Peasant writing of the beginning of the 16th century: Based on the materials of the acts of the Antoniev-Siya Monastery

Abstract

The Archive of St. Petersburg Institute of Science of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the fund of the Antoniev-Siya Monastery has preserved a collection of peasant acts of the 16th century. Its value lies in the fact that in some cases the participants in the transaction themselves acted as scribes. This makes it possible to assess the degree of literacy and writing skills of those persons for whom writing was not familiar, and even more so, the main occupation. We can see folk writing, try to answer the question of how literacy and writing skills were connected with the lifestyle and activities of the participant in the transaction, with level of well-being. We also have the opportunity to compare styles and methods of folk writing with those that demonstrate acts where local church «dyachki» acted as scribes. 20 acts were selected for the study, which date to the time before the beginning of the 1520s. In most cases, they showed little difference in writing style compared to peasants. In the same fund there are acts sent from the voivodship office, as well as from Moscow. It should be understood to what extent these acts, in terms of design and manner of writing, could be perceived as models of office work for volost’ worlds in the person of their competent representatives. On the materials of the fund of the Antoniev-Siya Monastery, it is possible to build a number of levels of act writing, characteristic of the Russian North in the 16th century.