Mortgage (from “ go into mortgage ”) is a kind of loan agreement between the lender and the borrower that was common in the times of Kievan Rus , where the borrower's face was used as a collateral that was supposed to secure the debt. Borrowers who received a loan on the terms of mortgage, were considered hostages and for a certain period became personally dependent on their lender . The condition for exemption from such dependence was working off or returning the borrower of the debt to the lender . The social status of hostages was equal to the social status of dependent groups of the population.
The essence of the concept
The elucidation of the essence of mortgage and its significance is the unforgettable merit of N. P. Pavlov-Silvansky in Russian historical science. In most cases, Russian historians and law historians believed that the basis of this institution was a pledge, a real pledge, or both. Pavlov-Silvansky proved that mortgage relations arise from commendation and have as a result patronage over people who entered into security relations. Having drawn a new material for studying this category of the ancient Russian population, Pavlov-Silvansky with exhaustive convincingly established that both in the XIII century and in the XVII century, mortgage - commendation in Russia, as well as in Western Europe, entailed independence from state power . As a boyar, monastic or church man, the mortgagor left the department of state power, was exempted from paying taxes and from general judicial and administrative dependence. The downside of quitting dependence on state power was the subordination of the mortgagors to their master — the landowner or the patron in general [1] .
Predominantly were impoverished peasants. Each mortgagee had a small farm, a plot of land, but due to the absence of a burden of force, equipment and sowing material, he could not manage the farm normally. In such conditions, he was forced to pledge his land to the feudal lord and receive appropriate assistance from him, that is, he fell into bondage. For such assistance, the mortgagee must perform various duties. It took 5-10 years and the former free mortgage keeper turned into a feudally dependent peasant, and his land and yard became the property of the landowner. He became a sub-neighbor of his feudal lord [2]
First mention
We find the first mention of mortality in the contractual charter of 1265 , according to which the Prince of Tver, Yaroslav Yaroslavich, pledged before Novgorod the Great not to take hostages in Novgorod volosts in the future, he pledged for himself, for his princess, boyars and nobles.
Even if one is based on the text of the contracts of 1265-1270 and considers them as material for judging the institution of mortgages up to the Tatar period, then its development and domestic distribution during this period are indisputable.
The seizure of whole villages meant, in the end, the transfer of the entire economic complex of the village to the feudal lord . The land began to belong to the patron , and the peasants became feudally dependent [1] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 S. Yushkov. Patronage / Essays on the history of the emergence and initial development of feudalism in Kievan Rus // http://litopys.org.ua/yushkov2/yush13.htm
- ↑ Mishko D. Socio-economic conditions for the formation of the Ukrainian nationality (the position of the peasants and the anti-feudal movements in Ukraine in the 15th - first half of the 16th centuries) / D. Mishko. - K .: Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR Institute of History, 1963. - p. 154-155. http://shron.chtyvo.org.ua/Myshko_Dmytro/Sotsialno-ekonomichni_umovy_formuvannia_ukrainskoi_narodnosti_Stanovysche_selian_i_antyfeodalni_rukh.pdf Archive dated April 6, 2016 on the Wayback Machine