Large-scale Ownership of Land and the Russian Economy in the Tenth to Twelfth Centuries

Abstract

We have no information about private landownership before the tenth century. The only source available to us is the Russian Primary Chronicle [Povest' vremennykh let], but the information it affords has long been suspected of being legendary in character. ' Nor is this the sole difficulty a scholar encounters in utilizing this source, for the information contained in the Chronicle is also sparse and extremely concise. Here we see, moreover, the main feature of the Chronicle as an historical source—its one-sided illumination of the past, chiefly with reference to relations between the princes and to foreign policy matters rather than to internal questions of a socioeconomic order.