It is worth noting that medieval art in Rus' was usually anonymous. The names of Feofan Grek (Theophanes the Greek), Andrei Rublev and Dionisii, who lived in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, are well known, but the names of the artists of the pre-Mongol period were unknown until recent times. Scholars frequently expressed the view that their anonymity would last for ever. In the course of excavations in the 1970s and 1980s, however, archaeologists unearthed the home of an artist of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. His name was discovered from birch-bark letters addressed to him, many of which contained orders for the painting of icons. The artist was called Olisei Grechin; he was also mentioned in the chronicles as a master fresco painter. When his autographs on the birch-bark documents were studied and compared with the handwriting of the artist who headed the workshop that painted the frescos in the church of the Saviour on the Nereditsa, Olisei was shown to have had the main responsibility for the creation of these murals.[17]
Many birch-bark letters have also been found which were written by Olisei's father - Petr Mikhalkovich - or receivedby him. When this group of documents was studied, it was possible to establish that Petr and his wife Mariia (Marena in the birch-bark documents) had commissioned the most famous Novgorod icon of the twelfth century - the icon of the Mother of God of the Sign - which, as we have already said, played a part in the battle of 1170. It turned out that this icon was painted for the wedding of Petr Mikhalkovich's daughter Anastasiiato the Novgorod Prince Mstislav-the son ofthe famous Prince Iurii Dolgorukii. This marriage tookplace in 1155. At the same time Petr and his wife Mariia commissioned one of the greatest masterpieces of Novgorod applied art - a silver chalice (communion cup) by the master-craftsman Kosta, which contains depictions of the Mother of God and saints Peter and Anastasia.[18]
The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
The thirteenth century was a time of trial for Novgorod. At the very beginning of the century a permanent military danger arose on the western borders of the Novgorod lands, from the Teutonic order of knights who had settled on the Baltic. On the north-western borders no less dangerous a threat was posed by Swedish aggression. In 1238 in the course of the Tatar-Mongol invasion the forces ofthe horde began their incursions into the territory of Novgorod. Baty's army besieged the Novgorod town of Torzhok for a month, annihilating its heroic defenders. However, the defence of Torzhok saved Novgorod. Torzhok was conquered in March; by this time the supplies of fodder for the cavalry were exhausted, and this frightened the Tatars, as it created a real danger that they would lose the horses which were their main means of military transport. The Tatar forces, having come within about a hundred kilometres of Novgorod, returned to their southern steppes.[19]
After this the Novgorodians managed to concentrate their military forces for the defence of their western borders, where in 1240 Aleksandr defeated the Swedes in the Battle on the River Neva for which he received the epithet 'Nevskii'; and in 1242 he vanquished an army of Teutonic knights on the ice of Lake Chud'. This victory was not, however, a decisive one. It was only after a bloody battle at Rakovor (Rakver in Estonia) in 1269 that peace was established on the western borderlands.
At the same time the Tatar-Mongol invasion had had an impact on Novgorod. The traditional system of trade and cultural links with the devastated Russian principalities was destroyed. The building of stone churches was halted until the 1290s. The construction of a stone kremlin in place of the wooden one was begun only in i302.
Significant changes took place in the relationship between boyar Novgorod and the princes. Previously the principle of'freedom to choose the princes' had lain at the basis of this relationship; but now the Novgorodians automatically recognised as their prince the man whom the khans of the Golden Horde confirmed as the head ofthe Rus' princes ('the grand prince'). However, in so far as the main sphere of activity ofthe grand prince lay outside Novgorod, he came to be represented by governors whom he appointed. Thus the participation of the grand prince in Novgorod affairs was minimal, and this strengthened the boyar republican system.
The behaviour of Grand Prince Aleksandr Nevskii, who required Novgorod to pay tribute to the Mongols even though it had not been conquered by them, and who destroyed some of the boyars' republican prerogatives, provoked the indignation of the Novgorodians, and after Aleksandr's death they set about reorganising the system of government. In an agreement concluded with his brother, Grand Prince Iaroslav Iaroslavich, in the 1260s, the prerogatives which the Novgorodians had previously obtained were confirmed: the prince did not have the right to collect state revenues from the territory of the Novgorod lands (the Novgorodians did that themselves, thereby controlling the state budget); he did not have the right to own any landed estates on the territory of the Novgorod state on a private-property basis; and he also had no right to pronounce judicial decisions without the sanction of the posadnik. In the same agreement the prince undertook to refrain from those infringements of the law which had been permitted by his late brother.
After this the functions of the prince in the judicial sphere were restricted even further. If previously all judicial matters had come under his jurisdiction, then at the end of the thirteenth century there was organised a commercial court which came underthejurisdiction ofthe thousander (a Novgorodboyar), and an episcopal court, which had particular authority over the large group of the population who lived on lands belonging to ecclesiastical institutions.
This situation led to yet another significant reorganisation. From the end of the thirteenth century an immense amount of monastery construction took place in Novgorod. The wealthy boyar families founded monasteries, acted as their patrons and endowed them with considerable wealth, primarily in the form of landholdings. However, in so far as this entire system of landed possessions came within the jurisdiction of the archbishop as head of the Church, the boyars fully realised that any future extension of monastery landholdings might turn the archbishop from a spiritual pastor into the real head of the state, since 'he who controls wealth, holds power'. For that reason a reform was introduced, which resulted in the creation of the office of archimandrite - the head of the entire Novgorod black clergy.
The archimandrite, who acquired as his residence the St George monastery, 4 kilometres outside Novgorod, was in charge of the hegumens (abbots) of the monasteries of the five administrative districts ('ends') of Novgorod. In ecclesiastical and canonical matters the archimandrite was of course subordinate to the archbishop; he was not, however, appointed by the archbishop, but was elected at the boyar veche (assembly), like theposadniki and other state officials, and he was accountable for his economic activity not to the archbishop, but to the boyar authorities. In other words, the boyar corporation exercised full control over the secular activity ofthe archimandrite, and it could remove him from office if he turned out to be awkward or incompetent. The boyar groups made full use of this right.[20]
In the last third of the thirteenth century important changes took place in the political system of Novgorod. The boyars, in an attempt to reduce rivalry in the struggle for control of the highest offices of state, created an institution in which the interests of all the territorial groupings were represented. The merchants' organisation acquired its own special administrative system, headed by a thousander who was also elected for a specified period.
17
B. A. Kolchin, A. S. Khoroshev and V L. Ianin,
18
A. A. Gippius, 'Kattributsiinovgorodskikhkratiroviikony "Znamenie"',
19
V L. Ianin, 'K khronologii i topografii ordynskogo pokhoda na Novgorod v 1238 g.',
20
V L. Ianin, 'Monastyri srednevekovogo Novgoroda v strukture gosudarstvennykh insti- tutov',