the loss of property and possessions which could be pillaged at will by the populace. In contrast to the general practices of the time, torture occupied little, if any, place in the Novgorodian judicial process. Much evidence reflects the high regard for human life characteristic of Novgorod; the Novgorodian Chronicle at times refers to a great slaughter when it speaks of the killing of several persons.
Novgorod stood out as a great
trading state. It exploited the enormous wealth of northern Russian forests, principally in furs, but also in wax and honey, for export to foreign markets, and it served, as already mentioned, as an intermediary point on extensive trade routes going in several directions. Manufactured goods, certain metals, and other items, such as herring, wine, and beer, were typical imports. Novgorod traded on a large scale with the island of Gotland and with the ports of the Baltic coast line, but its merchandise also reached England, Flanders, and other distant lands. Many merchants, especially from Gotland and Germany, came to Novgorod, where they enjoyed autonomy and a privileged position. Yet, the Novgo-rodians themselves engaged for a long time in active trade - a point which some scholars failed to appreciate. They went to foreign lands and, on the basis of reciprocal treaties, established Novgorodian commercial communities abroad, as attested by the two Russian churches on the island of Gotland and other evidence. It was in the second half of the thirteenth century, with the beginnings of the Hanseatic commercial league of northern European cities and the growth of its special commercial ships vastly superior to the rather simple boats of the Novgorodians, that Novgorod gradually shifted to a strictly passive role in trade.
While merchants, especially prosperous merchants engaged in foreign trade, constituted a very important element in Novgorod, Soviet research emphasized the significance of landed wealth, together with the close links between the two upper-class groups. In any case, social differentiation in Novgorod increased with time, leading to political antagonisms, reminiscent again of Italian cities and their conflicts between the rich and the poor, the populo grosso and the populo minuto. Apparently in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Novgorod became increasingly an oligarchy, with a few powerful families virtually controlling high offices. Thus, during most of the fourteenth century the posadniki came from only two families.
At the time when social tensions inside Novgorod increased, the city also found it more difficult to hold its sprawling lands together. The huge Novgorodian territories fell roughly into two groups: the piatina area and the more distant semi-colonial possessions in the sparsely populated far
north and east. In line with Novgorodian political practice, piatina towns, with their surrounding countryside, received some self-government, although their posadniki and tysiatskie were appointed from Novgorod rather than elected. Gradually decentralization increased, Viatka, in fact, becoming independent in the late twelfth century and Pskov in the middle of the fourteenth. In addition, as has been noted, Novgorod had to struggle continuously for the security and allegiance of many of its territories against the princes of the northeast, who came to be ably represented by the powerful and successful Muscovite rulers.
Moscow finally destroyed Novgorod. The outcome of their conflict had been in a sense predetermined by the fact that Novgorod, in spite of its swollen size, had remained essentially a city-state. Not surprisingly, many historians consider the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries as the golden age of Novgorod, although the principality gained additional territory in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Devoted to its highly specific and particularistic interests, it flourished in the appanage period when it stood out because of its wealth and its strength and when it could utilize the rivalries of its neighbors. Furthermore, by controlling its prince it had escaped subdivision into new appanages. But it proved unable to compete with Moscow in uniting the Russian people. As Moscow gathered Russian lands and as its last serious rival, the Lithuanian state, came to be linked increasingly to Poland and Catholicism, Novgorod lost its freedom of maneuver. Moscow's absorption of the city and its huge holdings in northern Russia represented the same kind of historical logic - with much less bloodshed - that led to the incorporation of southern France into the French state. Social conflicts made their contribution to this end when class differences and antagonism grew in Novgorod. It seems that in the decisive struggle with Moscow the poor of Novgorod preferred Ivan III to their own oligarchical government with its Lithuanian orientation.
Novgorodian culture too developed in an impressive manner. The city had the good fortune to escape Mongol devastation. In contrast to other appanage principalities, it contained sufficient wealth to continue Kievan cultural traditions on a grand scale. And it benefited from its rich contacts with the West. While Russian culture in the appanage period will be discussed in a later chapter, it is appropriate to note here that Novgorod became famous for its church architecture and its icon-painting, as well as for its vigorous and varied literature.
Moreover, it was in Novgorod that a Soviet search uncovered some seven hundred so-called birchbark documents, usually succinct businesslike notes or messages, which suggest a considerable spread of literacy among the general population of that city and area. Novgorodian literature embraced the writings of such archbishops of the city as Moses and Basil, travelogues, in particular accounts of visits to the Holy Land, and extremely
useful chronicles, together with an oral tradition which included a special cycle of byliny. The oldest surviving Russian, that is, Church Slavonic, manuscript, the illuminated so-called Ostromirovo Gospel of 1056-57, comes from Novgorod. Indeed, as is frequently the case, the culture of Novgorod survived the political downfall of the city to exercise a considerable influence on Moscow and on Russia in general.
Specialists have cited certain characteristics of Novgorodian culture as reflecting the peculiar nature and history of that city-state. The Chronicle of Novgorod and other Novgorodian writings express a strong and constant attachment to the city, its streets, buildings, and affairs. Moreover, the whole general tone of Novgorodian literature has been described as strikingly realistic, pragmatic, and businesslike, even when dealing with religious issues. For example, Archbishop Basil adduced the following arguments, among others, to prove that paradise was located on earth rather than in heaven or in imagination: four terrestrial rivers flow from paradise, one of which, the Nile, Basil described with some relish; St. Macarius lived near paradise; St. Efrosimius even visited paradise and brought back to his abbot three apples, while St. Agapius took some bread there; two Novgorodian boats once reached the paradise mountain as they sailed in a distant sea. Together with realism and practicality went energy and bustle, manifested, for example, in constant building - about one hundred stone churches were erected in the city in the last two centuries of its independence. Visitors described the Novgorodians as an extremely vigorous and active people, whose women were equal to men and prominent in the affairs of the city.
The heroes of Novgorodian literature also reflect the life of the city. The main protagonists of the Novgorodian cycle of byliny included the extraordinary businessman and traveler, merchant Sadko, and the irrepressible and irresponsible young giant Basil Buslaev, whose bloody forays against his neighbors could be checked only by his mother. Buslaev's death illustrates well his behavior: given the choice by a skull to jump in one direction and live or to jump in another and perish, he naturally chose the second and cracked his head. Buslaev has been cited as a genuine representative of the free adventurers of Novgorod, who did so much to spread the sway of their city over enormous lands populated both by Russians and by Finnic-speaking and other tribes.
The history of Novgorod, remarkable in itself, attracts further attention as one variant in the evolution of the lands of Kievan Russia after the decline of Kiev. While it is usual to emphasize the peculiar qualities of Novgorod, it is important to realize also that these qualities stemmed directly from the Kievan - and to some extent pre-Kievan - period and represented, sometimes in an accentuated manner, certain salient Kievan characteristics. The urban life and culture of Novgorod, the important position
of its middle class, its commerce, and its close contacts with the outside world all link Novgorod to the mainstream of Kievan history. The veche too, of course, had had a significant role in Kievan life and politics. In emphasizing further its authority and functions, the Novgorodians developed one element of the political synt
hesis of Kievan Russia, the democratic, at the expense of two others, the autocratic and the aristocratic, which, as we shall see, found a more fertile soil in other parts of the country.
Pskov
The democratic political evolution characteristic of Novgorod occurred also in a few other places, especially in another northwestern Russian town, Pskov. Long subject to Novgorod, this extreme Russian outpost became in 1348 a small independent principality with a territory of some 250 by 75 miles. Pskov had a prince whose powers were even more restricted than those of the prince of Novgorod and a veche which in some ways exceeded that of the larger town in importance. Notably, the Pskovian veche, in addition to its other functions, acted as a court for serious crimes. The town had two elected posadniki as well as the elders of the kontsy, but no tysiatskii; and it was subdivided, much like Novgorod, into streets and kontsy. A council of elders also operated in Pskov.
Being much smaller than Novgorod, Pskov experienced less social differentiation and social tension. It has been generally described as more compact, democratic, and peaceful in its inner life than its "big brother." On the other hand, this "little brother" - a title given to Pskov by Novgorod at one point - participated fully in the high development of urban life and culture typical of Novgorod. In fact, Pskovian architects obtained wide renown, while the legal code issued by the Pskovian veche, the celebrated Sudebnik of 1397, with supplements until about 1467 - mentioned earlier in contrasting the Russians and the Mongols - represents a most impressive compendium of highly developed Russian medieval law.