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[MAPPING IN RUSSIA IN 17th CENT.] Mezhevaya gramota [i.e. Boundary Deed]

Item #2705

[Tula region, between 1692 and 1696]. Manuscript scroll ca. 145x15,4 cm. Four leaves pasted together. Tears at the edges of the scroll, foxing. Otherwise very good.

This manuscript boundary dead, written by ‘monk Pavel’ (as mentioned on the verso) is an interesting example on how the property lines were defined in Russia at the time.
The tradition of maps and plans was not originally used in Russia widely: the first known Russian map is dated to XVIIth century, while all the early plans of Moscow are done by the foreign travelers. Instead the tradition of ‘mezha’ was used widely: usually it required two people who were measuring the land and creating the textual description of it using the using the most obvious
landmarks around them: trees, holes, Usually the results were put on paper, although not necessarily: one of the early examples of ‘mezha’ recorded included a nobleman and his clerk putting
the landmarks on a piece of birch bark, while ‘mapping’ Snetogorsk monastery territory in 1473 in Pskov.
The spatial descriptions found in the demarcation documents of that era relied fundamentally on numerous boundary markers and landmarks—such as "old pits," "white stones," "gnarled pines," "mossy patches," and "streams." These markers were of practical utility in pinpointing a boundary's exact location only to those individuals who were physically present at the boundary line itself. This is exactly the time of landmarks that could be found in our document: likely lacking the beginning and the end of the ‘mezha’ measurement, it describes a piece of land in Tula region close to villages Teploe and Malino, naming all the land owners, the reference documentation in the form of tsar decrees, relating to the lands, and carefully spelling out the boundaries between the land lots in ancient Russian measurements of ’sazhen’ and ‘desiatina’.

The documents dates from the fact, that multiple times in the deed tsars Peter and Ivan V are mentioned - Peter the Great ruled together with his brother in years 1682-1696, before asserting more control in the next three decades of his power. Tsar decrees of 1681, 1685 and 1691 are mentioned, one likely being a large deed order to measure all the lands in Tula Governorate, ordered in 1691-1692. The main landowners of the document are Tula-based ‘Predtechev’ monastery and its head Korniliy (Ivanno-Predtechev monastery was closed in 1799 and didn’t reopen), landlords Ivan Ipolitov (who seemed to have a dispute with the monastery regarding land boundaries) and Damian Raev, also mentioned Dmitri Rachmanov, Andrey Stakhov and Grigoriy Ivanov.
Another landowner mentioned in count Iakov Viazemskiy (?-1709), Stolnik, Voivode of Solvychegodsk and Yeniseysk, important administrator of Northern and Siberian towns of the period. The deed provides detailed descriptions of arable lands, as well as hayfields and forest tracts.
Likely the copy of this deed was intended to be sent to Pomestny Prikaz (Land Office) in Moscow, where all of the deeds very kept for the official reference. In 1686 the decree came out specifying that the deeds should have a plan of the land if the parties disagreed on the boundaries, but in reality this practice was not fully implemented until Catherine the Great in 1770s.

Overall, a rare type of document given us the insight in how the land was measured in XVIIth century Russia.

Price: $2,500.00

Status: On Hold