CHURCH POLEMICS AND MONASTIC LAND ACQUISITION IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MUSCOVY
by Donald Ostrowski
Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 64, No. 3, July 1986
 

The standard way to interpret source testimony about Church-State relations in sixteenth-century Muscovy involves the supposed conflict between two Church parties--the Josephians and the Non-possessors.

In approximate terms, the prevailing view is this. The Non-possessors argued against monastic landowning, while the Josephians argued in favour of it. The State (gosudarstvo) and the Non-possessors appeared to be forming an alliance by the beginning of the sixteenth century to divest the Church of its lands, but the Josephians gained control of the Church, defeated the Non-possessors at the 1503 Church Council, and staved off the State's attempt at secularization of Church lands. None the less, the State, or the Non-possessors acting through the State, continued to try to secularize church and monastic lands throughout the rest of the century.

When I began studying the sources for sixteenth-century Church-State relations, I found this interpretation to be inadequate, and some significant problems arose when I tried to apply it to sixteenth-century source testimony. Four of the most notable problems are these:(1) identifying the Josephians and the Non-possessors; (2) establishing the political programme of each party; (3) explaining the failure of the Muscovite government to secularize monastic lands, while those contemporary European states that made the effort were successful in doing so; and (4) explaining the donation by secular authorities of lands to monasteries at the same time these authorities were supposed to be attempting to secularize monastic lands.3

In the following pages, I will discuss these problems, show why they ultimately defeat the standard view, and present a hypothesis that, in my opinion, accounts better for the source testimony. In the process, I hope that I will be able to encourage more precision in defining factional struggles within the ecclesiastical establishment in the sixteenth century, and concomitantly to discourage the tendency to attribute any and all signs of differences among the black clergy to a Josephian-Non-possessor party conflict.

The idea of a Josephian-Non-possessor Church party conflict has a certain a priori appeal. Many historians consider this conflict the first real polemic in Russian history. The heresy of the Strigol'niki and the Novgorod-Moscow heresy are not considered real polemics, because the arguments from only one side remain extant,4 and the losing side never seemed strong enough to threaten the official Church. This dispute, in contrast, is not just over the secularization of monastic lands, which dispute would put Muscovy in the mainstream of European history,5 but a titanic struggle between the forces of regimentation (the Josephians) on one side and the forces of freedom (the Non-possessors) on the other. The forces of regimentation win and support the development of an autocratic rule that lasts until the twentieth century.6 Social variations and additions to this view include: the alliance of the boyars with the Non-possessors because the boyarstvo was losing its votchiny to the monasteries,7 the alliance of the dvoryanstvo with the Non-possessors because of its 'land hunger''8 or the Nonpossessors are associated with the free peasantry for whom they were spokesmen.9 Finally, the Non-possessors may be in league with the heretics, with whom they share, in a moderate way, certain views, or because they come from the same social class, whereas the Josephians wish to stamp out the heretics as a threat not only to the Church but to the State as well.10 As appealing as the traditional view in any of these variants might be on metahistorical grounds, its valuelessness for interpreting sources can be seen by the fact that historians often resort to narrative context or background information for the reader instead of citing source testimony whenever they discuss Church-State relations on the issue of monastic lands. In effect, historians have presupposed the existence of two Church parties, then have tried to explain the source testimony in terms of this conflict model. At no point has anyone felt the need to demonstrate, according to source evidence, the proposition that Church parties existed in sixteenth-century
Muscovy.

Historians refer to a number of sixteenth-century Church sources that purportedly defend the right of the churches and monasteries to
hold lands and oppose the taking away of these lands.11 The Short Discourse (Slovo kratio) attributed to Benjamin the Dominican was supposed to have appeared early in the century.12 losif Volotsky is supposed to have written about monastic landholding before his death in 1515. 13 In a judicial proceeding dated 11 May 1531 Metropolitan Daniil argues in favour of monasteries keeping villages. 14 The compiler of the Nikon Chronicle shows a marked interest in monastic lands. 15 By the middle of the century, Metropolitan Makary presents the most extensive ideological justification for the rights of Church lands in his Answer to Ivan lV (Otvet Makariya).16 Subsequently, Zinovy Otensky discusses this question in favour of Church landholding. There are, in addition, the sources associated with the 1503 Church Council.17

When one considers these sources individually, one finds some varied and surprising arguments; surprising, that is, within the Church parties hypothesis. The mention of monastic lands in the Short Discourse is only incidental to a defence of monastic wealth in general. The Short Discourse is a revised version of the Collection Against Usurers (Sobraniye na likhoimtsev), which itself was most likely a translation from a Latin text. 18 The Collection Against Usurers has no direct reference to Rus', and the earliest copies of the Short Discourse date from no earlier than the mid-sixteenth century. Such considerations invite the idea that the Collection was a Western text that was imported to Novgorod at the end of the fifteenth century, then reworked into the Short Discourse in the 1550s when references to Rus' were added.

Iosif's Treatise turns out to be not about monastic lands, but about the taking of moveable property from the monastery.19 Zimin has already argued that Iosif first formulated his views concerning monastic lands several years after the 1503 Council.20 It is probable that losif never became involved in the monastic lands dispute. The dating and attribution of the Treatise would benefit from a thorough reexamination, even though the traditional provenance of the text, that is Iosif's dispute with the Volokolamsk prince Fyodor Borisovich, fits my contention. Fyodor allegedly took money, horses, armour, and jewels from the Volokolamsk Monastery, and may have threatened Iosif with expulsion from the area, but Fyodor is never accused of taking away (or threatening) any of the monastery's lands.21

The Answer of Makary to Ivan IV draws on the Donation of Constantine, the Statute of Vladimir ( Ustav Vladimira), and the Patent from the Tatar Khan Uzbek to Metropolitan Peter [Yarlyk tatarskogo khana Uzbeka mitropolitu Petru) all in an effort to argue for the inviolability of Church lands. Each of the sources Makary uses is spurious: the Donation and Yarlyk are outright forgeries; the Statute of Vladimir was most likely-composed in the fourteenth century.22 Although Makary was probably not aware of their spuriousness,23 it is significant that he does not mention the 1503 Church Council or incorporate any of the polemical works about that council. If he had been at such pains to find justifications for monastic landholding, then the sources about the 1503 Council would seem to have been more readily available; that is, if they had been written before Makary's Answer.

Zinovy argues that one can still be a nestyachatel' (non-acquisitor) and follow nestyazhaniyc (non-acqusition), while being in a monastery that accepts settlements (derevni) and villages (sela) as a result of charity, as did Feodosy Pechersky, Varlaam Khutynsky, Sergiy Radonezhsky, and Kirill Belozersky.24 There has been some confusion in the historiography about Zinovy's position. Treadgold, for example, refers to him as 'a Non-possessor monk'.25 The confusion could have been caused by the fact that Zinovy defends ncstyazhaniye, while at the same time justifying monastic landholding. The apparent contradiction in Zinovy's argument can best be explained by divorcing the terms "nestyazhaniye" and "nestyazhatel" from the concept of a Church party that argued against monastic landholding (see above fn. 1)

When one considers these sources together, one has difficulty identifying a Josephian Church party. Clearly, Makary and Zinovy argued in favour of church and monastic landholding. A connection between Iosifand Daniil is undeniable since Daniil was tonsured in the Volokolamsk Monastery while Iosif still lived. But Iosif's involvement with the monastic lands issue is questionable. Makary cites some of the same sources that Iosif does, while Zinovy26 and Benjamin seem unconnected with any of them.

The 1503 Church Council is generally regarded as "the opening shot in a war between [the] two clerical parties",27 yet, something is awry with the sources about the council. On the one hand, the sources that discuss the raising of the question of secularization are polemical, are extant in copies no earlier than the 1560s (fifty to sixty years after the council), contain historical inaccuracies, contradict one another (even those sources that seem to be on the same side of the issue), are not found in official Church codices, and on the basis of textual analysis can be dated no earlier than 1550. On the other hand, sources that concern only matters of ecclesiastical discipline (drunkenness among the clergy, disposition of widower priests, minimum age for clerics) are nonpolemical, are extant in copies that date to within a decade of the Council, contain no noticeable historical errors, do not contradict one another, are found in official Church codices (where we would expect to find them) such as the Great Menology ( Velikiye chet'i minei) of Makary, the Stoglav, chronicle accounts, and so forth, and can be dated on the basis of textual analysis to the time of The council. The most likely explanation to account for this discrepancy between the types of sources is that the question of secularization was connected with the
1503 Council post faeto only in the 1550s.

Likewise, we have sources that argue against certain aspects of monastic lands: works attributed to Vassian Patrikeyev, to Maksim Grek, and also the Valaam Discusszon (Yalaamskaya beseda). Nil Sorsky, who is often cited as leader of the Non-possessors, and who, according to Zimin, "chiefly developed the theoretical basis of the Non-possessor teaching",29 has, in works reliably attributed to him, left us no direct statement on this matter. A statement of his that has been used to indicate a Non-possessor position turns out to be an admonition to monks not to take pride in "the acquisition of villages and the claim of many possessions" (imenii) by the monastery.30 But Nil does not object to monastic acquisition or holdings, as such. A similar passage occurs in one of the works attributed to Metropolitan Daniil: "For what reason, brothers, do we become full of pride and haughty . . . by eating or drinking various and sundry things both costly and delightful, or by collecting gold and silver, much wealth and possessions (imeniya) ." 31 Is it justifiable to use Nil's warning that possessions (imeniya) can lead to the sin of pride as evidenee for his being the leader of the Non-possessors, while Daniil's warning against possessions is not treated in the same way? Perhaps the fact that Nil's statement explicitly mentions "villages" while Daniil's does not is enough for historians to perceive evidence of two camps in opposition. Yet, one could argue that there is no inherent contradiction in the meaning of the two statements.32 In addition, in a letter to Gury Tushin, Nil advises the younger monk not to participate in the arguments over "monastic wealth and acquisition of possessions".33  Such advice is completely in accord with Nil's hesychastic beliefs and principles of silence,34 while disputation over monastic wealth is not.

An analysis of the statements in works that are attributed to Vassian Patrikeyev, who, according to Zimin, "was recognized as the head of the Non-possessors after the death of Nil Sorsky",35 shows that Vassian was discussing whether it was proper for monasteries to keep (derchati) villages,36 not the right of anyone to take away (otimati) monastic lands. In the Collection of a Certain Elder (Sobraniye nekoyego startsa), attributed to Vassian, the author argues that "the founders of monasteries did not keep (derzhati) villages'37 and 'did not take (imati) villages' when given to them.38 He also argues in the so-called second and third redactions of that same work that monks and monasteries are not to keep villages although bishops are allowed to, for the sake of the poor.39 In the Judicial Proceeding of 11 May  1531, we have supporting evidence that this was Vassian's position. Metropolitan Daniil asks whether Vassian called the miracle-workers (chudotvortsi) 'troublemakers' (smutotovrtsi) because they had villages. Vassian replies that 'in the Gospels it was written, "It is not told to monasteries to keep villages"40 ln the Debate with Iosif (Preniye s Iosifom) an amplification of the position expressed in the Collection of a Certain Elder appears. As in the Collection, monasteries are not to keep villages, but secular cathedral churches may keep lands. The bishop himself is not to manage (vladeti) the lands, since 'all church wealth' is to be managed by the steward with the knowledge of the bishop and the sacred council of priests.41 Whether this clarification accurately represented Vassian's position is difficult to tell. The Debate could have been written by anyone familiar with Vassian's writings, as a 'popular' introduction to his ideas. I have already suggested elsewhere the possibility of its having been reworked or even composed after Vassian's death.42 Ostensibly, it is a point-by-point refutation of Iosif's arguments against Vassian. Deeper investigation reveals many concepts and phrases that are not present in any of the extant writings of either Iosif or Vassian. This passage might be a clarification that could be deduced logically from Vassian's writings. In contrast, there occurs in the Debate, for the only time in writings usually attributed to Vassian, the idea that the grand prince should take away (otimati) villages from monasteries.43 It is significant that in the Judicial Procceding of 1531 the discussion concerning monastic villages is limited to whether monasteries should acquire and keep villages. If Iosif had previously made the charge that Vassian wanted the grand prince to take away villages from monasteries, it is not likely Daniil would have been unaware of it or that he would have tried to hide it. Such a claim in 1531 would most likely have been anachronistic, for, as I will argue below, the question whether the grand prince should take away monastic lands did not become a burning issue until the 1550s. The most likely explanation is that Iosif never made the charge, and that this passage in the Debatc represents an idea wrongly imputed to Vassian.

In writings attributed to Maksim Grek there are a number of general encomiums of monastic poverty, of the type that can be found even in the writings of Iosif and Daniil. Arguments aimed at divesting the churches and monasteries of all landholdings are not to be found in Maksim's writings.44 In the work 'On the Way of Life on the Holy Mountain', attributed to Maksim, the author states that the monasteries at Mt Athos had property.45 It has been argued that the statements in this work "were bound to antagonize the Josephians" because the author does not explicitly discuss villages and peasants,46 but such a historiographical argument presumes the existence of Church parties. 1t also indicates how historians 'discover' Non-possessor elements in the works of Maksim by removing his words from their textual context and placing them within the context of a 'Church parties' struggle. For example, Kazakova admits that 'the theme of the votchina way of life, the condemnation of which constituted the core Russian Non-possession, is located only in rudimentary form in the Povest [strashna i pamyatna]. 47  This means, to all intents and purposes, that she cannot find any example of Non-possessorship in that work. "But in distinction from the povest," Kazakova continues, 'he [Maksim] directs the main force of his condemnatory fire in the Beseda [uma s dushoy] against the votchina rights of monasteries.48 What is this 'condemnatory fire?'ómerely his quoting a Gospel passage that each person should earn his bread with his own hands. Thus, according to Kazakova, 'Non-possessor motives resound in the Beseda uma s dushoy with much more force and distinctness . . .'.49 Kazakova goes on to argue that Maksim's position on monastic landholding was the primary cause of his imprisonment in 1525. 50, although the only hard evidence she has cited is Maksim's use of one Gospel passage.

Another scholar, James Billington, argues that Maksim "opposed the Josephite defence of monastic wealth because it brought, in Maksim's words, 'a blasphemous, servile,Jewish love of silver.'"51 Furthermore, according to Billington, Maksim used "a skillful dialogue" to compare "the Josephite argument that monastic property is a common trust to a group of sensualists' justifying their relations with a prostitute on the grounds that she 'belongs to us all in common.'"52 Vivid language, to be sure, but when one examines the sources in question, one does not find any references to Josephians and the single reference to landholding is only incidental to an attack on wealth in general.53 A. I. Ivanov thought he had shown that Maksim Grek became a Nonpossessor under the influence of Savonarola, merely because he found references to neslyazhaniye in two works attributed to Maksim.54 But that term does not imply a position on monastic landholding, for the prevailing view in both the western and eastern Churches seems to have been that a monk could follow the ideal of personal poverty while still living in an institution that held extensive lands.55 The issue in question here was whether monks were breaking their vows of personal poverty by becoming involved in the management of monastic wealth. In short, the Non-possessor views of Maksim have yet to be demonstrated.56

As for the Valaam Discussion, its time of composition is still an open question. Moiseyeva has argued for a mid-sixteenth-century date, that is, around the time of the Stoglav Church Council, solely on the basis of its association with the monastic lands issue.57 Zimin argues more persuasively on the basis of language usage in favour of a late sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century date.58 Whereas both Moiseyeva and Zimin have seen it as a work propounding the Nonpoasessor position, a careful reading indicates otherwise. In a section where he discusses the granting of favours by the tsar, the author argues (1) that the tsar should give a yearly stipend to monks, not grant (davati) land with peasants as he does for his military men (voiny), and (2) that monks are not to be involved in helping to rule the State, which is reserved for princes, boyars, and other laymen.59 Zimin interprets the first proposition to mean that the tsar should "replace the landholdings of monasteries with a yearly stipend," 60 although the source is quite explicit in its use of the phrase "not grant land," and makes no mention of taking away any lands. The second proposition could be a covert criticism of Patriarch Filaret 1613-33) and the degree of his influence in secular matters.

These few sources constitute the sum total of our hard evidence about nestyazhaiel'stvo in the sixteenth century. It is not much and hardly decisive. Again we have a problem in discerning a Church party. In one of the works attributed to Maksim Grek, the term "styazhatel" is used sympathetically.62 Indeed, even the name for the opposition Church party seems untenable when we find statements by Iosif and Daniil themselves, that all monks should be nestyazhateli (non-acquisitors) and should follow the path of nestyazhaniye (non-acquisition).63 The dubious distinction for first using the term "nestyazhalel" to mean the member of a Church party seems to belong to A. S. PavIov who, in 1864, referred to Vassian as "nash nestyazhatel" (our Non-possessor) and as "smelyy nestyazhatel" (the bold Non-possessor).64 The concept of Church parties took hold almost immediately in the historiography after that, probably because it conveniently paralleled the conservative vs. liberal political arguments of the late nineteenth century.65

To be sure, historians have exercised their ingenuity in locating Josephians and Non-possessors hiding behind every iconostasis. Whenever they see the terms 'nestyazhatel" and 'nestyazhaniye' in the sources, historians have tended to think that the reference is to monastic landholding (that is, unless Iosif or Daniil uses those terms). Almost every reference in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources to conflict among monks has been used to illustrate a struggle between Church parties.66  But the usual basis for identifying a prelate as a Josephian or Non-possessor is the monastery where he was tonsured; the absence of any collateral evidence for a prelate's Josephianism or Non-possessorness (or even evidence opposed to it) creates no problem for these historians.

Jack Kollmann has discussed this aspect of the standard view in his study of the Stoglav Council of 1551.67 Five of the ten Stoglav prelates were tonsured at the Volokolamsk Monastery: Akaky, Gury, Feodosy, Savva, and Trifon. Kollmann points out that most historians, without further evidence, have concluded that these five, plus Metropolitan Makary, constituted a dominant Josephian party at the council. After the Stoglav Council, Feodosy, archbishop of Novgorod, and Trifonj bishop of Suzdal', were deposed, for reasons unstated in the sources. Forced to explain the removal of these two prominent "Josephian" prelates, Zimin concludes that their removal must have meant a temporary victory for the Non-possessors. According to Zimin, Afanasy Paletsky, who succeeded Trifon as bishop, can be considered a Non-possessor because he was hegumen of the Kirillov-Belozerskiy Monastery. This monastery, close to the skity of the Trans-Volga Elders, is considered a hotbed of Non-possessorship despite its being one of the largest landholders in sixteenth-century Muscovy. Zimin maintains that, for some reason, the Non-possessor "successes . . . were not lasting because already in 1554 Afanasy Paletsky comes out [at a heresy trial] against Artemy and other ideologues of the Nonpossessors." 68 Thus, the only known action Afanasy is involved in is to testify against supposed Non-possessors, but he himself has to be a Non-possessor to fit the standard interpretation.

Kollmann goes on to point out that, for another 'card-carrying' Non-possessor, historians choose Kassian, bishop of Ryazan'. Kassian is classified a Non-possessor because (1) he was perhaps tonsured at and definitely exiled to the Kirillov-Belozerskiy Monastery, and (2) at the 1553-54 heresy trials he rejected the authority of Iosif Volotsky on heresy. As an 'anti-Josephian' he is therefore assumed to have argued against monastic landholding and against Church wealth in general, although we have no direct evidence one way or the other concerning his position on these matters. Kollmann concludes that 'the pro- and anti-Iosifite' approach represents an over-simplification of Muscovite church politics in mid-sixteenth century Muscovy. . . ." 69

Yet another Church figure who is associated with the mid-sixteenthcentury Non-possessors is Artemy. The sum total of the evidence to support the contention of Artemy's Non-possessor status is his being hegumen of the Trinity-St Sergius Monastery when Maksim Grek was transferred there in 1551 and a statement in a letter attributed to him where he writes to Ivan IV:

And all now are accordingly displaying enmity as they say to each other that I said and wrote to you to take away (olimati) villages from monasteries. But the truth is, sire, that I wrote to you at the council, expressing my understanding of the matter, but I have not talked to them about that, nor do I advise you of the necessity and authority to do such a thing.70

Thus, the only hard evidence we have for Artemy's Non-possessorshipi is a statement in which he says that he was falsely accused of having told the tsar to take away villages and in which he explicitly advises the tsar against taking away villages from monasteries.71

The apotheosis of the attempt to force the source testimony into a Church parties construction is Zimin's presentation of the successive occupiers of the metropolitan's chair and bishops' sees in the sixteenth century as having been of one party or the other. In 1511, Varlaam, who was "close to the Non-possessors," is elevated to the metropolitancy. In 1516, the new bishop of Ryazan' is Sergiy: "Possibly he was close to the Non-possessors because he abandoned the see the fourth day after the placing of the Josephian Daniil on the metropolitan's chair." "So, in the beginning of the 1520s among the eight highest prelates approximately four were close to the Non-possessors." In 1516, when Daniil becomes metropolitan "he immediately began a ëturnover of peopleí among the highest prelates," presumably getting rid of the Non-possessors. In 1539, the hegumen of the Trinity-St Sergius Monastery, Ioasaf, "an outspoken opponent of the Josephians," became metropolitan, and began placing other opponents of the Josephians into the hierarchy. Thus, "the influence of the Josephians fell at the grandprincely court, but not for long." In 1542, Makary who is "a supporter of the Josephians" becomes metropolitan. His influence, however, is countered by Sil'vestr, "who is close to the Non-possessors," and so forth.72 Zimin concludes that "the struggle of the Josephians and Non-possessors at the grand-princely court had a real impact on the current politics of the government."73 He leaves it to the reader to  search for the evidence that would support this assertion.

If the evidence is so shaky for the identification of Church parties, one party arguing in favour of monastic lands, the other against, then perhaps we should look elsewhere for our explanation of the source testimony. Just what could have been going on in the sixteenth century that would leave us the source testimony we have? Historians have read the Church sources that argue for the inviolability of church and monastic lands, and have deduced that if the Church was defending its lands, then clearly the State was trying to secularize them.

There is no question that the grand prince, or someone acting in his name, could confiscate church and monastic lands when he so desired. Pavlov mentions confiscations of Church lands by princes as far back as the twelfth century and protests from prelates :from the thirteenth century.74 Ivan III confiscated Church lands in Novgorod and, throughout the sixteenth century, confiscations by the local agents of the grand prince seem to have occurred regularly.75

Likewise, we have ample evidence that the tsar was able to confiscate and reassign properties on a much broader scale.76 The relative
 

Abundance of these charters, along with Ivan III's confiscation of lands in Novgorod, indicates that it was fairly easy for the secular ruler and his agents to confiscate Church lands. It makes little sense, then, to contend that the State was thwarted in its attempt to secularize church and monastic lands. Such statements as "the economic preconditions had not matured" 77 or "a certain, balance of power" existed between thc Church and State are not real explanations, because nothing ts "explained."

When we look for the contemporary arguments on behalf of a State secularization policy, we look in vain. The sixteenth century was a period of extensive land acquisition by monasteries, and we find in the State charters what we should expect to find under the circumstances, that is, bureaucratic attempts to regulate this acquisition process. The first extant document to this effect is a charter (gramota) to the Glushitsa Monastery dated 1535. The charter notes that votchiny had been transferred from deti boyarskie to the monastery by sale, mortgage, and bequest "for repose of the soul." The charter requests that a list of the properties acquired during "the past year or two" be sent to the diyak Fyodor Mishurin. Finally, it warns that no further acquisitions are to be made without the knowledge of the grand prince (bez nashego vedoma).78

As early as 1553, the Moscow Stoglav Council agrees that a monastery's treasury and all the material resources of monasteries will be under the authority of the tsar's and grand princeís majordomos (dvoretskiye), who will be sent to audit, to take inventory, and to make remittances according to the books . . . of each monastery.79

In subsequent decades the State issues various gramoty that attempt to strengthen and enforce regulations about acquisition.80 The Judgementaof 11 May 1551, which becomes attached to the Stoglav decision, decrees that: (1) sale or donation of a votchina to a church or monastery without a report (doklad) to the State is forbidden, or the votchina is subject to confiscation by the State. (2) Any pomestye or taxable lot that a bishop and monastery had acquired as a result of debts of the holder was to be returned, after due process, to its former holder. (3) Any village or
arable land given by a boyar after the death of Vasily III ( 1533) was to be returned to its former holder. (4) A votchina given "for repose of the soul" was to remain with the monastery except for those lands that had been forbidden under Vasily III, which would revert to the State. 81

The Act of 25 December '1557 defines more precisely the right to grant lands to monasteries.82 The Act of 15 January 1562 confirms and extends the list of regions where votchinniki and service princes were forbidden to alienate their lands, especially "for repose of the soul" 83 The Act of 9 October 1572 forbids further acquisitions by monasteries already well-endowed, but poor monasteries could still acquire votchiny with the tsar's approval.84

If these charters were meant to curtail monastic land acquisitions, they seem to have been ineffective. Between 1552 and 1590, according to Veselovsky, monasteries and other Church institutions acquired 657 landholdings of which the Trinity-St Sergius Monastery alone acquired 392 holdings.85 Finally, in 1580 the Church and State agreed to freeze the present land situation; the churches and monasteries were not  allowed to acquire any new votchiny, the tsar was not allowed to take away any lands already held by the churches and monasteries.86 The monasteries continued to acquire lands, but at a rate drastically reduced from what it had been since the middle of the century.87

At the same time as the State was supposed to be manoeovring to secularize monastic lands, the tsar was donating lands to the monasteries and allowing monasteries to acquire more lands. In 1555 Ivan IV granted the Simonov Monastery several settlements and wastelands in the Dmitrov uyezd. 88 In 1556 Ivan IV issued a charter that allowed the Kirillov-Belozerskiy Monastery to spend, with certain limitations, 2,000 rubles on land purchases.89 In 1575 Ivan IV gave two villages to the Kirillov-Belozerskiy Monastery and one village to the Suzdal archbishopric for "repose of the soul" of Prince Ivan Beliky.90 In 1558 Ivan IV gave the Kirillov-Belozerskiy Monastery three villages.91 This last charter in particular, coming as it does after the Decision of 1580, shows that the main thrust of government policy could not have been aimed at secularizing monastic land. These grants would also seem to indicate that the government had no problem acquiring populated lands for the institution of the pomest'ye system. If such a problem of acquiring lands existed, then it would be highly unlikely the State would give back villages and settlements so easily. If the tsar was performing a clever manoeuvre in order to secularize those lands at a later date, he would have to have been extremely crafty indeed. It is possible to argue that Ivan IV was in conflict with his own dyachestvo throughout his reign, and giving back lands that the dyachestvo wanted to take away from the monasteries. But, by the same line of reasoning, one would have to argue that Ivan IV was in conflict with his own service class, because he was denying these lands to them. More likely, the secular sphere was concerned with regulating monastic land aquisition, not with secularization; and that it had no problem with finding enough land to distribute. One can see the Decision of 1580 as an agreement between the Church and State to resolve a chronic bone of contention. The State obtains from the Church the concession not to acquire any more votchiny, except through the State; the Church obtains from the State the promise not to confiscate any more lands already held by the monasteries.

The most likely explanation to account for these considerations is that the secular bureaucracy, the prikaz (office) system, was developing rapidly in sixteenth-century Muscovy92 and moving into previously unregulated areas of administration. When a boyar donated his votchina "for repose of the soul" to a monastery, this eliminated a source of tax revenue for the court.93 By requiring registration of all monastic land acquisitions the Land Office (Pomestsyy prikaz) could establish important facts: what the boundaries of the donated land was; who gave the land; and whether it was given as a tax shelter.94

In addition, the State was following a conscious policy of gaining control of land and service through the establishment of the pomestiye system. State charters that attempted to establish State control include provisions that any land acquisitions not registered could be confiscated and either returned to the original donor or retained by the tsar. Church leaders, eager to protect their expanding land pool, leaped to defend their lands against government regulation with an 'ideological' package of questionable sources, which included the Donation of Constantine, the Statute of Vladimir, the Yarlyk of the Tatar Khan to Metropolitan Peter, and the Answer of the 1503 Council. In the arguments that developed in the 1550s when the question of local confiscations seems to have been hotly contested, certain churchmen may have felt as little compunction about concocting phoney events that were supposed to have occurred at the 1503 Council as they felt in forging immunity
charters.95

In sum, the dyachcstvo was expanding in sixteenth-century Muscovy as rapidly as monastic land acquisitions. It was establishing an alternative administrative and record-keeping system to that of the Church. Among the measures taken by the dyachestvo in the sixteenth century to regulate monastic activities were: the prohibition against new tax-exempt settlements on Church lands, the prohibition against monastic usury, the recall of immunity charters (tarkhaniye gramoty), the review of emolument grants, the checking of monasterial records, and inventorying of monastic property.96 Whereas in the West monks from an early period took an active role in the record-keeping of secular institutions, the Muscovite dyachestvo was formed much later as a conglomeration of priests' sons and refugees from the Tatar and Byzantine bureaucracies,97 none of whom had any particular reason to protect the interest of the monasteries. In order to obtain compliance from the monasteries to register their land acquisitions with the State, the dyachestvo threatened and attempted to carry out confiscation of particular volchiny that had recently been transferred. The Church responded with arguments in favour of the inviolability of church and monastic landholdings. None of this becomes a burning issue before about 1550 when the term "otimati" begins to appear in the sources.

We simply have no reliable evidence that anyone in the Muscovite state seriously contemplated wholesale secularization of church and  monastic lands in the sixteenth century. Nor do we have any reliable evidence that any part of the State apparatusócrown, boyarstvo, dvoryanstvo, dyachestvoóformed or attempted to form an alliance with monks who argued either in favour of monkish poverty or in opposition to monkish management of landed estates. Such an alliance would have been unlikely in Eastern Orthodox territory where monks rarely exercised political power, precisely because they were never part of the governmental apparatus.98 Nor do any of these monks argue in favour of the State's right to take away monastic lands. The connection of the boyarstvo with opposition to votchina rights of monasteries because the boyars were losing their lands to these monasteries is belied by the  many charters we have where these same boyars uncoercedly donated their lands to monasteries "for repose of the soul."

The so-called "complaints" of the pomeshchiki 99 do not indicate any influence on government policy or any general problem in government land acquisition. They might indicate dissatisfaction among individuals, but hardly represent an alliance between the crown and "middle-service class" against the boyars. The rise of a servitor group could only have been accomplished through active boyar acquiescence and involvement. Given the ties of kinship and clientage, that is, vertical lines of political connections throughout sixteenth-century Muscovite society, it was possible for Ivan IV to use one set of boyars and their clients against another set during the oprichnina. But to use clients against their patrons on a state-wide scale, as has been proposed in the historiography heretofore, would have been extremely unlikely.

The contention that the State was in need of lands, or had trouble obtaining lands for its pomeshchiki fails because of lack of evidence that would support it. The Deeision of the 1580 Church Council itself has been cited as evidence that the tsar was having trouble procuring land, as well as evidence for the influence of the Non-possessors. 100 The Decision states that these agreements were made "in order that the churches of God and holy places will be without turmoil, and that the military forces may be armed more strongly for the battle against the enemies of the cross of Christ."10l First, the concern about 'turmoil' may be a reference not only to the confiscation problem, but also to the numerous court cases brought against monasteries' land claims. Once the monasteries' lands are recognized as officially inalienable, then the hope of recovery of land by plaintiffs would presumably be less. Second, the arming of the military forces 'more strongly' refers probably to the Decree of 1556 on service. In that Decree, holders of votchiny and pomest'ya were required to supply one fully armed horseman (or the equivalent monetary sum) for each ''100 chetverti of good, productive land'.102 Monasteries, of course, were exempt from this requirement to strengthen the army. If, during the latter part of the sixteenth century, the peasantry in the centre was abandoning the three-field system and reverting to more extensive techniques of agriculture,l03 then this reversion, plus the opening of the Volga route, which contributed to peasant mobility, would have meant that more peasants were travelling further. The government bureaucracy, understandably, would have felt uneasy about such renewed mobility of the peasants because this would make upkeep of the army more difficult. An attempt to regulate peasant movement resulted, and this attempt probably also gave rise to the bonding of peasants to the land through the establishment of "forbidden years" in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century.

My argument might be criticized for exaggerating the role of the dyaki in sixteenth-century Muscovite government. And, indeed, historians have generally placed greater emphasis on the activities of the autocrat and boyars in that society. However, recent research indicates that, already in the early seventeenth century, Muscovy had a rather elaborate bureaucracy.l04 It has been argued that the "prePetrine Russian administration was organized in a more modern manner than it came to be after Peter's many ëreformsí".105 A reasonable supposition would be that this bureaucracy had fairly well taken shape by the mid-sixteenth century when Muscovy was transforming itself at a phenomenal rate into an empire that had to be organized and regulated. Peter Brown has stated that "the role of the chancelleries in consolidating Muscovy's territorial expansion and in marshalling the resources to fight its wars cannot be overestimated." 106 Moreover, the bureaucracy was becoming a means for exercising political power. One need only refer to the activities of the Shchelkalov brothers who used their positions as djaki to rise
within the Muscovite political and social system during a time when the literacy of the cavalrymen was shaky at best.l07

The advantage of the hypothesis that I have presented here over the Church parties hypothesis is in the ability to explain such varied source testimony coherently. In the Church parties hypothesis we are forced to postulate a number of unnecessary abstractions to fill in the gaps in the source testimony. We have to account for how the Church, which had no secular power to speak of, was able to halt the State's secularization plans. We have to account for why the grand prince expected a Church Council (1503) to agree to giving up the basis of the Church's wealth. We have to account for the nature of the potential alliance between the State and the Non-possessors when we have no reliable, contemporary source evidence about it. On the contrary, we have several centuries of tradition that argue against it. We have to explain away discrepancies in the relationship of  texts. 108 We have to account for why no State argument in favour of secularization seems to have appeared. And we have to resort to explanations based on 'horizontal' alliances and clashes of classes, when the weight of evidence indicates political struggles were probably fought out in terms of 'vertical' alliance networks.

This is not to deny that a polemic over monastic land acquisition was taking place in sixteenth-century Muscovy, but one can question what the issues and what the sides were. The State-Church issue appears in the sources that are datable no earlier than the 1530s and concerns the right of the State to regulate the transfer of votchiny to monasteries "for repose of the soul," and then, in the 1550s, the right of the State to confiscate those volchiny when the transfers had not received the tsar's approval. This issue seems to have been resolved in the 1580s. The internal Church issue concerned the propriety of land management by monks whose aim should be the salvation of their own souls. This issue disappears from the sources in the 1550s. Those churchmen who might have argued in favour of this proposition hardly constituted a Church party that was striving for control of the Church or hoping for an alliance with the State, or even actively trying to influence the Church as an institution. Their position on this question tended to cross other lines of difference, such as attitudes towards heretics and decoration of churches. As far as the source testimony is concerned, the only link between the State and those who argued against land management was one that the Church polemicists against State confiscations were making. Most likely, Church leaders viewed the argument about whether monks should be directly involved in managing lands as undermining the Church's opposition to State regulation of monastic land acquisition.

In any case, the concept of Church parties in sixteenth-century Muscovy is not useful for interpreting the source testimony, and can safely be dropped from the historiography.
 

NOTES:

D. Ostrowski is an Instructor in the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.    

1 There is some dispute about the meaning of the term nestyazhatel'. See G. Moiseveva, "Ob ideologii 'nestyazhateley'" (Istoriya SS5R, no. 2, Moscow, 1961, p. 101); N A. Kazakova, Ocherki po istorii russkoy obshchcslvennoy mysli. Pervaya tret' XVI veka, Leningrad, 1970, p. 13; and N. V. Sinitsyna, Maksim Grek v Rossii, Moscow, 1977, pp. 104-09. In the issue of Istoriya SSSR that carried Moiseyeva's article, the term was translated as 'Nongrabbers', which has the virtue of probably more accurately reflecting the sixteenth-century pejorative connotations of styazhatel'. In order to minimize confusion, I will use what has come to be the standard way for translating the term nestyazhatel' into English, that is, 'Non-possessor' when referring to the concept of a Church party, and the term 'non-acquisitor' when using it in a non-party context.

2 For the historiography of Muscovite Church parties see Kazakova, Ocherki, pp 7-44, and Ya.S. Lur'ye, Ideologicheskaya borba v russkoy publitsistike kontsa XV-nachala XVI veka, Moscow-Leningrad, 1960, pp. 7-38, 204-12, 285-94. For a recent example of a historian's use of this interpretation, see Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime, Cambridge, 1974, pp. 229-30 [at http://www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/classes/pipeslandholding.html]

3 The standard explanation is that the grand princes "followed a wavering policy" throughout the sixteenth century: see, e.g., Jerome Blum, Lord and Peasant in Russia from thc Ninth to thc Nineteenth Century, Princeton, 1961, p. 196. Pipes, on the other hand, argues that while "the monarchy's stand in this dispute was ambivalent" it followed a policy of skilful manoeuvring' in order to get 'the best of both worlds', that is, the political support of the 'pro-property' faction," as well as confiscating Church lands: Pipes, Russia Under thc Old Regime, p. 230. Such "bi-polar" explanations abound in historians' narratives and are suspect on methodological grounds. From tenth-century Byzantium we have criticisms of the monastic establishment by the Emperor Nicephorus Phocas and documents that limit monastic land acquisition. But sixteenth-century Muscovy represented an entirely different situation. We do not have any indication there that the monasteries were headed for ruin, or that they could not manage land successfully, as has been given as the reason in the Byzantine sources for Nicephorus' actions. If anything, the monasteries in Muscovy were too successful. For the Byzantine situation, see, inter alia, Cyril Mango, Byzantium: Thc Empire of New Rome, London 1980, pp. 116-118.

4 On the distinction between "works which are merely accusatory" and a "genuine polemic" in which we have arguments from both sides, see Ya. S. Lur'ye, "Problems of Source Criticism (with Reference to Medieval Russian Documents)" (Slavic Rcview, xxvii, Seattle, 1968, p. 14); see also his letter in Kritika, ii, no. 2, Cambridge, MA, 1966, p. 37.

5 See, e.g., Yu. K. Begunov "Sekulyarizatsiya v Evrope i sobor 1503 g. v Rossii," in Feodalnaya Rossiya vo vsemirno-istoricheskom protsesee. Sbornik statey, posoyashchonnyy L'vu Vladimirovichu Cherepninu, ed. V.T. Pashuto et al., Moscow, 1972, pp. 41-42, where he attempted to tie in the secularization question in Muscovy with Protestant secularization in the West.
 
6 See, e.g., Michael Karpovich, "Church and State in Russian History" Russian Review, 1944, New York, pp. 10-12. Yanov sees the decisive turning point in Russian history to be the failure of the Muscovite State to secularize monastic land holdings in the sixteenth century and thereby satisfy "the land hunger of the feudal service gentry," as Denmark and Sweden had succeeded in doing: Alexander Yanov, The Origins of Autocracy: Ivan the Terrible in Russian History, Berkeley, 1981, pp. 153-54. Pipes, who uses the phrase "patrimonial rule," argues that conditional land tenure was "an absolutely fundamental factor in its [Russia's] historic development": Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime, pp. 172-73. This hypothesis, in which the autocrat forms an alliance with the Church against his own court, misled a number of scholars into seeing Iosif Volotsky as a proponent of absolutism: see, e.g., Marc Raeff, "An Early Theorist of Absolutism: Joseph of Volokolamsk" (Thc American Slavic and East European Rcoiew, viii, New York, 1949, pp. 79-89), reprinted without footnotes in Readings in Russian History, vol. 1: From Ancient Times to the Abolition of Serfdom, ed. Sidney Harcave, New York, 1962, pp. 177-87; Gunther Stokl, "Die politische Religiositat des Mittelaltersunddie Entstehungdes MoskauerStaates" (Saeculum, Munich, p.412), reprinted in Gunther Stokl, Der russischc Staat in Mittelalter und fraher Neuzeit, ed. Manfred Alexander, Hans Hecker, and Maria Lammich, Wiesbaden, 1981, p. 54. As a corrective to this misperception, see M. D'yakonov, Vlast' moskovskikh gosudarey: Ocherki po istorii politicheskikh idey drevney Rusi do kontsa XVI veka, St Petersburg, 1889, p. 129; Vladimir Val'denberg, Drevnerusskye uchoniyye o predelakh tsarskoy vlasti. Ocherki russkoy politicheskoy literatury ot Vladimira Svyatogo do kontsa XVII veka, Petrograd, 1916, pp. 203-22; Lur'ye, Ideologicheskaya borba, pp. 239-41; S. V. Utechin, Russian Political Thought: A Concise History, London, 1963, pp. 22-24; and Marc Szeftel, "Joseph Volotsky's Political Ideas in a New Historical Perspective" (Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteuropas, xiii, Wiesbaden, 1965, pp. 19-29)

7 V.O. Klyuchevsky, Boyarskaya duma drevney Rusi, Petrograd, 1919, pp. 272-73; G.V. Plekhanov, Istoriya russkoy obshchcsteennoy mysli, in Sochineniya, ed. D. Ryazanov, 24 vols, Moscow-Leningrad, 1923-27, xx, pp. 170-81; B. A. Rybakov, "Voinstvuyushchiye tserkovniki XVI v" (Antireligioznik, Moscow, 1934, no. 3, pp. 213, no. 4, pp. 23). Proponents of this variant like to point out that Vassian was a member of the prominent boyar family, the Patrikeyevs.

8 G. N. Moiseyeva, "Ob ideologii 'nestyazhateley,'" p. 94; Yanov, Origins of Autocracy, p. 152. Hellie argues that Ivan III sought an alliance with the Non-possessors, and that the middle service class complained about the "ever-increasing size of the church land fund," during the time of Ivan IV when measures were taken to stop monastic land acquisition: Richard Hellie, Enserfment and Military Change in Muscovy, Chicago, 1971, p. 42. Proponents of this view could point out that Nil Sorsky's worldly surname might have been Maykov, the name of a prominent non-boyar family: see "Pis'mo o nelyubkakh inokov Kirillova i losifova monastyrey," in Poslaniya Iosifa Volotskogo, ed. A. A. Zimin and Ya. S. Lur'ye, Moscow-Leningrad, 1959, p. 367.

9 As evidence, Budovnits points out that in one of the works attributed to Nil Sorsky, he refers to himself as a "poselyanin": I. U. Budovnits, Russkaya publitsistika XVl veka, Moscow and Leningrad, 1947, p. 81. See also A. A. Zimin, "Osnovnyye etapy i formy klassovoy bor'by v Rossii kontsa XV-XVI veka" (Voprosy istorii, no. 3, 1965, Moscow, p. 42); and Kazakova, Ocherk`, p. 41.

10 J. L.I. Fennell, "The Attitude of the Josephians and the Trans-Volga Elders to the Heresy of the Judaizers" (Slavonic and East European Review, xxix, London, 1951, pp 486-509) Besides the works listed below, other works have been said to have been inspired by the Church's opposition to secularization: most notably the Tale of the White Cowl and the letters traditionally attributed to Filofey that contain the "Third Rome" concept. See Nikolay Andreyev, "Filofey and His Epistle to Ivan Vasil'yevich" (Slavonic and East European Review, xxxviii, 1959, pp. 15-17). The headings, addressed to Ivan Vasil'yevich and to Vasily Ivanovich, appear only in later copies of these letters. While Andreyev argues that the tone of the letters to Ivan III and Vasily III is as though they were written to someone powerful, Filofey uses the terms "lord" and "sovereign" in his letters to Misyur' Munekhin, grand
princely d'yak in Pskov from 24 January 1510  to  11 March 1528. Stremooukhoff has already questioned the likelihood of a simple monk's writing to the grand prince: Dimitri Stremooukoff, "Moscow the Third Rome: Sources of the Doctrine" (Speculum, xxvi Cambridge, 1953, p. 124 n. 82, reprinted in The Structure of Russian History: Interpretative Essays, ed. Michael Cherniavsky, New York, 1970, pp. 108-25). Gol'dberg, after an extensive analysis of these letters, has concluded that only the letter addressed to Munekhin can definitely be attributed to Filofey: A. L. Gol'dberg, "Tri 'poslaniya Filofeya' (Opyt tekstologicheskogo analiza)' ( Trudy otdela drevnerusskoy literatury) [TODRL], xxix, Leningrad, 1974, pp. 68-92) (see below, fn. 75).

12 "'Slovo kratko' v zashchitu monastyrskikh imushchestv," with a preface by A. D. Grigor'yev, in Chteniya v Obshchestve istorii i drevnostey rossiyskikh pri Moskovskom universitete, book 2, section 2, Moscow, 1902, pp. I-XXX, 1-68. See also A. Sedelnikov, "K izucheniyu 'Slova kratka' i deyatel'nosti dominikantsa Venyamina" (Izvestiya Otdeleniya russkogo ya\yka i slovesnosti Akademii nauk, xxx, Leningrad, 1925, pp. 200-25).

13 See the so-called Tretise on Monastic Lands, published by V. Malinin in Starets Eleazarova monastyrya Filofey i ego poslaniye. Istoriko-literaturnoye issledovaniye, Kiev, 1901,  "Prilozheniye," pp. 128-44

14 N. A. Kazakova, Vassian Patrileyev i yego sochineniya, Moscow-Leningrad, 1960, pp. 287-94.

15. B. M. Kloss, "Mitropolit Daniil i Nikonovskaya letopis" (TODRL, XXVIU, 1974, pp. 103-30); idem, Nikonovskiy svod i russkiye letopisi XVI-XVII vekov, Moscow, 1980, pp. 103-30. Despite Kloss's supreme efforts to demonstrate that Daniil was the compiler of the Nikon Chronicle, some doubt can still legitimately be expressed about the nature of Daniil's involvement: cf. my remarks in Kritika, XVIII, 1982, pp. 19-21. See also Serge A. Zenkovsky, "lntroduction," Thc Nikonian Chronicle from the Beginning to the Year 1132 (Volume One) Princeton, 1984, p. xxix.

16 For the full text with variants, see Donald Ostrowski, "A 'Fontological' Investigation of the Muscovite Church Council of 1503" (Ph.D. Dissertarion, Pennsylvania State University, 1977), pp. 415-91.

17 These are: the Life of Iosif (Zhitiye Iosifa) by Lev Filiog, the Life of Serapion (Zhitiye Serapiona), the Letter About Animosities (Pis'mo o nelyubkokh), the Council Answer (Sobornyy otoet), and Another Word (Slovo inoye). Texts, analyses, and manuscript descriptions can be found in Ostrowski , "A 'Fontological' Investigation."

18 Ya. S. Lur'ye, '"Sobraniye na likhoimtsev" - neizdannyy pamyatnik russkoy
publitsistiki kontsa XV v.' ( TODRL, xxi, 1965, pp. 132-33); idem, "K voprosu o 'latinstve' gennadievskogo literaturnogo kruzhka," in Issledovaniya i materialy po drevnerusskoy literature, Moscow, 1961, pp. 70-73; idem, Ideologicheskaya bor'ba, pp. 225-29.  

19 See Malinin, Starets, "Prilozheniye," pp. 128-32

20 A. A. Zimin, "O politicheskoy doktrine Iosiva Volotskogo" (TODRL, IX, 1953, pp. 167-74), partially repeated in A. A. Zimin, "Ob uchastii losifa Volotskogo v sobore l5O3 g.," in Poslaniya Iosiva Volotskogo, pp. 371-74

21 Velikiye Minei Chetii, sobrannye vserossiyskim mitropolitom Makariyem, 16 vols, St Petersburg, 1861-1912, vol. 1, pp. 475-80, Poslaniya Iosifa Volotskogo, pp. 185-227, 262-80, 321-66.

22 For a survey of the extensive argument over the date of composition of the Statute, see Ya. N. Shchapov, Knyazheskye ustavy i tserkov' v drevney Rusi XI-XIV vv., Moscow, 1972, pp. 12-28. Shchapov favours a twelfth-century date (ibid., pp. 127-28). More recently, Kaiser has questioned the early dating of the Statute and proposed what appears to be a more plausible fourteenth-century date on the grounds that the Statute first appears in a fourteenth-century supplement of the Kormchaya kniga of 1282. If the Statute had existed before the fourteenth century, Kaiser reasons, its inclusion in the earlier Kormchiye books "would seem automatic": Daniel Kaiser, The Growth of Law in Medieval Russia, Princeton, 1980, pp. 512-23 n. 185.

23 It has been argued that Maksim Grek must have conveyed the information about  Lorenzo Valla's proof to Muscovy. There is no evidence that Maksim (1) was aware of Valla's proofs, (2) that he mentioned it if he was, or (3) that it was accepted as such if he mentioned it in Muscovy. Indeed, the evidence seems to point in the opposite direction, that is, the Donation began to come into widespread usage in Muscovy in the second half of the fifteenth century, that is, after Valla's demonstration. Its popularity remained intact at least until the eighteenth century. See Joseph 1.. Wieczynski, "The Donation of Constantine in Medieval Russia" The Catholic Historical Review, LV, Washington, DC, 1969, pp. 159-72.

24 "Istiny pokazaniye k voprosivshim o novom uchenii. Sochineniye Inoka Zinoviya" (Pravoslavayy sobesednik, Kazan', 1881, pp. 392-923).

25 Donald Treadgold, The West in Russia and China: Religious and Secular Thought in Modern Times, vol. 1 Russia, 1472-1817, Cambridge, 1973, p. 41.

26 For an evaluation of Zinoviy's views on monastic landholding, see Nancy Yanoshak, "A Fontological Analysis of the Major Works Attributed to Zinovii Otenskii" (Ph.D. Dissertation, Georgetown University, 1981), pp. 392~4. Yanoshak states that, besides the argument that the monasteries need land and wealth to help the poor, "the rest of what Zinoviy says in justifying monastic landholding has little in common with" the arguments associated with the Josephians (p. 393).

27 Pipes, Russia Under thc Old Regime, p. 230.

28  Ostrowski, "A 'Fontological' Investigation," pp. 320-40. Both Lur'ye and Moiseyeva have argued that Church parties did not have an impact at the time of the 1503 Church Council, although both scholars accept the Church parties concept for later in the sixteenth century: Ya. S. Lur'ye, "Kratkaya redaktsiya 'Ustava' Iosifa Volotskogo-pamyatnik ideologii rannego iosiflyanstva' (TODRL, xii, 1956, pp. 123-26); Moiseyeva, Valaamskaya beseda, pp. 27-28; and Lur'ye, Ideologichskaya bor'ba, pp. 414-16.

29 A. A. Zimin, Rossiya na poroge novogo vremeni, Moscow, 1972, p. 128. Yanov refers to him as "the leader of the second generation of Non-Acquirers": Yanov, Origins of Autocracy, p. 167.

30 "Nila Sorskogo Predaniye i Ustav" (Pamyaniki drevney pisimennosti i iskusstva, 190 vols,, St. Petersburg, 1878-1925, vol CLXXIX, 1912, p. 59, also p. 81). See also Lur'ye, Ideologicheskaya bor'ba, p. 341. Two sources, the Letter About Animosities and the Slovo inoye, attribute an active role to Nil at the 1503 Church Council, in raising the question of secularization. Neither of these sources is reliable: see Ostrowski, "A `'Fontological"' Investigation," pp. 240-72,

31 V. Zhmakin, Metropolit Daniil i ego sochineniya, Moscow, 1881, "Prilozhenie," pp. 5-6.

32 Lur'ye has contended that there are "close ties between the two most prominent church writers [Iosif and Nil] of the late fifteenth century," and the idea that "contradictions exist between Nil's critical direction and Josephism [is an] insufficiently argued but constantly repeated historiographical view": Jakov S. Luria [Ya. S. Lur'ye], "Unresolved Issues in the History of the Ideological Movements of the Late Fifteenth Century," in Medieval Russian Culture, ed. Henrik Birnbaum and Michael S. Flier (California Slavic Studies, vol. xii), Berkeley, 1984, p. '64. See also Lur'ye, Ideologichcskaya bor'ba, pp. 312-16.

33 G. M. Prokhorov, "Poslaniya Nila Sorskogo" (TODRI., xxix, 1974, p. 141).

34 See, e.g., A Treasury of Russian Spirituality, ed. G. P. Fedotov, New York, 1950, pp. 100, 129-130

35 Zimin, Rossiyana poroge, p. 127.

36. In early versions of East Slavonic, the verb derzhati, when applied to lands, seems to have had more the meaning of "to administer," "to manage," "to have power over" rather than the modern meaning of 'to own' or 'to possess': see 1. I. Sreznevsky, Matcrialy dlya slovarya drevnerusskogo yazyka, 3 vols, St Petersburg, 1893-1912, vol. 1, cols 775-76; and Slovar' russkogo yazka XI-XVII vv., 10 vols(to date),Moscow, 1975-83, vol.i v,pp.224-226.See also derzhati in Slovnyk staroukrainsikoy movy XIV-XV st., 2 vols, Kiev, 1977, vol. 1, pp. 295-97. It is unlikely that the black clergy personally could 'own' or 'possess' lands. Therefore, I have chosen the term 'keep' in order more accurately to represent the nuances of derzhati. See also the word vladeti (in Sreznevsky, Materialy, vol. 1, cols 26~70; and in Slovar' russogo yazyka,XI-XVII vv., vol. 2, p. 211; and volodeti in Slovnyk staroukrains'koy movy XIV-XV st., vol. 1, p. 191 ), which I have translated as "to manage" in this context.

37 Kazakova, Vassian Patrikeeyev, pp. 224, 233, 241.
 
38 Ibid., pp. 225, 233, 241.

39 Ibid., pp. 233, 242

40 Ibid, p. 287.

41 "Polemicheskiye sochineniya inoka-knyazya Vassiana Patrikeyeva (XVI st.)," ed. A. S. Pavlov (Pravoslavnyy sobesednik, 1863, pt. 3, p. 207); Kazakova, Vassian Patrikeyev, p. 179; Ostrowski, "A 'Fontological' Investigation," pp. 508-09 (and pp. 227-29 for a discussion of this passage). Zimin pointed out the distinction in terminology, but drew a different conclusion: see Zimin, Rossiya na poroge, pp. 330-33.

42 For the argument that the traditional date and attribution of the Debate are mistaken, and that it should be dated to 1554-1555 and attributed to Artemy, see Ostrowski, "A 'Fontological' Investigation," pp. 186-239.

43 "Polemicheskiye sochineniya," pp. 207-08; Kazakova, Vassian Patrikeyev, p. 279; Ostrowski, "A 'Fontological' Investigation," pp 510-11. Even the form in which this idea finds expression is odd: Iosif says that Vassian came to Moscow "to instruct the grand prince . . . to take away villages from monasteries and secular churches." Vassian replies, "Now, Iosif, you do not lie about me that I advise the grand prince to take away villages from monasteries, but not from secular churches."   Both before and after this passage in the Debate Vassian uses the phrase "Now, losif, you do lie about me . . ." Since the author of the Debate has gone to great lengths to demonstrate that everything Iosif says about Vassian is not true, it would be inconsistent to acknowledge that one of Iosif's accusations was true.

44 See, e.g., "Povest' strashna i dostoprimechatel'na," Sochineniya prepodobnogo Maksima Greka, ed. I.Ya. Porfir'yev, 3 vols, Kazan', 1859-1862 vol. iii, p. 133, where Maksim praises the Latins for their "nestyazhatel'nost." He is obviously not speaking about their rejection of land acquisition.

45 Sochineniya Maksima Greka, vol. iii, pp. 243-45.

46 Jack V. Haney, From Italy to Muscovy: The Life and Works of Maxim the Greek, Munich, 1973, p. 49. In contrast, in the Sudnyye spiski Maksima Greka, Metropolitan Daniil asks Maksim whether Byzantine monasteries have villages, to which Maksim replies, "I do not know." Undaunted, N. N. Pokrovsky, in his introduction to the publication, finds the work to be reliable evidence of a church party conflict over monastic landholding (pp. 51-53).

47 Kazakova, Ocherki, p 159; cf Sochineniya Maksima Grcka, vol. iii, pp. 178-205.

48 Kazakova, Ocherki, p. 162; cf. Sochineniya Maksima Grcka, vol. ii. pp. 5-52.

49 Ibid, p 162.

50 Ibid, p. 242-43

51 James Billington, The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture, New York. 1970, p. 92

52. Ibid.

53 See :Glavy pouchitel’ny nachal'stvoyushchim pravoverno," Sochineniya Maksima Greka, vol. ii, p. 175; and "Styazaniye o izvestnom inocheskom zhitel'stve. Litsa zhe styazuyushchikhsya Filoktimon da Aktimon, sirech' lyubostyazhatel'nyy da nestyazhatel’nyy," Sochineniya Maksima Greka, vol. ii, p. 114

54 A. I Ivanov, "K voprosu o nestyazhatel'skiLh vzglsadakh Maksima Greka" (Vizantijskiy vremennik, XXIX, Moscow, 1969, pp 136-38)

55 On this point see, inter alia, Lester Little, Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe, Ithaca, 1978, p 68.

56 Cf. N. V. Sinitsyna, "Eticheskiy i sotsial'nyy aspekty nestyazhatel'skikh vozzreniy Maksima Greka," in Obshchestco i gosudarstvo feodal'nvy Rossii, ed. V.T. Pashuto et al., Moscow, 1975, pp. 159-70; and especially, N. V. Sinitsyna, Maksim Grek v Rossii, Moscow, 1977, pp. 103-29, where Sinitsyna, although she accepts the Church parties concept, concedes that "in the polemic around monastic landholding" Maksim was "far from an active participant" (p. 126).

57 G. N. Moiseyeva, Valaamskaya beseda--pamyatnik russkoy publitsistiki serediny,XVI veka, Moscow-Leningrad, 1958, pp. 51-88.

58 A. A. Zimin, "Beseda valaamskikh chudotvortsev kak pamyatnik pozdnego nestyazhatel'stva" (T0DRL, XI, 1955, pp. 198-208).

59 Moiseyeva, Valaamskaya beseda, pp. 162-63, 179-80.

60 Zimin, "Beseda," p. 206. Zimin's unease with the wording in the Beseda is understandable; in a historiographical theory that has the tsar attempting to secularize monastic lands, it is strange to have a source that argues against the tsar's giving lands to monasteries (or perhaps this was more "skillul manoeuvring").

61 Zimin has argued that the Valaam Discussion must have been composed before 1611 because the Valaam Monastery was burned by the Swedes in that year. Zimin's conclusion is based on two suppositions: that the Discussion was composed at Valaam and that it could not have been composed there alter the fire. The entire question of the dating and place of cornposition ol this work should be reexamined.    
62 "Styazaniye o izvestnom inocheskom zhitel'sve," .Sochineniya Maksima Greka, vol. ii, p. 111.

63 See Iosif's "Monastic Rule" in Poslaniya Iosifa Volotsiogo, p. 309; see also The Monastic Rule of Iosif Volotsky, translated by David M. Goldfrank, Kalamazoo, 1983, pp 102-103; N. A. Kazakova and Ya. S. Lur'ye, Antifeodal;nyye yereticheskiye dvizheniya na Rusi XIV-nachala VI veka Moscow-Leningrad, 1955, p. 469; and Zhmakin, Mitropolit Daniil, Addendum, p. 56. These statements by Iosif and Danill, it is true, are about icons and books, not about monastic lands. But if a monk is not to acquire icons and books, then he would certainly not be advised to acquire villages and arable land.

64 A. S. Pavlov, "O Kormchey inoka-knyazya Vassiana Patrikeyeva" (Uchonyye zopiski Imperatorskogo Kazanskogo universiteta po otdeleniyu istoriko-filologicheskith i politiko-yuridicheskikh nauk, Kazan, 1864, pt. 2, see, esp. pp. 493, 495, and 496).

65 For a discussion of the ambience of the nineteenth-century historiographical arguments, see Lur'ye, Ideologichcskaya bor'ba, pp. 204-07, 285-88.

66 See, e.g., references in The History of the Grand Prince of Moscow. and the Letter About Animosities. While both these sources indicate conflicts among monks (something not disputed in this paper), and while reference to "Josephians" is made in one of them, at no time are the Josephians referred to in any way as a Church party, nor are they contrasted with any specific group, Church party or otherwise. "The word 'Josephian' is used in The History as a term of opprobrium, not to designate a political group, or in direct contrast with those who follow the 'life of non-acquisition.'" See Prince A.M. Kurbsky's History of Ivan IV, edited with a translation and notes by J. L. I. Fennell, Cambridge, 1965, pp. 6, 76, 80, and 144 for mention of Osiflyane, and pp. 188, 246, and 268, where the "nesyachateltnoye zhitel’stvo" is referred to. For the argument that Thc History was composed "in Moscow around 1675," see Edward L. Keenan, "Putting Kurbsky in His Place, or: Observations and Suggestions Concerning the Place ol the History of thc Grand Princc of Muscovy in the History of Muscovite Literary Culture" (Forschungen zur osteuropaischen Gcschichte, xxiv, Wiesbaden, 1978, pp. 131-61)

67 Jack Edward Kollmann, "The Moscow Stoglav (Hundred Chapters) Church Councl of 1551" (PhD Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1978), pp. 87-92

68 A.A. Zimin. I.S. Peresvetov i yego sovreminniki, Moscow, 1958, pp. 47, 101, n. 221.

69 Kollmann, "The Moscow Stoglav," pp. 91-92.

70 "Poslaniya k tsaryu Ivanu Groznomu" (Russkaya istorichcskaya biblioteka, iv, St Petersburg, 1878, col. 1440.

71 Kazakova argues that Artemy was not being "sincere" when he wrote this statement to the tsar, and that he prevaricated because he was being accused of heresy: Kazakova, Vassian Patrikeyev, p. 161, n. 81. If we do not accept this statement as sincerely representing Artemy’s position, then what his actual position may have been on the question of monastic lands becomes total conjecture.

72 Zimin, Krupnaya feodal'naya votchina i sotsial’no-politicheskaya bor’ba v Rossii konets XV-XVI v, Moscow, 1977, pp. 283, 284, 293, and 294.

73 Ibid., pp. 290-91.

74 Cf: A. S. Pavlov, Istoricheskiy ocherk sekulyarizatsii tserkovnykh zemel' v Rossii, Part 1, Popytki k obrashcheniyu v gosudarstuennayu sobstvennost' pozemel'nykh vladenly russkoy tserkvi v XVI veke (1503-1580 g. ), Odessa, 1871, pp. 6-7.

75 I owe most of the following references to M. B. McGeehon, "The Problem of Secularization in Sixteenth-Century Muscovy," in The Council of 1503: Source Studies and Questions of Ecclesiastical Landowning in Sixteenth-Century Muscovy, ed. Edward L. Keenan and Donald Ostrowski, Cambridge, MA, 1977, pp. 173-75. Evidence about confiscations is found mainly in documents that return the land, or make compensation, to the monastery. Monasteries rarely maintained records of confiscations per se. According to an immunity charter dated 1538, Ivan IV granted two settlements (slobodki) to Vassian Toporkov, bishop of Kolomna. "The agent (pisets) Borozdin had previously assigned these settlements to the Kolomna suburb (posad)" V. A. Kuchkin, "Zhalovannaya gramota 1538g. na dve slobodki v Kolomne" (Arkheograficheskiy ezhegodnik  za 1959 god, Moscow, 1960, p. 342). A charter dated 18June 1539 restores to the Spasskiy Monastery in Yaroslavl properties that had been confiscated the previous year: I. A. Vakhrameyev, Istoricheskiye akty Yaroslavskogo Spasskogo monastyrya, 4 vols, Moscow, 1896, vol. 1, no. 10, pp. 10-11. A tax-exemption charter (tarkhannaya gramota), dated 20 March 1556, states that in 1552-1553 (7061) several villages and settlements belongirig to the Kirillov Monastery in Zvenigorod had been confiscated in the name of the tsar: Akty istoricheskiye sobrannye i izdannye Arkheograficheskoy kommissiey [AI] 5 vols. St. Petersburg, 1841-42, vol. I, no. 163, pp. 299-314. A Ryazan census book (pistsovaya kniga) states that on 16 July 1553 the Bogoslovskiy Monastery had been deprived of a number of villages. A.N. Piskaryov, Drevniye gramoty i akty Ryazanskogo kraya, St. Petersburg, 1854, no. 18, pp. 32-35. As the result of adjustments carried out by the agents Fomin and Petrov in 1535, the Vysotskiy Monastery in Serpukhov had been deprived of enough land to provide for 3 pomeshchiki: I.I. Smirnov, Ocherki politichekoy iatorii Russkogo gosudarstva 30-50-kh godov VI vek, Moscow-Leningrad, 958, pp. 438-40. A charter, dated 11 June 1559 returns to the Spasskiy Monastery fishing grounds that had previously been removed by the agent (Grigory Vel'yarrinov Vakhrameyev, Istoricheskiye akty, vol. 1, no. 23, pp. 31-32. A charter dated 17 April 1556 orders compensation for confiscation of some villages from the Kirillov-Belozerskiy Monastery in 1561 by the agent I1'ya Pleshcheyev: P. A. Sadikov, "Iz istorii oprichnimy XVI v." (Istoricheskiy arkhiv, III, Moscow, 1940, pp. 186-87).  If the d'iaki could operate independently in cofniscating monastic lands then Filofey's letter, which invokes the power of  the grand prince as protector of the Rus' Church, gains a new rneaning. Filofey may be warning the d'yak Munekhin to keep his hands off Pskov church and monastic lands (see above, fn. 11). The Muscovite d'yaki probably were the last court of appeal over the heads of the local agents.

76 From 20 November 1568 we have a charter directing that the entire lands and properties of the Bogoyavlenskiy Monastery are to revert to the tsar: V. B. Kobrin, "Iz istorii zemel'noy politiki v gody Oprichniny" ( Istoricheskiy arkhiv.`, 1958, no. 3, pp. 156-58).  In census books of the 1500s we have examples of monastic properties of questionable title being returned to their former holders or being confiscated outright by the State: Pistsovyye Moskovskogo gosudarstva Part i, Pistsovye knigi XVI veka, 2 vols, ed. N.V. Kalachov, St. Petersburg, 1872-77.

77 S. M. Kashtanov, "Ogranicheniye feodal'nogo immuniteta pravitel'stvom russkogo tsentralizovannogo gosudarstva v I-oy treti XVI veka" (Trudy Moskovskago gosudarsivennogo istoriko-arkhivnogo instituta [Trudy MGIAI], xi, Moscow, 1958, pp. 270-7 1).

78 Archimandrite Amvrosy, Istoriya rossiyskoy ierarkhii, 6 vols, Moscow, 1807-15, vol. iii, 1811, pp. 712-14. It is significant that this charter, written before 1550, makes no mention of the grand prince's taking away votchiny from the monastery. The threat of confiscation for non-compliance probably had not yet entered the bureaucratic repertoire.

79 Stoglav, 2nd edition, Kazan', 1887, p. 111. see also ibid., p. 140. Translation based on that in Kollmann, "The Moscow Stoglav," p. 422

80. Cf Pavlov, Istoricheskiy ocherk sekulyarizatsii tserkovnykh zemel;' v Rossii, pp. 121-25, 141-51.

81 Akty, sobrannyyc v bibliotclrakh i arkhivakh Rossiyskoy imperii Arkheografichcskoy ekspeditsiey imperatorskoy Akademii nauk [AAE], 4 vols, St Petersburg, 1836, vol. I, no. 227, pp. 218-19.

82 Ibid., item 7, pp. 258-60.

83 Ibid., item 18, pp. 268-70.

84 Ibid., item 19, p. 270.

85 S. B. Veselovsky, "Monastyrskoye zemlevladeniye v Moskovskoy Rusi vo vtoroy polovine XV I v." (Istorichcskiye zapiski, x, Moscow, 1941, p. 100). See also Yu. G. Alekseyev, Agrarnaya i sotsialtnaya istoriya severo-vostochnoy Rusi XV-XVI vv., Moscow-Leningrad, 1966, pp. 178-225.

86 Sobraniye gosudarstvennykh gramot i dogorov [SGCD], 5 vols, St Petersburg, 1813-94, vol. I, no. 200, pp, 583-87. For a discussion of the "1581 Church Council," see Donald Ostrowski, "Did a Church Council Meet in 1581? A Question of Method" (Slavic Review, XLII, Urbana, 1983, pp. 258-65)

87 Veselovsky, "Monaslyrskoye zemlevladeniye," p. 101. According to the figures available to Veselovsky, monasteries acquired during the years 1552-79, on the average, 21.6 holdings per year; during the years 1580-90, inclusive, the average is 4.3 holdings per year.

88 Akty feodalinyye zemlevladeniya i khozyaystva. Akty moskovskago Simonov monastyrya (1506-1613 gg.), compiled by L.I. Ivina, Leningrad, 1983, no. 112, pp. 124-25.

89 S. M. Solov'yov, Istoriya Rossii s drcevneyshikh vremyon, 29 vols, Moscow, 1959- 66, vol. VII,  p. 92. The charter excluded certain areas that had been excluded in the Decree of 11 May 1551.

90 Akty yuridichcskiyc, ili sobraniyc form starinnogo deloproizvodstva, St Petersburg, 1838, no. 126, p. 152; AAE, vol. 1, no. 200 (cf. no. 182).

91 Metropolitan Makary [Bulgakov], Istoriya russkoy tserkvi, 12 vols, St Petersburg, 1857-83, vol. VIII, p. 255.

92 See, e.g., N. P. Likhachov, Razryadnyye d’yaki XVl veka, St Petersburg, 1888;I. I. Vwrner, O vremeni i prichinakh obrazovaniya moskovskikh prikazov, 2 vols, Moscow, 1907-08; A. A. Zimin, "0 slozhenii prikaznoy sistemy na Rusi" (Doklady i soobshchestveniya Instituta istorii AN SSSR, vol.III, Moscow, 1954, pp. 164-76); A. K. Leont'yev, Obrazovaniye prikaznoy sistemy upravlniya v russiom gosudarstve, Moscow, 1961; S. 0. Shmidt, "O d'yachestve Rossii serediny XVI v.," in Problemy obshchestvenno-politicheskoy istorii Rossii M.N. Tithomirova, Moscow, 1963, pp. 181- 90; A. A. Zimin, :D'yacheskiy apparat v Rossii vtoroy poloviny XV-pervoy treti XVI v." (Istoricheskye zapiski, LXXXVII, 1971, pp. 219-86); S. B. Veselovsky, D yaki i pod’yachiye XV-XVII vv., Moscow, 1975; Peter Brown, "Early Modern Russian Bureaucracy: The Evolution of the Chancellery System from Ivan III to Peter the Great, 1478-1717" (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1978).

93 If, as has been asserted, Muscovite trade was falling off after the middle of the sixteenth century, then the need for revenue from taxation of proprietary wealth must have been greater in order to replace the lowered revenue from taxation of commercial wealth: see M. N. Pokrovsky, History of Russia: From the Earliest Time to the Rise of Commercial Capitalism, trans. and ed. Jesse D. Clarkson, Bloomington, 1966, pp. 151-60, who attributes the decline in trade to the Muscovite defeat in the l.ivonianWar; and D. P. Makovsky, Razvitiye tovarno-denezhnnykh otnosheniy v sel'skom khozyaystve russkogo gosudarstva v XVI veke, Smolensk, 1960, p. 203, who attributes the decline to the devastation wrought by the Oprichnina. Evidence seems to indicate that the entire economy was declining in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Peasants were abandoning the three-field system in the centre for more extensive methods of cultivation (see below, fn. 103). l.yashchenko attributes this general decline to "the transition from the old form of the large, feudal, self-contained economy to the new form of self-operated pomest’ye." Peter I. Lyashchenko History of the National Economy of Russia to the Revolution, trans. by L.M. Herman New York, 1949, pp. 191-93.

94 For a discussion of the reasons behind the donation of lands to monasteries see V. O. Klyuchevsky, A History of Russia, trans. by C.J. Hogarth, 5 vols, New York, 1911-1931 reissued 1960, vol. II, pp. 176-80.

95 A. A. Vvedensky, "Fal'sifikatsiya dokumentov v Moskovskom gosudarstve XVI-XVII vv." (Problemy istochnikovvedeniya, 1, Leningrad, 1933, pp, 85-109; A. A. Zimin, "Aktovyye poddelki Troitse-Sergieva monastyrya 80-kh godov XVI v." in Voprosy sotsial’no-ekonomicheskoy istorii I istochnikovedeniya perioda feodalisma v Rossii. Sbornik statey k 70-lettyu A.A. Novosel’skogo, Moscow, 1961, pp. 247-51, and idem, "K izucheniyu fal’silikatsii aktovykh materialiov v russkom gosudarstve XVI-XVII vv." (Trudy MGIAI, SVII, 1963, pp. 399-428).

99 Kollmann argues that the prelates opposed these measures not so much because they were fearful of the disclosure of wrong-doing as of "governmental encroachment on the traditional prerogatives of the Church": Kollmann, "The Moscow Stoglav," pp. 425-26.

97 I obtained this idea concerning the formation of the Muscovite bureaucracy from Edward L. Keenan, who cites the Tatar and popovskiye names in lists of d"yaki, the early Tatar practices (e.g., the countermarks in Uighur script), various sketches in Veselovsky’s works, and the general information about Khovriny, Trakhanioty, Ralevy, and other Greeks who came to Muscovy via Italy after the downfall of Constantinople and who became Russianized early on.

98 Duby’s paradigm of "three orders" (that is, those who fight, those who work, and those who pray) for the medieval West seems even more applicable to Eastern Orthodox territory, where crossing of the boundaries between "orders" almost never shows up in the sources: Georges Duby, Les Trois Ordres ou l’imaginatre du feodalisme, Paris, 1978, translated into English by Arthur Goldhammer as The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined, Chicago, 1982. This pattern holds firm until the seventeenth century in Muscovy, but began to deteriorate as early as the mid-sixteenth century in the Ukraine, probably due to western influences.

99 Hellie, who cites Zimin and Koretsky, argues that attempts were made by the tsar at the behest of the "middle service class" to forbid further monastic land acquisitions. Hellie, Enserfment, p. 42. Zimin, who cites The History of the Grand Prince of Moscow, uses this as an example of how these complaints had little to no effect on tsarist policy. A.A. Zimin, prichnina Ivana Groznogo, Moscow, 1961, p. 114.  Koretsky does see the complaints as affecting tsarist policy, but relies heavily on Jerome Horsey. V.I. Koretsky, Zakreposhcheniye krest’yan i klassovaya bor’ba v Rossii vo vtoroy polovine XVI v., Moscow, 1970, p. 87. It is clear, in my opinion, that Horsey’s account corresponds more readily to conditions in sixteenth century England. Rude & Barbarous Kingdom: Russia in the Accounts of Sixteenth Century English Voyagers, ed. Lloyd E. Berry and Robert O. Crummey, Madison, 1968, pp. 281-83.

100 Zimin, Krupnaya feodal’naya votchina, p. 280.

101 SGGD, vol. 1, p. 585.

102 Polnoye sobraniye russkikh letopisey [PSRL], 37 vols. St. Petersburg and Moscow, 1843-1982, vol. XIII, pp. 267-69.

103 N. A. Rozhkov, Sel'skoye khoz,yaystvo moskovskoy Rusi v XVI veke, Moscow, 1899, pp. 105-117, N. F. Yanitsky, "Ekonomicheskiy krizis v novgorodskoy oblasti XVI veka" (Kievskiye universitetskiye izvestiya, no. 2, Kiev, 1915, pp. 97-133); B.D. Grekov, Krest’yane na Rusi s drevneyshikh vremyhon do XVII veka, 2 vols, Moscow, 1954, vol. II, pp. 233-56; A.I. Kopanev, "Naseleniye russkogo gosudarstva v XVI v." (Istoricheskiye zapiski, LXIV, 1959, pp. 233-254); G.A. Pobedimova, "K voprosu o stabil’nosti sel’skogo naseleniya votchiny v XVI v.," Moscow, 1960, pp. 172-90; Jerome Blum, Lord and Peasant in Russia, p. 166; A.A. Zimin, "Khozyaystvennyy krizis 60-70-kh godov XVI v. i russkoye krest’yanstvo," in Materialy po istorii sel’skogo khozyaystva I krest’yanstva SSSR, vol. V, 1962, pp. 11-20. Giles Fletcher mentions seeing between Vologda and Yaroslavl’ "fifty derevni or villages at the least, some half a mile, some a mile long, that stand vacant and desolate without any inhabitant," Rude & Barbarous Kingdom, p. 170.

104 See, e.g., Mark Lapman, "Political Denunciations in Muscovy, 1600-1649: The Sovereign’s Word and Deed" (PhD Dissertation, Harvard University, 1982), esp. pp. 66-70.

103 See Borivoj Plavsic, "Seventeenth-Century Chanceries and their Staffs," in Russian Officialdom: The Bureaucratization of Russian Society from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. Walter Mckenzie Pintner and Don Karl Rowney, Chapel Hill, 1980, pp. 19-45.

106 Brown, "Early Modern Russian Bureaucracy," p. 2 (see also p. 60).

107 For remarks on the "increased importance" of the d’yaki and on the bureaucracy as "an avenue of personal advancement," see Ann M. Kleimola, Justice in Medieval Russia" Muscovite Judgement Charters (Pravye gramoty) of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, Philadelphia, 1975 (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s., vol. LXV, pt. 6), pp. 19-20.

108 In particular, the Council Answer of 1503 seems to derive from the Answer of Makary (c. 1550). See Nancy M. Shields, "The Council Answer, Second Letter, and Later Redaction," in The Council of 1503, pp. 136-63, and Ostrowski, "A Fontological Investigation," pp. 145-60.