Junior servants in the system of monastic administration at the beginning of the 17th century (on the example of the Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery)

The paper determines the place of junior servants in the system of monastic administration at the beginning of the 17^th century on the example of the Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery. At the beginning of the 17^th century the Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery suffered significant financial losses in connection with wartime conditions. At the same time, such a large patrimony had a need for a branched multistage management apparatus. The monastic servants carried out economic activities. The question of the system of monastic administration of the 16^th–17^th centuries actively researched by scientists on the example of specific monasteries. As part of the study of the Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery, this problem was raised by historians on the basis of economic books of the 16^th century. However, economic books of the beginning of the 17^th century have also survived, which had not been studied earlier in this aspect, which made it possible to continue research in this area and expand the scientific understanding of the composition and role of monastic servants in the management structure of a large monastic patrimony. The sources for this work were two servage books of the Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery, which are part of the economic books for the years of 7115 (1606/07) and 7116 (1607/08). To determine the place of monastic servants in the system of economic management, the classifications compiled by M.N. Tikhomirov, V.A. Petrov, S.I. Smetanina for the 16^th century were considered and compared with the classifications by occupation and by territorial feature presented in the servage books of the early 17^th century. This allowed us to conclude about the complexity of monastic servants classification structure at the beginning of the 17^th century in comparison with the 16^th century. A count was made of the number of monastic servants and the amounts spent on their maintenance to find out their composition. An attempt has been made to clarify the existing classifications of monastic servants for the beginning of the 17^th century, while drawing attention to the merging of the system of senior and junior servants with an ordered control system. As a result of the study, it was concluded that a significant number of junior monastic servants (about 300) of various categories lived on the territory of the monastery, but their maintenance did not cause serious damage to the monastic treasury and was economically justified.