Footnotes

• TWO RARE 'GRAMOTI' WRITTEN ON BEHALF OF THE FIRST ROMANOV TSAR MICHAEL: the first is by his father, Filaret, Patriarch of Moscow 1619-1633, who had been forced to take monastic vows, along with his wife, by Tsar Boris Godunov and thence exiled, first to the north, then as a virtual prisoner of the Poles. It gives the position of 'Pomestnik' (occupier) to Stepan Mikitin, possibly a former member of the Life-Guards under Ivan the Terrible (various members of this family are recorded as such). The land was in the 'uezd' (district) of Kostroma, an important trading area on the banks of the Volga, centred round the city of the same name, then part of the Muscovite principality. The second document is unusual as it allows the hereditary occupancy of the land to Stepan's successors, instead of reverting automatically to the state. Since the Time of Troubles, beginning with the reign of Boris Godunov until the elected succession of Michael Romanov, the various factions had granted land without order, which left the countryside in turmoil and the populace leaderless. Both patriarchs were powerful enough to give some order to the situation and the ownership and control of land and problems of peasant labour were key issues in this period.