Ivan the Terrible (18 page)

The new code thus covered criminal law, civil law, bondage and some aspects of the law on property. Of more interest is the constitutional nature of the document: it was declared to be binding throughout the whole country. ‘In future all affairs throughout the land are to be judged according to this code.’ For the first time in Russia, law (
pravo
) in the sense of the norms to be followed in obtaining and dispensing justice was declared to proceed solely from law in the sense of legislation. If some dispute arose for which the law provided no solution, then the superior power should be informed. The code does not specify by whom, plaintiff, defendant or judge, but in general Russian procedure was inquisitorial, not accusatorial, though a prosecution had usually to be initiated by the victim and was not initiated by the tsar except in cases of public order, brigandage, treason etc. If a new law was required it would be promulgated ‘by the tsar with the assent of all the boyars’ and would be appended to the code, which was thus a growing and flexible instrument. But it remained, as in most countries, very difficult to apply the law where there was no control over its implementation, and the judicial duel could still be used in Russia to decide on guilt or innocence (clauses 6–7 in 1497, 11–14 in 1550). Moreover, as in France or England, the final instance in the event of appeal was the ruler.

Russian historians have of course been concerned to define the extent of the role played by the Boyar Council in legislation at this time. The Council was not a representative body, however embryonic, but an advisory body, with some judicial and some executive functions (rather like the English Privy Council under the Tudors).
²⁴
Zimin held that the Boyar Council was ‘representative’ and drew the conclusion that the Tsar could not issue a law without its consent.
²⁵
And in fact many major enactments were issued jointly by the Tsar and the boyars, but this did not represent a limitation on the power of the Tsar by a representative body. The statement that a law had been issued by the Tsar and
approved by the boyars in the Council was merely a conventional formula. Any order from the Tsar alone had the force of law. On the whole, the Tsar and the boyars acted together in the interests of a greater whole and it is more than likely that the bulk of the thinking, the research and the drafting behind important legislation was carried out by the increasingly competent officials, the
d'iaki
, who remained behind the scenes or sometimes advanced on to the centre of the stage, and were promoted to be councillors and even executed.

The new code was to take effect in the whole territory the moment it was promulgated (but was not to be retrospective); should new cases arise for which the code made no provision, then these matters should be reported to the Tsar who, with the consent of the boyars, would add to the code. This important proviso underlined the code's nationwide significance, and it has also been regarded by some historians as establishing the right of the boyars to share in the act of legislation by ‘approving’ the laws, i.e. as giving them a constitutional role. But this attributes too much weight to a formula which existed long before any institution had developed to embody the principle. The code was then presented to a Church and Land
sobor
or Assembly in 1551 for approval.
²⁶

Meanwhile a number of joint Church and Land Assemblies, at which members of the Boyar Council were also present, took place. A Church Council was first called in the period September 1548 to February 1549 at which Ivan was not present.
²⁷
One of its main tasks was to proceed to the canonization of thirty-nine Russian saints, both religious and secular. This was in fulfilment of Makarii's policy of ‘nationalizing’ the body of saints which presided over the spiritual welfare of Russia. ‘Canonization’ was not a very formal process, and many a local warrior prince or holy monk or nun had acquired an informal halo. Makarii evidently wished to bring together under one Muscovite roof the patrons to whom the faithful might pray in the new, united tsardom. It has been pointed out, however, that he did not include many Muscovite saints in his new pantheon. Makarii was also convinced of the need to introduce some order into the liturgy in use in the Russian Church, where seemingly every prince and every bishop had allowed deviations from the rubric. At a time when religious conflict was rampant all over Europe it was also incumbent on the Russian Church to bring order into its own house, which had aroused much criticism for lack of discipline and improper conduct.
²⁸

The first Church Council was followed by two more which were certainly summoned by Makarii, and in February 1551 a meeting of a full Church Council was called to discuss a series of questions on
religious matters, evidently prepared in advance and drafted by a number of different people, including possibly the Tsar and Sylvester.
²⁹
Ivan, always happy to dramatize his public appearances, made use of the opportunity of addressing a large gathering, begged their pardon again and repeated his criticisms of boyar rule in his minority, and particularly of the ruthless way the boyars had dared to seize and destroy his uncles, Princes Iuri and Andrei Ivanovichi.
³⁰
But the
Sobor
had more serious business to deal with.

The authority of the monasteries, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the enormous influence of the monastery of Iosif of Volokolamsk, had been in decline in the sixteenth century, and that of the church hierarchy had been rising. This was perhaps partly as a result of the debates, being held with increasing intensity, over the propriety of monasteries owning vast amounts of land. (The subject became more and more burning in the 1530s–40s, and one may speculate whether the confiscation of church lands and the destruction of the monasteries in Protestant Europe and in England passed unnoticed in the Russian Church, though there is no written evidence of their reaction to it.) By the mid-sixteenth century the Church owned about a third of the populated land, though some monasteries were so poor that the monks went about in rags, even begging in the streets.
³¹
There was of course in principle no legal obstacle to monastic ownership of land in Russia, since landownership was not confined to a particular class or social group, as occurred in the eighteenth century. Monasteries had indeed always been based on land rather than money. Both the possessors and the non-possessors believed that land and other wealth belonging to monasteries should be used for charitable or religious purposes, but there was a distinction between those who believed in a monastic life of eremitical poverty, and those who believed that the Church needed adequate funds to carry out its religious duties. Much of the land they owned had been acquired as payment for prayers for the dead, though some monasteries had also accumulated enough wealth to act as moneylenders. In mid-sixteenth-century Russia the issue was the limitation of ecclesiastical landownership in the interests of distributing land to the new military service men, rather than the confiscation of all church land.

One major figure in Russian monastic life, Maksim Grek, still played an important part in the background of this discussion at this time. His situation had gradually improved after the death of Elena Glinskaia in 1538. Metropolitan Iosif, who had followed Metropolitan Daniil, was benevolent, and even more so Metropolitan Makarii. Though allegedly a follower of Iosif of Volotsk, Makarii evidently did not approve of the
treatment meted out to Maksim, who had not been allowed to take communion for seventeen years.
³²
But the elderly monk (he was then around eighty) was not allowed his heart's desire, namely to return to Mount Athos. Maksim also appealed to the Tsar, other churchmen and secular people spoke up for him, and at last, in 1551, after the Church Council, the abbot of the Trinity, Artemy, procured his removal from Volokolamsk to the Trinity monastery, much nearer Moscow. Maksim is said to have sent an admonition to Ivan condemning monastic greed and the appropriation of land, and he remained the spokesman behind the scenes of the non-possessing trend, which was in a minority in the Council, though as usual those who rejected possessions had greater moral authority.
³³

Into what was, up to a point, a vacuum, Metropolitan Makarii stepped, with the aim of increasing the authority of the Church hierarchy over the monasteries and the priesthood, and restoring a proper observation of the rules of poverty, obedience, sobriety and chastity. Quite in what way Ivan himself took the initiative in airing these matters is not clear, nor is the extent to which he took part in formulating the questions to be submitted for discussion – though they sometimes reflect his ironical cast of mind – but the consideration of many of these problems was bound to lead to tensions and personal clashes. It is also suggested by many historians that Sylvester took an active part in the drafting of the questions, and possibly in the drafting of the replies – but modern research suggests that he was not the only cleric involved. There is no evidence whatsoever of his participation or even of his presence.

The whole document submitted to the Council is divided into a hundred chapters (hence its usual name, S
toglav
) issued in the name of the Tsar. The issues dealt with fall into a number of groups: church–state relations, including state revenues from the Church and the maintenance of the judicial independence of the Church and ecclesiastics, and the immunity of their lands from tsarist confiscation; the elimination of disorderly behaviour and financial and sexual corruption in monasteries and parishes; establishing a common liturgy; defining the social duties of the Church, for instance ransoming of prisoners (a major and costly undertaking), alms-giving and education; improving the spiritual and moral behaviour of the faithful and combating heresy and witchcraft. A number of questions submitted by Ivan himself were divided into a group of thirty-seven in the fifth chapter and a group of thirty-two in the forty-first chapter, and the replies are given in later chapters.

The Tsar opened proceedings by referring to the recent promulgation of the legal code and to the reforms in local administration and justice. He now appealed to the hierarchy to carry out the same improvements in the life of the Church.
³⁴
In the first question he begged the assembled company to examine whether in their homes and churches the bells were properly rung and the liturgy sung according to the holy rules. This gives an indication of the nature of many of the questions, which affected the public and private behaviour of priests and monks and of painters of icons who should be living virtuously and teaching their pupils. Copyists and translators of service books were charged with making mistakes which were perpetuated in the church services, and the teaching of literacy was negligent. It was not, however, the monasteries which were urged to take on the task of teaching the outside world, but the white clergy in the parishes.
³⁵
They were specifically enjoined, in chapter 26 of the
Stoglav
, to choose good married priests and deacons in Moscow and all cities, honourable and with the fear of the Lord in their hearts, able to teach reading and writing, who would receive children into their homes and teach them psalm-singing and reading from a lectern.
³⁶

Questions 1 to 37 in the fifth chapter raised the specific issues of clerical misbehaviour or negligence, both among the black and the white clergy, and answers were supplied later in the document. Their interest lies in their portrayal of popular attitudes on events in the life of the Church, such as drunkenness (qu. 17), the wearing of a
tafia
(the Moslem skullcap) or a hat in church, which the corresponding answer naturally forbids as a godless Moslem tradition (ch. 39), and the indulgence in drinking, feasting and merriment in a building erected for prayer and the remission of sins (qu. 21).
³⁷
Many matters of church ritual were dealt with as well as rules for entering the religious life, forbidding nuns and monks to live under the same monastic roof, or to wander the streets begging for charity. In question 15, the document notes the extent of the donation of land to monasteries for the monks to remember the donors in their prayers, and the extent of their purchases of land. It asks: is it right that monks should concern themselves with land and trade in towns? Who will be subjected to torment for this on the day of judgment? And is the lending of money at interest compatible with Holy Writ?

The shaving of beards by laymen and the wearing of foreign-style clothes were dealt with in question 25. ‘At the present time men who call themselves Christians, thirty years of age and older, shave their heads, beards and moustaches and wear the garments and dress of an alien faith; how then is a Christian to be recognized?’ It is generally assumed
that Russians were profoundly attached to their beards, but it is also permissible to ask how true this was. It is a striking fact that the miniatures which illustrate some of the Chronicles, many of which have been reproduced in books, show a large number of beardless men. They convey the impression of being young men, whereas the bearded are elderly, and all clerics are bearded. A miniature of Tsar Ivan issuing a decree in 1556, surrounded by ten figures whose faces are visible, has been reprinted in one of the sourcebooks drawn upon here.
³⁸
Of these ten figures six, including the Tsar, are beardless – in fact the Tsar never appears with a beard. In the few portraits which are reputed to represent real human beings (the
d'iak
Mishurin, Boris Godunov), the sitters are beardless. It may well be, therefore, that the practice of shaving was much more widespread than is generally believed and that the constant reiteration of the prohibition of shaving was really necessary in order to ensure conformity.
³⁹

Shaving the beard and moustaches was closely connected with sodomy, a problem which particularly agitated the clerical conscience and which is dealt with in chapter 5, question 25 of the
Stoglav
and the whole of the quite short chapter 33, threatening those who continue to sin with excommunication and exclusion from the Church. Question 29 in the fifth chapter charged the faithful with failure to repent of their many and serious sins: fornication, adultery, sodomy, injustice and pride, and envy. Why had the Lord of old drowned the whole world in a flood with the exception of Noah? Why had Sodom and Gomorrah perished in flames? And why had the Lord given Tsargrad (Constantinople) to the alien and godless Turks? Sodomy was regarded as a vice of the wealthy, and was viewed as particularly dangerous because the whole community might be punished for the sins of individuals.
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Shaving was regarded as conducive to sodomy, since it gave men a round, smooth face like a woman's.
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