Payments by Russian princes “for all Tatar protory”

Abstract

The Horde vykhod (tribute) was a term for direct receipts from the Russian lands to the Khan's treasury. It was regarded as irrevocable expenses: “Tatar protory”. The severity of these losses should only be assessed in relation to specific payment amounts. However, there is only fragmentary data for such figures and only for the time of the end of the 14th - beginning of the 16th centuries. Despite the fact that these are fairly accurate and reliable sources - spiritual (testamentary) and contractual documents of princes - their information is difficult to reconcile and leads to different interpretations of specific and general nominal amounts paid by Russian princes to the Khan's treasury. An important problem remains whether the amounts presented in the act are a scrupulously accurate or a hypothetical (showing only the share that the Prince is obliged to cover from tax collections) expression of payments due from the principalities. A model of the hypothetical system for calculating the amount of tribute was proposed by V. A. Kuchkin. However, P. N. Pavlov considered these amounts as a list of real levies from each principality in the total amount of tribute in a given period. Analysis of the evidence of spiritual and contractual certificates, as well as evidence from chronicles suggests that there was a direct relationship between the amount of the Horde tribute and the number of taxable farms. It can be reasonably assumed that the norms for calculating taxable objects and recruitment in decimal units introduced by the Mongols during the population census also affected the calculation of tax revenues. The principle of such calculations could be hypothetical “thousands”, the traces of which drew the attention of V. A. Kuchkin. The capitals of appanage principalities could well have become the centers of such “thousands”. Direct and indirect evidence suggests that a number of such urban and princely centers can be identified.