Taxation of Peasants of Purdyshevsky Monastery in the 1680s

Abstract

By the mid-16th century, the Mordvinian territories had completely and voluntarily joined the Russian state, which had been accompanied by significant structural ethnic transformations within the population of the region. The changes were largely due to the accelerated inflows of ethnic Russians to the Mordvinian lands and further to southern and eastern territories of the Volga Region, as well as due to migrations of the Mordvins within their native lands and subsequent resettlements to other parts of the Volga Region. A large number of Russian villages appeared in the Mordvinian lands. While Russian state authorities were coming into existence in the new territories, the noble government officials turning into ‘landlords’, the lands were distributed between the native inhabitants and the newly arrived population as actually owned by the mentioned groups. Thus, the landlord system in the Mordvinian territories took shape as a result of both land distributions and land grabs. At the same time, there was a trend towards a substantial increase of landed estates and their population accompanied by an increase in the number of lands owned by monasteries. As the population of the basic Russian towns within Nizhny Novgorod Region grew, the colonization activities of monasteries got accelerated. During the period, a number of friaries and nunneries were established, including one of the oldest Orthodox Christian centers - Alatyr Holy Trinity Monastery founded as an affiliated friary of Diocese of Kazan, and duties and services of peasants increased multifold which lead to great discontent. The peasants had to look for additional means of sustenance for such friaries. The supplementary duties imposed by new administrators upon monastery peasants also resulted in heavy irritation. The article focuses on taxation of monastery peasants throughout the Mordvinian territories in the last third of the 17th century. Tax burdens on peasants from different monasteries varied significantly. For example, administrators of Purdyshevsky Monastery exploited their subject peasant households very intensely. Moreover, the former extensively used non-economic coercion, such as extortions. Local authorities pursued a policy of non-interference towards monastery estates, monastery administrators acting as deterrent agents to control and suppress the discontented peasant population, which gave way to further and wider abuses of monastery administrators.