Palace peasant: a brief description

The Palace peasant is a representative of a special category of the rural population in Russia. This layer was formed around the XV century in connection with the formation of the Grand Duke's Court and the administrative apparatus of government. This class should be considered as one of the most important signs of centralization of government and princely power.

Prerequisites for class formation

The palace peasant belonged to the princely, and then the royal family. He was the personal property of the ruling house. A man was attached to the ground. He performed duties in favor of members of the ruling house. The class arose in connection with the expansion of the grand prince economy in medieval Rus.

Initially, the sovereign domain was small in size ownership. However, as the success of the unification process in the Russian lands, the territory belonging to the supreme ruler began to expand gradually. The palace peasant was to serve the increased needs of the princely estate, which arose in connection with the strengthening of the institution of the Grand Prince in our country.

The problem of the appearance of the population category under consideration is directly related to the solution of the question of the so-called black, or volost, peasants. The last group of the rural population was not privately owned, but was exploited by the state. All duties and taxes went to the central treasury. From this category formed a class of state peasants, which should be distinguished from those that belonged directly to the prince or the king.

Legal status

In Russia, traditionally, several categories of rural population were distinguished: landlord serfs, state people and workers belonging to members of the ruling dynasty. Representatives of all these strata were personally dependent. They worked out certain duties in favor of the owner. However, in the presence of these similar features, they differed in the degree of their freedom, economic initiative and dependence.

The palace peasant in this respect was in a more favorable position than, for example, landlord, serf people. He enjoyed greater freedom, was active. Among this class there were even people who got into people thanks to the accumulated material means. Many of them became traders, started shops, taverns. In a word, their situation was not very cramped.

Duties

Palace peasants inhabited and provided all necessary land for princes, kings, emperors. They were considered their personal property. However, their duties were limited to natural dues and the fulfillment of a number of works for the needs of the palace. For example, they must supply on their own supplies supplies, building materials, etc.

Above them there was no such strict control, as, for example, over peasants in private manors and estates of noblemen. Those were interested in the most effective exploitation of the taxable population, since this was the only source of their existence. Unlike privately owned serfs, individuals of the category in question often received freedom. This was recorded by the first wills of the Moscow princes.

Features

One of the main categories of the dependent population was the palace peasants. The definition of this concept should be disclosed primarily through the designation of the distinctive features characterizing this category of population. One of these features was the predominantly natural character of the obligations. This grocery meal was replaced by money only in the XVIII century.

The second sign that distinguishes this layer is a certain isolation of its representatives from the rest of the serfs. They lived in estates that occupied the main land area in the country. However, the territories on which the palace peasants settled also gradually expanded. This tendency manifested itself particularly clearly in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the land fund servicing the needs of the court grew significantly in connection with the assertion of the autocracy and the institutionalization of the supreme authority.

The answer to the question, who belonged to the palace peasants, is not always so unambiguous. After all, they could be the property of an entire royal family. That is, all the members of the ruling house. They often gave people their property as proxies and favorites.