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Prices in Russia in the Sixteenth Century*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Jerome Blum
Jerome Blum
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

The thesis that long-term price movements in medieval and early modern periods were the results of changes in the supply of precious metals has been questioned by a number of historians who believe that fluctuations in population provide a more fundamental explanation. These men point out that if changes in the supply of money were primarily responsible, the secular rise and fall of prices would have been approximately the same for all commodities. Actually, agricultural prices rose and fell faster and more sharply than did the prices of industrial goods. It is claimed that these price changes and the lack of synchronization between them can be satisfactorily explained by changes in the size of population:

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , June 1956 , pp. 182 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1956

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References

1 For recent expositions of this view see Abel, W., Wüstungen und Preisfall im spätmittelalterlichen Europa,” Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistic, CLXV (1953)Google Scholar, and M. Postan, “Die wirtschaftlichen Grundlagen der mittelalterlichen Gesellschaft,” ibid., CLXVI (1954). This latter article is an elaboration of earlier paper by Mr. Postan, in English, in IXe Congrès International des Sciences Historiques, Rapports, Vol. I (Paris, 1950). Cf. also Abel, W., Agrarkrisen und Agrarkpnjunktur in Mitteleuropa vom 13. bis zum 19. ]ahrhundert (Berlin, 1935), pp. 48–72, 157–58Google Scholar; and Elsas, M. J., Umriss ciner Geschichte der Preise und Löhne in Deutschland (Leiden, 1936–1949), Vol. II, Part B, pp. 85–92Google Scholar.

2 Postan in Rapports, I, 232–33.

3 Man'kov, A. G., Tseny i ikh dvizhenie v russkom gosudarstve XVI veka [Prices and their movement in the Russian state of the sixteenth century] (Moscow, Leningrad, 1951)Google Scholar. Man'kov's article on sixteenth-century grain prices, which appeared in the periodical Istoricheskie zapiski [Historical records] in 1949, has been incorporated into this book.

4 Kliuchevskii, V. O., “Russkii rubl' XVI–XVIII vv. v ego otnoshenii k nyneshnemu” [The Russian ruble of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries in its relation to the present ruble], reprinted in Opyty i issledovaniia [Experiments and investigations] (Petrograd, 1918), pp. 126–27Google Scholar, 141, 183.

5 Rozhkov, N., Sel'skoe khoziaistuo moskovskoi Rusi v XVI veke [The rural economy of Muscovite Russia in the sixteenth century] (Moscow, 1899), pp. 202–19, 283–86, 495–97Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., pp. 216–17.

7 Abel, Agrarkrisen, pp. 57, 174; Hamilton, E. J., American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501–1650 (Cambridge, Mass., 1934), pp. 322–27, 348–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 In Istoricheskie Zapiskt, No. 18 (1946).

9 Imperatorskaia Arkheologicheskaia Kommissiia [Imperial Archeological Commission], Vostochnoe Serebro. Atlas…[Eastern silver. Adas…] (St. Petersburg, 1909), p.3Google Scholar; Goetz, L. K., Deutsch-russische Handelsgeschichte des Mittelalters, Hansische Geschichtsquellen hrsgb. vom Verein für Hansische Geschichte, n.s., V (Lübeck, 1922), 277Google Scholar.

10 Cited in Chaudoir, S. de, Aperçu sur les monnaies russes et sur les monnaies étrangères qui ont eu cours en Russie (Paris, 1836), I, 5Google Scholar.

11 For example, Fedorov, C. B., “Den'gi moskovskogo kniazhestva vremeni Dmitriia Donskogo i Vasiliia I (1359–1425)” [The money of the Moscow princedom in the time of Dmitri Donskoi and Basil I ], Materialy i issledovaniia po arkheologii USSR [Materials and investigations in USSR archeology], XII (1949), 146–47Google Scholar; Kulischer, J., Russische Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Jena, 1925), I, 117Google Scholar.

12 S. von Herberstein, Notes upon Russia, trans. R. H. Major, in Worlds Issued by the Hakluyt Society, X, 110; Barberini, R., Relatione di Moscovia, in Viaggi di Moscovia (Viterbo, 1658), p. 214Google Scholar. Sigismund von Herberstein's book was held in especially high regard by other travelers to Russia, some of whom borrowed liberally from him for their own use. George Turberville, when secretary to the English ambassador to Moscow in 1568, wrote letters in verse to his friends about Russia and in one of them said: “A dieu dear Parker, if thou list, to know the Russes well,/To Sigismundus booke repaire, who all the trueth can tell.” Hakluyt, R., The Principal Navigations Voyages Traffiques £r Discoveries of the English Nation (Glasgow, 1903–1905), III, 135Google Scholar.

13 Chaudoir, Aperçu, I, 90.

14 Tolstoy, G., The First Forty Years of Intercourse between England and Russia, 1553–1593 (St. Petersburg, 1875), p. 37Google Scholar.

15 Chaudoir, Aperçu, I, 90.

16 Kaufman, I.I., Serebrianyi rubl' v Rossii ot ego vozniknoveniia do kontsa XIX veka [The silver ruble in Russia from its origin to the end of the nineteenth century] (St. Petersburg, 1910), pp. 29, 30, 53; Fedorov, “Den'gi,” pp. 144, 146–47Google Scholar.

17 Hakluyt, Principal Voyages, II, 273.

18 Chaudoir, Aperçu, I, 109–10.

19 Fedorov, “Den'gi,” p. 164.

20 John Hasse's report in Hakluyt, Principal Voyages, II, 274; Chaudoir, Aperçu, I, 86–87.

21 Kaufman, Serebrianyi rubl, pp. 13, 26–28, 62–69; Kulischer, Wirtschaftsgeschichte, I, 369–72. The coining of Moscow den'gi tapered off during the sixteenth century and was finally abandoned.

22 Chaudoir, Aperçu, I, 50–79; Fedorov, “Den'gi,” p. 146; Goetz, Deutsch-russische Handelsgeschichte, pp. 329–32.

23 For example, Herberstein, Notes, I, 110; Horsey, J., in Works Issued by the Hakluyt Society, XX (1856), 184, 189Google Scholar; Margaret, J., Estat de l'empire de Russie et grande duché de Moscovie (Paris, 1860), p. 44Google Scholar; Barberini, Relatione, p. 214.

24 Willan, T. S., “Trade between England and Russia in the Second Half o£ the Sixteenth Century,” English Historical Review, LXIII (1948), 310–11, 314, 315CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Barberini, Relatione, p. 215.

26 Reports of Richard Chancelor, Clement Adams, George Killingsworth, and Anthony Jenkinson in Hakluyt, Principal Voyages, II, 227, 256–57, 292–93, 421.

27 Kulischer, Wirtschaftsgeschichte, I, 403–7; Akty … Arkheograficheskoi Ekspeditsei, Vol. I, Nos. 144, 150, 156.

28 Rozhkov, Sel'skoe khoziaistvo, pp. 234–44, 275–80; Grekov, B. D., Kresf'iane na Rusi s drevneishikh vremen do XVII veka [Peasants in Russia from the earliest times to the seventeenth century] (Moscow, Leningrad, 1946), pp. 500, 584–86Google Scholar.

29 J. Faber's report on Muscovy in Eden, R., The First Three English Books on America, ed. Arber, E. (Birmingham, 1885), p. 290Google Scholar; Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, II, 439; Chaudoir, Aperçu, I, 44.

30 Fisher, R. H., The Russian Fur Trade, 1550–1700 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1943), pp. 130–31, 140–41Google Scholar.

31 Rozhkov, Sel'skpe khoziaistvo, pp. 292–93.

32 Hakluyt, Principal Voyages, II, 261; Kliuchevskii, V. O., Skazaniia inostrantsev o moskovskom gosudarstve [Reports of foreigners on the Muscovite state] (Moscow, 1866), pp. 215, 218Google Scholar; Giterman, V., Geschichte Russlands (Zurich, 1944–1949), I, 107Google Scholar.

33 Kulischer, Wirtschaftsgeschichte, I, 323–27.

34 Ibid., I, 267, 283–85; Bakhruschin, S. V., “Predposylki ‘vserossiiskogo rynka’ v XVI v.” [Premises of the “all-Russian” market in the sixteenth century], Uchenye zapiski [Scientific records], Moscow State University, LXXXVII (1946), 48Google Scholar; A. Contarini, “The Travels of the Magnificent M. Ambrosio Contarini,” tr. from Italian in Works Issued by the Hakfuyt Society, XLIX, 161–62; Chancelor in Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, II, 225, 262.

35 Bakhrushin, “Predposylki,” p. 42.

36 Ibid., pp. 41–47; Liashchenko, P. I., History of the National Economy of Russia to the 1917 Revolution, trans, from Russian by Herman, L. M. (New York, 1949), pp. 205–8Google Scholar.

37 Brunner, O., “Europäisches und russisches Bürgcrtum,” Vierteljahrschrift für Sozialand Wirtschaftsgeschichte, XL (1953), 11Google Scholar.

38 Cf. Roover, R. de, “The Commercial Revolution of the Thirteenth Century,” in Lane, F. C. and Riemersma, J. C., eds., Enterprise and Secular Change (Homewood, Ill., 1953), pp. 80–85Google Scholar.

39 Liashchenko, National Economy, pp. 219–27.

40 Savich, A., “Die Agrarwirtschaft der Klöstergüter des Russischen Nordes im 14. bis 17. Jahrhundcrt,” Zeitschrift für osteuropäische Geschichte, V (1931), 30–31Google Scholar; Man'kov, Tseny, pp. 26–30; Bakhrushin, “Predposylki,” p. 50.

41 Cf. Veselovskii, S. B., Feodal'noe zemlevladenie v severo-vostochnoi Rusi [Feudal landowning in north-east Russia] (Moscow, Leningrad, 1947), I, 151, 155–56Google Scholar; Liashchenko, National economy, pp. 146–50.

42 Rozhkov, Sel'skoe khoziastvo, pp. 129–30, 134–37, 156–60, 168–74, 176–80, 186–89.

43 Cf. Veselovskii, Feodal'noc zemlevladenie, I, 312; Eck, A., “Le grand domaine dans la Russie du moyen-âge,” Revue historique du sud-est curopéen, XXI (1944), 101Google Scholar.

44 Veselovskii, Feodal'noe zemlevladenie, I, 309; Rozhkov, Sel'skoe khoziaistvo, pp. 180–200.

45 For example, by Grekov, Krest'iane na Rust, pp. 8–9, 375; Liashchenko, National Economy, pp. 185–87.

46 Rozhkov, Sel'skoe khoziaistvo, pp. 160, 180–81, 190–91, 200.

47 Grekov, Krest'iane na Rusi, pp. 584–87; Pokrovsky, M. N., History of Russia from the Earliest Times to the Rise of Commercial Capitalism, trans, and ed. by Clarkson, J. D. and Griffiths, M. R. M. (New York, 1931), pp. 112–13Google Scholar.

48 Cf. Rozhdestvenskii, S. V., Sluzhiloe zemlevladenie v moskovskom gosudarstve XVI vefa [Serving landlords of the Moscow state in the sixteenth century] (St. Petersburg, 1897), pp. 78–84Google Scholar.

49 Rozhkov, Sel'skoe khoziaistvo, pp. 278, 281, 283; Bakhrushin, “Predposylki,” pp. 51–52, 61–62; Grekov, B. D., Glavneishie etapy v istorii krepostnogo prava v Rossii [The chief stages in the history of serfdom in Russia] (Moscow, Leningrad, 1940), p. 30Google Scholar.

50 Kliuchevskii, V., Boiarskaia duma drevnei Rusi [The boyar duma of early Russia] (Moscow, 1883), p. 313Google Scholar; Perel'man, I. L., “Novgorodskaia derevnia v XV-XVI vv.” [The Novgorod village in the fifteenth to the sixteenth centuries], Istoricheskie zapiski [Historical records], XXVI (1948), 186–96Google Scholar; Rozhkov, Sel'skoe khioziastvo, pp. 300–17.

51 For example, Giles Fletcher, Of the Russe Common Wealth, in Works Issued by the Hakluyt Society, XX, 18, 61–62.

52 Rozhkov, Sel'skoe khoziaistvo, pp. 300–2, 314–16.

53 Platonov, S. F., Ivan Groznyi [Ivan the Terrible] (Berlin, 1924), p. 119Google Scholar.

54 Rozhkov, Sel'skoe khoziaistvo, p. 473.

55 Kulischer, Wirtschaftsgeschichte, I, 165–67.

56 Kliuchevskii, Boiarskaia duma, p. 213; Platonov, S. F., Boris Godunov (Prague, 1924), p. 125Google Scholar.

57 Grekov, Krest'ianc na Rusi, pp. 802–4; Perel'man, “Novgorodskaia derevnia,” pp. 188–96.

58 For an historiographical survey of these views see Grekov, Krest'iane na Rust, pp. 784–91. For a recent presentation of the “catastrophe” theory see idem, “Khoziaistvennyi krizis v moskovskom gosudarstve v 70–80kh godakh XVI v.” [The economic crisis in the Moscow state in the seventies to eighties of the sixteenth century], Voprosy istorii [Problems of history], I (1945), No. 1Google Scholar.

59 Fletcher, Of the Russe Common Wealth, pp. 12–13, 61–62; Jacobo von Ulfeld and Antonio Possevino, cited in Rozhkov, Sel'skoe khoziaistvo, p. 366.

60 Cf. Willan, “Trade between England and Russia,” passim; Goetz, Deutsch-russischce Handelsgeschichte, pp. 330–31.

61 Even without any increase in the quantity of money in circulation, the more frequent use of money would have increased the total of money expenditures. Thus, in effect, the money supply was augmented because of this greater velocity of money. The problem, however, is to determine why there was this increase in velocity.

62 For example, Miliukov, P. N., Ocherki po istorii russkoi kul'tury [Outlines of the history of Russian culture] (St. Petersburg, 1898–1903), I, 26–27Google Scholar.

63 Fletcher, Of the Russe Common Wealth, pp. 9, 57; Man'kov, Tseny, pp. 33–34.