N. V. Sokolova The Nyzhegorodsky estates of the Amvrosiev Dudin monastery in the beginning of the 18th century (landownership, farming, peasants,  village community)

Abstract: The article analyzes the results in the development of landownership and farming of one of the oldest Nyzhegorodsky monasteries, from its economic description of 1701–1702 recorded by stolnik P. B. Velyaminov during the Russia-wide census of monastic properties. This census was instigated after the transfer of monastic property governance to the established Monastic Department (Monastyrski Prikaz). The use of such sources requires close attention to the historical context of their creation: the description itself, of course, does not yet imply the secularization of church-monastery possessions and properties, but it did later become the premise and the instrument of this process. This research shows that the description fully covers the Nyzhegorodsky part of the Amvrosiev Dudin Monastery estates, without any deliberate falsification. Thus it has been possible to trace the changes of the settlement patterns on these monastic properties in the period between the “dozor” (emergency description) of Vasily Borisov and Tretyak Obraztsov (1587/1588 ã.), the cadastral books of the 1620s and the anagraph from the beginning of the 18th century. The author describes the main branches of the monastery’s farming activity on the eve of the first secularization attempt by Peter I. Particular attention is devoted to the rent relations within the village of the monastery, to the role of the peasant community as a crucial component in the votchina system of management, and to the mechanism of upholding the taxability of the monastery’s peasants. The author views the census lists of the Dudin Monastery not only as a source documenting an evolution stage of a particular estate economy, but also as a significant contribution to the 1701–1702 “information section”, which allows to make an accurate data comparison with a number of other ecclesiastical corporations. The applied aspect of this comprehensive regional analysis has allowed to confirm the study results on the quantitative dynamics of the dependent population in monastery estates on the territory of the Nyzhegorodskyi province, and supports the comparisons with the development tendencies of other monastic domains in the period between the cadastral books of the 1620s and the description of the beginning of the 18th century.

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