FIRST SECULAR MASONRY BUILDINGS OF THE NOVGORODIAN ARCHBISHOP’S COURT: WRITTEN SOURCES AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATA

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the history of the construction of masonry buildings on the territory of the residence of the Novgorodian archbishop. For centuries, the archbishop remained the real head of the Novgorod republic. His residence, the Archbishop’s Court, located inside Novgorod’s citadel, the Detinets, served as a center not only for religious, but also for social activities of the city. In this context, the information of secular masonry constructions at the Archbishop’s Court is of particular interest. The main purpose of the paper is to reconstruct the key features of the Novgorodian Archbishop’s Court complex by the early 1430s, before the large-scale masonry construction initiated by Archbishop Evfimij II. The survey is based on the chronicles’ evidences and the results of the architectural archaeological investigations held by the author on the territory of the Novgorodian Archbishop’s Court. An important aim of the paper is to introduce the data collected by the excavation. Before the reconstruction of the complex during the 1430–1450s, the Archbishop’s Court was, for the most part, wooden; also there were a few small masonry buildings from different time periods. Only two of them can be classified as secular – the palace of Archbishop Vasilij built in 1350 (residential and state structure) and the stone bakery built in 1409 (service structure).