SICILIAN-NORMAN TRAIL IN THE ORIGIN OF THE MOSCOW BOYARS OF THE VORONTSOV AND KHVOSTOV DYNASTIES

Abstract

The article contains the results of a study of the family relationship of the famous Moscow boyars Vorontsovs and Khvostovs, who served in the Moscow principality as thousands and governors for a hundred years, starting from the second half of the 13th century, as well as the degree of their relationship with the Moscow princes. The work uses a comprehensive approach to the analysis of various archival sources in combination with the genetic data of the y-chromosome of modern descendants. The documentary base of the work was made up of European and Russian chronicle sources of the 12th-16th centuries, archival information from the regional archives of Russia, European genealogical tables on the history of European states and genealogies of Russian princes and nobles. The search showed that in the middle of the XII century the ancestors of the Vorontsovs and Bassovol-Khvostovs could be siblings from the family of the knight Count Loritello Robert I Bassavil, a South Italian Norman from the Rollonid family. Their distant relationship with the princes from the Rurikovich-Monomashich dynasty was established. At the same time, the legend of the appearance of the Resh princes Vorontsov from the marriage unions of the descendants of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Count Robert I Bassavil is substantiated. The genetic affiliation of the Vorontsov and Bassovol-Khvostov clans to the grand ducal family confirms the version of the murder of the Moscow thousandth boyar Alexei Khvost in 1357 as a possible contender for the throne and may be one of the main reasons for the cruel reprisal of Ivan the Terrible against members of this family close to the court long before the oprichnina and the expulsion of their relatives to Kazan immediately after its conquest.