Russia under the Old regime

42

of one goat. This oversupply must have provided a very strong inducement for the appange princes and landlords to turn to the exploitation ofland.

The main emphasis of the household economy of the appanage prince was not on growing cereals. The need for cereals of the princely household was easily satisfied, and the surplus was not of much use; Novgorod bought some, but its requirements, too, were limited, and as for distilling, the Russians learned that art from the Tatars only in the sixteenth century. The main energy went into promysly, preoccupation with which transformed some princely households into bustling business undertakings. The following description applies to a later age, but in its main outlines it is valid for the appanage period as well:

The prince's residence... was not only the political centre of the state: it was also the centre of a large princely business enterprise... In the testaments of the princes of Moscow, Moscow - the farmstead often even overshadows Moscow - the capital. In the fifteenth century, Moscow is surrounded by a chain of large and small villages and by clearings, scattered along the basins of the Moskva and Iauza rivers, the property of the Great Prince and appanage princes. In the commercial settlements (posady) and in the towns stand their manors, orchards and kennels, along with whole communities of the princes' artisans and gardeners. Strung out along the Iauza, Neglinnaia and Kliazma rivers are the princes' mills. Along the low banks of the Moskva and the Khodynka spread out far-flung meadows, their property, some of them submerged under water. The environs of Moscow are settled with rent-paying peasants and slaves of the prince, his beaver-trappers, falconers, dog-keepers and stable boys. Beyond the Moskva river stretch apiaries (the so-called Dobranitskii Bee Forest) where, scattered in their villages, live the beekeepers. In the midst of all these hamlets, orchards, gardens, kennels and mills, stands the Kremlin, half-covered with princes' manors, their servants' quarters, warehouses, granaries, their falconers and the cottages of their tailors and artisans. This whole kaleidoscopic picture of the princely economy bears the unmistakable imprint of a large farming establishment. And the same holds true of the residences of the other princes. In Pereiaslavl, the capital of the principality of Riazan, we find the same rows of the princes' manor houses; in the city's environs, princely mills, fields, pastures; in the commercial settlements, fishermen and falconers, the property of the prince; and further away, their suburban bee-keepers.6

The management of these complex domains was entrusted to the domestic staff of the prince's household (dvor). It, too, consisted mostly of slaves; but even the freemen holding these posts were in a semi-bonded condition in the sense that they could not leave their employer without permission. The top official of the household was the dvoretskii or dvorskii, a kind of major-domo or head steward. Under him served diverse functionaries, each responsible for supervising a specific source