Golden Horde khans' charters to the Russian church
Russian copies of khans' charters (yarliks) to the Orthodox clergy, 1267 to 1379.
Full title Yarliks (charters) of the Golden Horde khans to the Russian clergy, in Russian translation of the 14th-15th century, with Grigoriev 1842 study of their authenticity
Ярлыки, сиречь жалованные грамоты, иже давали первые цари Ордынские митрополитам Киевским и всея Руси (О достоверности ярлыков, данных ханами Золотой Орды русскому духовенству)
Khans of the Golden Horde (Mengu-Timur, Uzbek, Taidula, Berdibek, Tulak); ed. V. V. Grigoriev
Khans of the Golden Horde, among them Mengu-Timur, Uzbek, Taidula, Berdibek and Tulak, issued yarliks (charters) to the Russian Orthodox church. The originals are lost. The texts survive in Old Russian translation, in a collection copied in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and were edited and defended as authentic by V. V. Grigoriev in 1842. The atlas does not hold the text: the corpus knows the work only from its catalogue card and a web text of the 1842 study.
- How they knew
- Official record
- Who “Tartar” means here
- Not recorded. The issuers are the khans of the Golden Horde, the state that Russian writers called Tatar.
- Why read it
- Direct administrative evidence of Horde rule over Rus, in the form the Russian church kept it, and a case study in how a dating dispute is argued.
- Watch out
- Only translations survive, in two redactions, and later scholars (Priselkov, Pliguzov) revised Grigoriev's dating. The atlas quotes nothing from this work.
What it says
No quotes from this one yet. Its text is out of reach for now, or the scan could not be read.
The fine print
How we know
official or contemporary record An official document or a record made at the time.
official record: khan charters of 1267-1379 preserved in 15th century Russian translation collection; authenticity and dating debated since Grigoriev
Research notes
- Survive only in Russian translation; two redactions; Grigoriev 1842 argued for authenticity with reservations; later scholarship (Priselkov, Pliguzov) revised dating.
Why it matters
Direct administrative evidence of Horde sovereignty over Rus, in the form the Russian church preserved; the authenticity debate is itself relevant to chronology disputes. vostlit Golden Horde section also hosts Mengu-Timur, Tokhtamysh, Timur-Kutlug and Ulug-Muhammad yarliks and Venetian letters.
Places named
Golden Horde; Sarai; Rus metropolitanate
Peoples named
Golden Horde khans; Russian Orthodox church; Muscovy