Book
Древнейшие государства Восточной Европы. 2015 год. Экономические системы Евразии в раннее Средневековье
The next volume of the “Most Ancient States of Eastern Europe” yearbook is devoted to the problems of studying economic systems and trade and financial transactions in Eurasia from the 6th to the 11th centuries. The articles collected in the volume reveal this problem on materials from different regions of Eurasia and North Africa. Two articles are devoted to coins of late Antiquity, one - to the relations of medieval China with nomads. The main focus is on the problems of the history of Eastern Europe in the 9th – 11th centuries, first of all, the economy, the money account and the weight systems of the Slavs and Scandinavians. Special attention is paid to the history of the little-studied “transitional” period for Eastern Europe from the 9th to the beginning of the Xth centuries.
The article continues the study of historical geography and trade routes of Eastern Europe of the 9th century. It analyzes the map of the archeological finds connected with the culture of medieval Scandinavians and other inhabitances of Northern Europe (arms, jewelry etc.). The map of these finds is compared with the map of hoards of the 9th century, which allows asserting that in a number of cases the places of the finds of Scandinavian artifacts and hoards coincide. Once again this fact is testimony to the participation of Scandinavians in the transit of silver coins across Eastern Europe. The data analysis of terminus post quem of the settlements connected with the presence of the Scandinavians in Eastern Europe allows to assert that all those settlements (except Ladoga and Rurikovo Gorodische) appeared in the early 10th century, and till the end of the 9th century there were no fixed Scandinavian settlements outside the regions of the Volkhov and the Ilmen’. The areas, where the series of sing finds were found give the reason to mark the limits of arrival of the Scandinavian (Northern) pioneers. We argue that the 9th century was a special period in the history of Eastern Europe, the use of the later historical data (above all, concerning the 10th century) for the reconstruction of the historical processes of this century methodologically is inappropriate.
The article elucidates diverse forms of visual representation of medieval and early modern court festivals.
The author presents a history of the institute of pol’udie in Old Rus’ from the 10th to the mid 16th century and concludes that this institution had transformed depending on changing economic and financial conditions. Originally, pol’udie was gifts and food which population gave voluntarily to their leaders/rulers when they went round over a territory of a given “tribe”. Beginning at the early 12th century the pol’udie evolved into one tax collected in naturalia or money in favor of a prince or his agents or his beneficiaries. The poliud’e disappeared in the northeastern princedoms of Rus’ since they had been conquered by the Mongols and obliged to pay them a tribute in the mid-13th century.
The article deals with some specific technical forms of representation of royal and princely power in medieval Europe.
A huge ccollection of studies of (late) medieval court orders.
The series of studies collected in theis book represent different approaches of their authors to the problem of privat life in the past.
The chapter presents the fundaments of historical metrology for medievalists,
The article describes different ways of visual representation of princely entries in medieval cities and towns.
Early polities are often called as tributary (from Latin tributum). It is a question of great importance but also of great difficulty which tributes (taxes) the Rus’ collected from the subjugated population in the 9-11th centuries. The oldest Rus’ian chronicle texts contain several references about an extraction of some taxes in favor of the Rus’, but these references are difficult to understand. The author interprets the chronicle reports with these references taking two approaches: 1) it is taken for granted that the chronicle preceding to “The Tale of Bygone Years” is preserved in the so-called Novgorod First Chronicle of Younger Redaction, and 2) the chronicle reports are compared with the evidence of non-Rus’ian origin (the treaties by Constantine Porphyrogentis, the Arabian geographers’ accounts from the 9-11th centuries etc.). The most important conclusions drawn by the author are: 1) the tribute rate matched to the “standards” common in Eastern Europe in the 9-11th centuries, and this was in fact a fur skin which corresponded in prize to 4-7 g silver, 2) the Rus’ian ruling class collected the tribute (dan’) during the yearly circuit around the subjugated territory, extracting also some naturalia for feeding as “gifts”; both the circuits and the naturalia were called as poliud’e, 3) the evidence on both the tribute rate and methods of extracting the tribute comes from different regions of Old Rus’ – from Novgorod to Kiev. This fact shows that the basic principles of tax system which the Rus’ applied to the subjugated territories were the same anywhere. These principles laid a foundation for the “tributary” dominance of the Rus’ in the 9-11th centuries.