Nikita Viktorovich Bashnin,
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor, St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Structure of the Vologda Bishop’s Court in the Last Quarter of the 17th Century (Based on the Materials of Account Books)
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2024-2-8
The article presents the results of a study of two account books of the Vologda Episcopal House of St. Sophia in the last third of the 17th century. The analysis of the list of bishops who received salaries showed that the most numerous group among the employees in the bishop’s house were armed servants. In total, there were 26 positions in the structure of the bishop’s court and another category of people who received salaries – armed servants. In the 14 years from 1677/1678 to 1692/1693, the number of bishops people receiving salaries increased from 94 to 102. The most noticeable change was the splitting of the choristers into three steps in 1692/1693, as well as the emergence of new positions: a riding cellarer, a sexton, a tablecloth elder, a cup holder (they were occupied by elders); a horse stoker, a silversmith, a blacksmith, a cook, a henchman, a bread maker, a brewer, a carpenter, a groom (they were occupied by secular persons). During this time, the personnel in positions that could only be held by clerics completely changed, and people of secular ranks also changed for the most part. So, of the 15 singers named in 1677/1678, only two were mentioned in 1692/1693 – Ivan Protopopov (first step) and Ivan Andreev (third step). Of the 15 clerks, only one is mentioned twice – Andrei Grigoriev. More than 400 rubles were spent from the treasury on salaries for bishops in 1677/1678 and more than 470 in 1692/1693. The involvement of information on the number of employees in other episcopal houses showed that their number varied in different dioceses by tens and sometimes hundreds of people.
Publishing: 28/04/2024
The article has been received by the editor on 13/12/2023
How to cite: Bashnin N.V. The Structure of the Vologda Bishop’s Court in the Last Quarter of the 17th Century (Based on the Materials of Account Books) // Historical Courier, 2024, No. 2 (34), pp. 114–132. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2024/ISTKURIER-2024-2-08.pdf]
Links: Issue 2 2024
Keywords: Vologda; Vologda Episcopal House of St. Sofia; armed servants; account books; Archbishop Simon; Archbishop Gavriil