The Court of the Grand Prince of Muscovy and the Court of France in the 14th–16th Centuries: Comparing the Incomparable? (Государев двор России и королевский двор Франции в XIV–XVI вв.

Abstract

This study compares the organization, function, and personnel of the royal courts in Muscovy and France in the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries, a period vital to the consolidation of monarchical power in both states. The article traces the rise and parallel development of the ruler’s court in Muscovy and France, and makes the case for significant similarities between the two. In both, membership in the court elite was rooted in similar social and political structures (in Muscovy, membership in the elite was rooted in birth and longtime service to the ruler, while in France it was rooted in birth and proximity to the king), and both courts were positioned in similar ways at the center of politics and religious culture. The similarities between Muscovy and France become especially apparent during the reigns of Ivan IV and Henry III, when both monarchs instituted reforms aimed at strengthening central monarchical power and institutions, and when the rulers were confronting significant centrifugal pressures among the nobility and regional elites. The article argues that the court of the Grand Prince of Muscovy in the second half of fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth centuries was in function, structure, and ritual form very close to that of many other Renaissance courts of Europe, particularly to that of France.