The third element of the three-fold formula indicating the limits of the holding was the axe. This implement signified the forest, a constant element of Russian culture in the centuries following the Mongol invasions. Russia was a wood civilisation, as has often been said. The East Slavs occupied the forests of eastern Europe; this environment was the core of the Russian state in Europe; it was the source of supplies for many of man's needs and should not be thought of merely as a temporary and unsatisfying refuge from the alleged abundance of the steppes. The excavations at Novgorod well illustrate the great range of objects which were made of wood, though these objects far from exhaust the use to which timber was put in medieval Russian society. Attitudes to the forest were probably ambivalent. On the one hand, the forest had to be cleared in order to establish cultivation; on the other, it afforded shelter from enemies and much that could be used to supplement income from agriculture. Indeed, where gathering grew into extractive industry it might offer an alternative to agriculture. We are mainly concerned, however, with gathering as the constant companion of agriculture.

MATERIALS

Building materials

We start with the axe itself. Trees were felled by axe only; houses and other buildings were built without the help of almost any other implement. ‘The ability to wield the axe was a necessity of life for a man born among the forests.