University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository History ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2-14-2014 Power and Property Relations in Rus and Latin Europe: A Comparative Analysis Yulia Mikhailova Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds Recommended Citation Mikhailova, Yulia. "Power and Property Relations in Rus and Latin Europe: A Comparative Analysis." (2014). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds/55 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in History ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Yulia Mikhailova Candidate History Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Timothy Graham, Chairperson Melissa Bokovoy Tanya Ivanova-Sullivan Erika Monahan David Prestel Power and Property Relations in Rus and Latin Europe: A Comparative Analysis by Yulia Mikhailova M.A., Russian, Michigan State University, 2002 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy History The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico December, 2013 ©2013, Yulia Mikhailova iii Dedication To my husband Oleg Makhnin and to my daughters Katya and Tanya Makhnina iv Acknowledgments I would like to thank my advisor, Professor Timothy Graham, for his support, guid- ance, and, above all, for his Latin reading group, without which this dissertation would be impossible. I would also like to thank David Prestel and Tania Ivanova- Sullivan for their detailed feedback on my drafts and for all their comments, sug- gestions, and corrections that helped make this dissertation better, and I thank all my committee members for their help, patience, and support. I thank Oleg and Katya for their help with Russian-English translations, I thank Katya for her help with English, and I thank Tanya and all my family members for their patience and support. Finally, I cannot thank Oleg enough for formatting this dissertation for me, which at times appeared to be a more difficult task than writing it. v Power and Property Relations in Rus and Latin Europe: A Comparative Analysis by Yulia Mikhailova M.A., Russian, Michigan State University, 2002 Ph.D., History, University of New Mexico, 2013 Abstract This dissertation offers a comparative analysis of forms of social and political organization in eleventh- and twelfth-century Rus, Norman England, and Aquitaine as they are represented in accounts of conflicts, disputes, peace-making, and inter- personal agreements found in Rusian, English, and Aquitanian political narratives. From this analysis, Rus, the Eastern European polity that later gave rise to Russia, Ukraine, and Belorussia, emerges as a regional variation of a European society, in contrast with the predominant view of Rus as being profoundly different from Latin Europe. A comparison of narratives from all the three regions examined in the dis- sertation shows that they display very similar understanding of key concepts of aris- tocratic medieval politics, such as honor, vengeance, reconciliation, and legitimacy as well as significant parallels between the unwritten "rules of play" (Gerd Althoff) that guided behavior of lay elites. The parallels with Rus are most pronounced in the Western sources written in the vernacular (Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle) or semi-vernacular (Conventum Hugonis); the Conventum displays particularly striking similarities with some Rusian chronicles. Western vernacular texts, as well as Rusian chronicles written in East Slavonic, probably offer a more direct representation of vi oral political discourse than learned Latin works do, and similarities between Rusian and Western vernacular narratives may be explained by similarities between polit- ical cultures reflected in those narratives. One aspect of the comparative analysis offered in this dissertation deals with elements of the noble fief and feudal pyramid seen by many historians as an exclusive feature of the medieval West. According to Susan Reynolds, they were created by academic lawyers at the time of the rise of the centralized bureaucratic state. This dissertation argues that elements of the noble fief and feudal pyramid existed in twelfth-century Rus in no lesser degree than in its contemporary England and in eleventh-century Aquitaine. The absence of any knowledge of Roman law and of a bureaucratic state in Rus along with the pres- ence of relations looking remarkably "feudo-vassalic" suggests that such relations in the West may have more "native" roots than is allowed by Susan Reynolds and her followers. vii Contents 1 Introduction. Rus and \Feudalism": Words, Concepts, and Phe- nomena1 2 Terminology of Rulership, Power, and Property 44 2.1 Terminology Describing a Ruler..................... 51 2.2 Terminology for Ruler's Men....................... 61 2.3 Zemlia, Regnum, Terre, and Res Publica ................ 71 2.4 Dan, Volost, and Honor; Gorod and Castrum .............. 80 3 Riurikids and Their \Rules of Play" 113 3.1 The Early Princes............................. 113 3.2 Boris and Gleb.............................. 115 3.3 Iaroslav's \Golden Age," \Feudal Disintegration," and \Feudal Revo- lution"................................... 120 3.4 The Political Developments in Rus in the Late Eleventh-Early Thir- teenth Centuries.............................. 126 viii Contents 3.5 \Rules of Play" of Princely Politics................... 138 4 Functions of Emotions in Political Narratives 144 4.1 The Evolution of the Representation of Emotions in the Primary Chronicle ................................. 146 4.2 Display of Emotions and the \Civilizing Process"........... 148 4.3 The Peace-Making Mission of Monomakh's Step-Mother................................ 151 4.4 Maternal Imagery and the \Emotional Community" of Vladimir Mo- nomakh.................................. 153 4.5 The Emotional Vocabulary of the Twelfth-Century Chronicles.... 156 4.6 A Case Study: Emotions and Legitimacy in the Kievan Chronicle and in Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle ..... 166 4.7 Anger and Social Status in Rusian and Western Texts........ 194 5 Honor, Shame, and Conflict in Rusian and Western Literary Sources 200 5.1 Honor in Monomakh's Instruction ................... 207 5.2 Honor and Combat............................ 209 5.3 Honor, Vengeance, and Social Status.................. 213 5.4 Obida, Dishonor, and a \Notion of Undifferentiated Wrong"..... 223 5.5 Honor and Peace-Making......................... 227 ix Contents 5.6 Honor as Rank, Office, Prerogative, and Landed Property............................. 242 5.7 Outward Markers and Expressions of Honor and Shame........ 244 5.8 Conclusions and a Postscript: Some Remarks on the Later Evolution of the Notion of Honor.......................... 255 6 Love, Friendship, Lordship, and Other Contractual Relations 261 6.1 Political Meanings of \Love"...................... 262 6.2 Love, Friendship, and Other Terms for Contractual Interpersonal Re- lations................................... 273 6.3 The Sources for Contractual Interpersonal Relations.......... 283 6.4 \Vertical" and \Horizontal" Agreements................ 311 6.5 \Father" and \Son" in Political Contexts................ 317 6.6 Terminology Used in Rusian and Western Sworn Agreements..... 337 6.7 Mutuality and Reciprocity in \Lord-Man"/ \Father-Son" Agreements and Elements of \Feudal Pyramid"................... 340 7 Conclusions 353 Bibliography 365 x Chapter 1 Introduction. Rus and \Feudalism": Words, Concepts, and Phenomena The present dissertation offers a comparative analysis of forms of social and political organization in Rus and in Western Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In the historiography of Western Europe this period is known as the "High" or "Central" Middle Ages, an important stage in the formation of distinctly European social and political structures. In the words of Judith Bennett, "all [historians] would ... agree that these were the centuries when the medieval West came of age."1 As for Rus, these were the centuries of its existence as an independent Christian polity after the Kievan princes converted to Christianity in 998 and before Rusian lands became part of the Mongol empire in the 1230s. The goal of my comparative analysis is twofold: on the one hand, I seek to help situate Rus within the broader context of medieval European history, and, on the other hand, to contribute to a better understanding 1Judith M. Bennett, Medieval Europe: A Short History, 11th edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011), 133. 1 Chapter 1. Introduction. Rus and \Feudalism": Words, Concepts, and Phenomena of how high medieval Western society functioned, and in particular, how land was used to mediate relations among the nobility. An overriding assumption that has long dominated scholarship in both Euro- pean and Slavic history was that Rus was part of a Byzantine Commonwealth sepa- rate from Latin Europe. Recent studies have challenged the concept of a Byzantine Commonwealth that stood in opposition to Europe, as well as ideas of Russian ex- ceptionalism. According to these widespread ideas, Russia has been isolated from the West since the tenth century when Rus, to which Russia traces its origins, accepted Christianity from Constantinople rather than from Rome. Christian Raffensperger and Alexander Nazarenko have recently