Video interview: watch on YouTube.

A conversation between Oleg and Vadim Bolshakov on Working History. This edited transcript is the second part of their discussion of craft and trade brotherhoods in medieval Rus.

— Hello everyone! This is the "Working History" channel. Today, with Vadim Bolshakov, we continue our discussion about craft and trade guilds of medieval Rus. Hello, Vadim!

— Hello, Oleg! Hello, friends!

— Last time, we discussed how these associations were organized. Now let’s look at their self-government. Over to you, Vadim.

Ivanskoye Sto: charter, treasury and membership fees

— I’ll begin with the charters. Last time, I mentioned the charter of Ivanskoye Sto, the merchant brotherhood in Veliky Novgorod. It is the only surviving charter among those recorded in Northern Rus before the fifteenth century.

Ivanskoye Sto brought together wealthy wax merchants whose goods had been exported for centuries. The brotherhood’s treasury, merchandise and members’ property were kept in the lower part of its church, St John’s on Opoki, where they were protected against fire and theft.

Membership required a substantial payment: 25–50 silver hryvnias and a length of cloth from Ypres. A silver hryvnia was an ingot weighing a little over 200 grams, although its weight varied across periods and regions. In the comparison given here, one hryvnia could buy one or two cows, four beaver skins or a kholop, an unfree dependent. A fee of 50 hryvnias could therefore equal the value of a herd of up to 100 cows. The wax merchants were evidently wealthy enough to impose such conditions.

Ypres cloth was produced in the city of Ypres in Flanders. It was considered fashionable and expensive. The necessity to bring a piece of such cloth meant that the merchant had to have access to markets where this rare commodity was sold. We will return to the financial side of guild activities later.

Membership was for life and was passed down by inheritance. With such a significant fee, this is not surprising. From the guild treasury, they supported the clergy of the temple and paid for the services of the archbishop, who came there on special occasions.

The Church of St John on Opoki has been preserved in Novgorod to this day. It is not active, but it has been restored: you can see it with your own eyes.

The guild also paid for the participation of higher spiritual figures in the annual feast of the Nativity of John the Forerunner—their heavenly patron. Celebrations took place on June 24–26 according to the old style and were accompanied by feasts and libations. There is no detailed description of their order in the statute, but we can judge about such feasts from other guilds.

Weight measures and city participation in management

In the church, state weight and length measures were kept. This circumstance gave the guild special significance in Novgorodian land. There were no generally accepted measures then: they differed in different lands and states. Therefore, unification was of great importance for trade.

The keeping of standards was entrusted to Ivanskoye Sto. With them, other measures used on the Novgorod fair were compared. Archaeologists found a fragment of such a measure with part of an inscription related to Ivanskoye Sto. We will show it in the video sequence.

Because these functions mattered to the whole city, the urban community was represented in the brotherhood’s administration. Members elected two elders, while the city appointed three more, though the method is unknown. The tysyatsky, an official elected by the veche, also took part. “Governing board” is a modern description; the contemporary term was simply “elders”.

— So, power did intervene in self-government if the tysyatsky was involved in managing the guild?

— Absolutely correct. We have already discussed that we know best the history of those guilds that were connected with authorities and represented an interest for them. This is characteristic not only of Rus, but also of Europe and classical East. The ability to exist and develop stably often depended on relations with the state. An interesting exception are Indian shrenis, craft organizations independent of the state. But this is a separate topic.

Ivanskoye Sto through its weight standards influenced Novgorod's position in international trade. Therefore, the city supported the growth of its power. Soviet historian Igor Ernestovich Kleinenberg in the 1960s dedicated his research to the guild's struggle for the spread of the wax weight standard to Livonian cities Derpt (now Tartu) and Narva. Then these were self-governing cities of the Livonian Confederation. The guild tried to spread its standard further, but the results of this struggle in other cities are unknown to us.

Thus, the statutes form the following image: two elected starostas and four city representatives, their own church and treasury, a large entrance fee, and an annual feast of the heavenly patron. To this are added state-level standards, a monopoly on wax trade, and high status in relations with authorities.

Other statutes and precepts of brotherhoods

— And have other statutes survived, or is only the statute of the Ivanovye known to us?

— There are witnesses, but they are very heterogeneous. From bylins we learn, for example, about written statutes of kaliki perekhozhikh — wanderers or beggars. Such a statute was called "the great precept" and was certified by the attachment of hands. We do not know its full content, but individual prohibitions can be reconstructed from bylins mentions.

During wanderings, fornication, blasphemy, theft, and lying were forbidden. The ataman could organize a general search for a lost item and appoint himself a deputy — podatamanie. Punishments could be very severe, up to death. In one of the bylins it is said about leaving the guilty in an open field and burying up to the shoulders in the ground.

In this story, the squad court convicts the ataman Kasyan himself. After his execution, the brotherhood is led by podatamanie Mykhailo, his younger brother. Of course, bylins cannot be unconditionally accepted as documentary historical evidence. However, they reflect a certain tradition.

The Mezen Sea Statute and the Ustyansky Pravilnik have also survived. They are recorded based on ancient oral tradition and testify to "eternal precepts" of northern fur hunting. The precepts concern relations within the brotherhood, discipline, support for widows and orphans. It is worth examining them in more detail in a conversation about what united the members of the brotherhood.

In South and West Rus, many things were formed differently. In the previous conversation we talked about the appearance of guilds and the spread of this form of organization to neighboring lands, including Volhynia and Kyivshchyna. One of the early examples is the guild of shoemakers recorded in Peremyshl in 1386. Numerous statutes have survived from these guilds.

In 2007, Lviv published a major collection edited by Myron Kapral, Economic Privileges of the City of Lviv in the Fifteenth–Eighteenth Centuries: Privileges and Statutes of Craft Guilds and Merchant Corporations. It includes original documents and translations into modern Ukrainian. Reference

Why were German and Latin used? First, guilds were built on the basis of Magdeburg law. Second, initially they united German settlers-Catholics. Therefore, the languages of the documents corresponded to the legal and cultural environment of these communities. Only after generations did proper Belarusian and Ukrainian guilds appear.

The development of these guilds and the later incorporation of southern Rus territories containing such associations into the Muscovite state deserve a separate discussion. We will return to that subject.

Bratchina: feast, assembly, and court

— You mentioned the feast. Tell me how it was held: who participated, were guests invited?

— A very interesting document about the feast of Novgorod smiths has survived. It was called bratchina. By the way, the origin of the names of European guild associations is also associated with a joint banquet. In our example, "bratchina" could denote both the feast itself and the form of organization of the smiths.

Their heavenly patrons were Kosma and Damian, in Russian — Kuzma and Demyan. The smiths lived on Kuzmodem'yanskaya Street of the Sofia side of Novgorod, where their church was also located. The annual feast was celebrated on November 1 according to the old style.

First, they organized a collective contribution and chose the house of the "feast lord" — a member of the brotherhood who was to receive the others. Food and drinks were brought there in advance.

— So you chose the main person at the table?

— Yes.

— When I was at a wedding in North Ossetia, I saw a similar custom. A person was chosen who led the celebration. Even to leave the table, one had to ask his permission. This custom has survived until now.

— Amazing. The Novgorod smiths had an even more complex scheme. In addition to the "feast lord", the master of the house, they chose a "feast starosta". Perhaps it is with his role that we can compare the custom you described.

If one tries to reconstruct the distribution of duties — I emphasize, this is a hypothesis — the "lord" was responsible for the house and the safety of property, while the "starosta" was responsible for food, drinks, and the order of conducting the bratchina. Together they led the feast, which was called Kuzmodem'yanshchyna. This name was preserved in various dialects until the 20th century: on Kuzmodem'yanshchyna, bratchinas were organized even in villages.

In the church, a solemn service in honor of the saints took place. The brotherhood had its own priest. We will talk more about the significance of the priests of Novgorod smiths later: an interesting story is associated with them. Sometimes the archbishop conducted the service for a special fee.

The members then gathered at the feast host’s house without bringing their families. Before the meal, they dealt with internal affairs. An elder heard disputes before the whole brotherhood, with a priest present. Other shared business was probably discussed there too.

The Pskov Judicial Charter recognized the judicial function of the brotherhood. The charter mentioned in the conversation is dated to 1397, although the corresponding article may have appeared later, in the 15th century. To resolve disputes with the urban community, a posadnik could be invited to the assembly.

After the business part began the feast: they ate, drank, and enjoyed themselves for several days, but went home to sleep at night. The starostas and the lord kept order. The priest accompanied the banquet with prayers and singing troparia—short hymns dedicated to the holiday. At the same time, he participated in the meal itself on an equal footing with the brothers.

— How many days could this last?

— Up to a week.

— A week of feasts—one can easily slip into a binge.

— Perhaps that is why participants went home to sleep at night. Maybe there were restrictions that prevented getting drunk to the point of unconsciousness, but we know nothing definite about this.

The Ustyansky Pravilnik also briefly mentions brotherly feasting, associated with northern maritime trade. It prescribes inviting not only the maritime brotherhood but also the orphans of deceased or dead companions. In this regard, trade brotherhoods resembled princely retinues with their feasts.

— You said last time that they were called retinues. So the similarity is not surprising.

Election of the Elder and Division of Common Earnings

— How did relations within brotherhoods develop outside of holidays?

— Here again we must turn to bylinas: there is very little other information. They describe joint elections and removal of the elder, as well as discussion of common affairs. In the bylina about the kaliki, participants form a single circle, hold a common council, and choose an ataman—young Kasyan Mikhailovich.

In that same circle they divided earnings. In the bylinic description, brothers take bags off their shoulders, pour gold and silver into one place. Common earnings were called "duvan" or "zhivot". They were divided equally, but the elder was entitled to one or two additional shares. This rule survived until the 20th century and operated in Russian loading unions.

A part of the total sum was allocated to a common fund. Various methods of its use are known. The kaliki brotherhood could take common funds on a journey to the Holy Land—such an example is connected with "The Journey of Novgorodite Stephen" of the 14th century. According to 15th-century chronicle data, Pskov bridge-builders could spend the common fund on purchasing materials for a future order.

They did not necessarily gather in a circle in an open place. Questions could be discussed by the fire: the senior retinue sat in the inner circle, the junior one behind the backs of senior comrades and masters. No wonder the senior retinue was also called the front; a similar division existed among princes as well.

If disputes were heard during a bratchina, decisions were made at the common table. As we have seen, the business meeting was normally completed before the feast.

How the Brotherhood Discussed and Executed an Order

— Last time you told how the tree-workers' brotherhood discussed an order from a Kyivan prince. Are there other examples of self-government when discussing an order?

— And also during its execution, I will add. Let us consider several examples.

Interaction within the brotherhood can be seen on a miniature of the Litsyovoy Letopisny Svod depicting the construction of a bridge across the Volkhov in Novgorod in 1532. We have already shown it, but now let us examine it in more detail. On the image one can distinguish three stages.

First, the client gives instructions. This is the wealthy merchant Filat Bobrovnik, standing on the bridge with an instructing finger. The client or employer was then called a lord. Behind him is depicted a group of people: either representatives of the Grand Prince of Moscow, from whose treasury the work was financed, or deputies and overseers of Filat who were to observe the construction.

Next, the retinue performs bridge-building works. Its elder—the only bridge-builder with a beard. Based on my approximate calculations, based on comparison with Pskov retinues, up to 150 people could be working here. The image is schematic, so perhaps only leaders of links, in modern terms—brigadiers—are shown next to the elder. It is important that the elder himself works with an axe on an equal footing with the rest.

Legally, retinue members were muzhi, that is, personally free people, and vis-à-vis the lord-client they acted as hired hands.

Finally, Filat Bobrovnik pays the bridge-builders, handing over a purse of money—the mochna—to the elder. Money is received by one person, but this happens in the sight of the entire retinue or its representatives. Such publicity ensured the honesty of the settlement.

Pskov Bridge-Builders: Collective Negotiations on Payment

Another example dates to 1456, approximately eighty years earlier. The Pskov bridge-builders contracted to rebuild the Great Bridge across the Pskova River. Initially, they agreed on a payment of 60 rubles and received this sum. However, during the works, heavy rains began, which the chronicle specifically notes.

When the bridge was ready, the brotherhood appealed to the veche with a request to add another 20 rubles. The veche agreed. The chronicle entry is very short, but what matters significantly is that the negotiations were conducted by the brotherhood, not by a single elder.

— To make it clearer for the listeners: was twenty rubles a lot or little?

— For comparison, in the example cited, the whole Kolomna district paid the Moscow prince an annual levy of 342 rubles. Here, 20 rubles was merely an additional payment for one bridge.

— And the total payment amounted to eighty rubles?

— Yes, sixty plus twenty. As far as I remember, when building the Novgorod bridge in 1532, the amount discussed was already five hundred rubles—a sum comparable to the cost of a drove of one hundred horses. Princely and city orders implied very substantial payments. We will consider the financial aspect separately later; there are interesting circumstances there.

Construction of the Trinity Church and the Social Status of Craftsmen

The third example is more complex to reconstruct. I rely on Pskov chronicles and archaeological data, including the location of churches. This case seems particularly illustrative to me.

In Pskov, the Trinity Church collapsed—the central church of the urban community. Here were located the archives, main services were held, and the veche gathered in the square before it. The prince's throne stood in the Holy Trinity; the archbishop served there. Therefore, restoring the church was a matter of state importance.

When the ecclesiastical builders, that is, masons, completed the construction of the new church in 1366, the Pskovites not only paid them a significant sum—as far as I remember, from three hundred to four hundred rubles—but also bestowed special honors. According to the chronicle formula, such honors were traditionally bestowed upon princes in Pskov, and not all of them, but rather descendants of Alexander Nevsky. The builders were honored at the veche and presented with gifts.

In addition, they received a plot in Dovmont's Town—the fortified part of Pskov near the Kremlin, where public buildings and important churches were located. Seven years later, the church builder Kirill built on this site a church dedicated to his saint patron. Its location, indicated in the chronicle, was successfully determined by archaeologists.

The Church of Kirill stood next to the merchant church of Saint Sophia, which at that time remained wooden. Imagine: for merchants, traditionally the richest and most influential people of the city—there was a wooden church, while next to it, a stone one appeared for the builders.

The stone Saint Sophia in Pskov was built by the merchants only about forty years later. The work was carried out by the brotherhood of master Yeremya. According to some architectural researchers, he could have been Kirill's student and a continuator of his building school. Perhaps it was the same brotherhood, but already in the next generation.

This example shows that the builders' brotherhood could achieve an extremely high social status. Just as the Trinity Church embodied the Pskov land, so the stone church of Kirill cemented the status of the building corporation.

Obligations of Brotherhoods Toward the City

Brotherhoods also had obligations toward the urban community. In feudal European cities, it was characteristic for guilds and other professional associations to participate in common expenses: construction, security, and defense.

In Pskov chronicles, three brief mentions have been preserved of how different brotherhoods allocated money for city needs by lot or in turn. In 1412–1415, the bell-ringers paid for a stone bridge to the Kremlin. A few years later, the korchmari—owners of drinking establishments—paid for a section of the fortress wall. In 1485, the butchers allocated silver for a bridge across the Pskova River.

In the 15th century, similar obligations were borne by guilds of Southern Rus'. For example, in Lviv, each of them maintained a certain fortress tower, equipped it with weapons and ammunition. Perhaps new sources will someday show that the brotherhoods of Pskov, Novgorod, or Moscow also responded for the maintenance of fortifications and defense of individual sections of the wall, as was the case in Western Europe.

— Can we say that craft and industrial brotherhoods in general were wealthy and powerful organizations?

— It should not be considered a general rule. The examples that have come down to us are rather the tip of the iceberg. There were probably fewer such brotherhoods. But they existed and during certain periods could play a very important role in individual cities. Later, I will provide additional examples from the history of Pskov, Novgorod, and Moscow.

— If we shift the bridge to the 20th century and recall our first videos, including the discussion of the film "Fist", many trade unions were also influential and wealthy: they had large headquarters and staffs of paid employees. It seems that the backstory of this began back then?

— At the very least, it goes back to the Middle Ages — both in Europe and in Rus. In some countries, individual trade unions still possess enormous authority and even influence presidents. As an example, one can recall Mexico of recent times. This influence can be evaluated differently, but its existence is undoubtedly certain.

Hired Merchant Retinues

— You mentioned that merchants had their own hired brotherhoods. How were they organized?

— Sometimes someone among the "big people", for example, a wealthy trader, would personally recruit a retinue and become its elder. This differs from an association that chooses its leader from within its ranks. Before us is another type of relationship, the next step in the development of craft and artisan brotherhoods.

A merchant retinue is mentioned in a treaty of 1229 concluded before the Mongol invasion between the Smolensk prince Mstislav, Riga, and Gotland. The latter was a major trade center on the Baltic. The treaty stipulated that a merchant who suffered shipwreck should have his retinue members pull cargo out of the water onto the shore.

There is little information available, but it is already evident that the merchant had his own retinue that performed not only protective duties but also other tasks. This fragment corresponds to the image of a merchant retinue in bylins (epic poems).

At sea, the retinue of the wealthy Novgorod merchant Sadko serves as his ship’s crew; in town, it trades. One possible historical model for Sadko is Sotko Sytinich, a merchant mentioned in a chronicle entry for 1167. On arrival in a foreign town, the epic hero sends his men into the trading streets to buy goods or engage in petty trade, like the itinerant traders mentioned earlier. Reference

The retinue of another guest, Solovy Budimirovich, knows carpentry. The bylin says that from late evening one could hear knocking, as woodpeckers pecked at wood: the brave retinue was working, and by midnight a courtyard was already ready.

Another bylin hero, Vasily Buslayev, recruits a retinue by posting quick-written advertisements on Novgorod streets. Their meaning: if you want to eat and drink ready-made food, wear colorful clothing — come to Vasya's spacious courtyard. It sounds almost like a modern election slogan.

However, admission was preceded by a peculiar exam. In a craft brotherhood, a candidate had to demonstrate mastery: sew, carve, or forge the required item. Here, he was offered to drink a large cup of green wine, and then struck on the head with a club. If he stood his ground — he was accepted.

The trial looks caricatured, but its character in the bylin is not accidental. In one of the plots, Buslayev with his retinue engages in a fistfight with Novgorodians on the Great Bridge over the Volkhov — there too were chronicle clashes between city dwellers. The retinue wins and taxes Novgorod with pies.

A strange detail at first glance. However, in one of the documents of the 15th century, I found evidence that Novgorod monasteries indeed could pay the city a tax in pies or kalachi (ring-shaped breads). So this motif may have had a quite real basis.

The functions of a merchant retinue combined the duties of sailors, traders, builders, and fighters. This reminds one of construction brotherhoods that performed the entire complex of works — from erecting a temple to its decoration. In their composition, there were probably masters of various specialties: at least painters and plasterers, and possibly even icon painters.

Relations in such a retinue were deeper than a simple connection between an owner and hired workers. The merchant-elder could call his retinue members both his workmen and brothers, dear little retinue. Sometimes he did not separate himself from the collective. Sadko traded together with his retinue, similar to the elder of bridge builders who worked with an axe on par with his comrades. And when the sea king required a human sacrifice, Sadko threw lots along with everyone: who would die for the salvation of the rest.

Perhaps the merchant could take a retinue as a partner, and by will leave them property after allocating shares to the wife and the mendicant brotherhood. In the bylin, after Vasily Buslayev's death, the retinue members return to Novgorod to his mother, Amelpha Timofeyevna. After reading the letter, she weeps and offers them to take a golden treasury from deep cellars. Having received what was due, they bid farewell and disperse.

It is important to remember: bylins are not a documentary description of a specific historical moment. They can combine features of different eras, atypical episodes, and fiction — just recall fantastic plots with snakes and dragons. Nevertheless, with the scarcity of other sources, cautious generalization is possible. The image of a merchant hired retinue overall turns out to be quite consistent.

From Brotherhoods to Worker Organizations

— All of this is quite far from modern employment relations. What allows us to presume that craft and trade guilds were predecessors of workers' organizations?

— Quite far, certainly, but forms of labor organization change gradually. For comparison, let's take child labor. In Russia, I set the threshold at fourteen years. About 140 years ago in the Russian Empire, the law allowed work starting from twelve years old; about two hundred years ago in Britain — from nine, and before that in France and Germany — from five years. Thus, perceptions of an acceptable age for starting work changed.

The oldest example I have come across dates back to Sumer. The Sumerologist Vladimir Vladimirovich Emelyanov spoke about the employment of children from approximately three years old. A child could be entrusted with driving a donkey at a mill for at least an hour a day. Physical labor capability could be determined simply by body size. Compared to modern perceptions, this is a vast distance.

Returning to the guilds: we began with associations that most likely grew out of large patriarchal families. Much in them was built on kinship relations, and the elder was elected. In the hired merchant retinue, another type of connection was already forming: a collective on one side, and a leader and employer — on the other. The next example is even closer to the employment relations we know.

The Retinues of the Sofia House: Early Forms of Collective Hiring

In the 1920s, the historian Boris Dmitrievich Grekov, later a prominent Soviet academician, studied economic records of the Novgorod ecclesiastical administration from the first half of the fifteenth century. He found references to groups of hired labourers with established names: the Markovskaya, Melnitskaya and Sofiyskaya Dvorovaya druzhiny.

They were under the command of a dvorny starosta, that is, an administrator. He directed separate groups to different tasks, but the retinues received payment as a single unit. Moreover, this referred to an annual salary, not to a contract-based payment for a specific volume of work, characteristic of labor retinues of previous centuries or hired merchant retinues.

Grekov writes:

It is clear that all members of the retinue are considered to be in service to the Sofia House, which concludes with them as a collective a special agreement where obligations and rights of the retinue members vis-à-vis the Sofia House and vice versa are defined.

And further:

The term "druzhinnik" characterizes not the production itself, but specifically forms of labor organization.

In other words, a druzhina is a work organization, and a druzhinnik is its member, a worker.

I have not yet reached the documents themselves, although I know they are stored in the archive of the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences. Therefore, it would be presumptuous to directly call the described agreements collective contracts.

But a comparison suggests itself. The employer concludes an agreement with a hired collective for a specific term, not for a volume of work. During service, workers are subordinate to the employer's representative; their rights and obligations are fixed. Perhaps here one of the early forms of relations is recorded that later developed into collective agreements.

We need to turn to the sources themselves: they may provide additional details. For now, we still have another transitional step toward hired labor of a later time. An entire epoch lies ahead, and we will continue this conversation.

— I hope that in future episodes we will elaborate on the topic in more detail and approach our own time. For today, I propose to conclude. Thank you, Vadim!

We ask viewers to subscribe to the channel and ask questions in the comments. At the end of the large block about craft and trade guilds of medieval Rus, we will try to answer them. See you in the next episode!