Gorodno and the Rus' towns of Black Ruthenia

Who rules

Name

not pinned: a prince of the line of Vsevolodko of Gorodno is the likeliest holder; none is named after the early 1180s

Title

prince of Gorodno (Goroden)

Since

not pinned

Born

not pinned

Family

Rurikid. Vsevolodko Davydovich held Gorodno by 1127-1128 and married a daughter of Vladimir Monomakh; he died in 1141. His sons are named in the Kievan Chronicle into the 1170s and early 1180s; after the great fire of 1183 the line drops out of the chronicles. A Yuri Glebovich is named for Gorodno in 1241 by a doubtful later source.

Confidence

low

No source names who held Gorodno, Novogrudok, Volkovysk or Slonim on 1 January 1200, and no source shows another prince, Volhynia, Turov-Pinsk or the Lithuanians taking them before the 13th century. This record follows the simplest reading, that Gorodno kept a prince of its own (confidence low). The other towns may have belonged to him, to the Turov-Pinsk princes or to the Volhynian princes: not pinned.

Overlord

nominally the senior prince at Kiev (the Gorodno princes served the Kievan princes in the 12th century); in practice not pinned

What the realm holds

• Gorodno: the princely citadel on the Neman, the town, the Kalozha church and the Neman crossing
• Volkovysk: the hillfort on the Volkovysk stream and its land (holder not pinned)
• Novogrudok: the fortified Castle Hill and the Small Castle settlement (holder not pinned)
• Slonim: a fort on the Shchara (holder not pinned)

How it was acquired

Gorodno was a Kievan frontier fort on the Neman; it became the seat of Vsevolodko by 1127-1128 (the Kievan Chronicle's first mention is under 1128). How the other towns were divided after the 1180s is not known.

Allies and rivals

Kiev: the Gorodno princes followed the Kievan princes in the 12th century; Rurik Rostislavich holds Kiev in 1200. Volhynia: Roman Mstislavich of Vladimir-Volynsky, now also master of Galich, is the strong neighbour to the south through the Berestye land. Turov and Pinsk: neighbours to the south-east beyond the forests. The Yotvingians (west of the Neman) and the Lithuanians (to the north): raiders and trading partners; no attack on the towns is recorded for these years.

Polotsk and Minsk: neighbours to the north-east. In the quarrel between Rurik of Kiev and his son-in-law Roman, which side the Black Ruthenian towns take is not pinned.

The realm that morning

Gorodno almost certainly stands as a Rus' princely town with its own garrison and boyars; who sits in it is not pinned. Volkovysk, Novogrudok and Slonim are Rus' towns whose lords are not pinned. The Lithuanians do not hold any of them yet: Lithuanian rule in Black Ruthenia begins in the first half or middle of the 13th century. West of the Neman below Gorodno lies Sudovian ground (the Prussians' ground on the Poland and Hungary map); north, the Lithuanian forest land of Dainava; south, the Berestye land of Volhynia and the Pinsk land of Turov.

Wealth

The Neman route between the Baltic coast and the Rus' south, the crossing at Gorodno, crafts (jewellery, glass bracelets, bone and stone work at Novogrudok), farming of the Neman valley, and tribute and trade with the Yotvingian and Lithuanian neighbours. No coin is struck anywhere in Rus' in this period; silver changes hands by weight, in ingots.

Military

Gorodno's citadel had stone walls by the 12th century; Novogrudok's Castle Hill was fortified in the later 11th century and its Small Castle in the 12th; Volkovysk and Slonim were earth and timber forts. Each town had a princely or boyar retinue and a town militia. No numbers are known.

Threats

• Lithuanian and Yotvingian raiding, which will engulf the upper Neman in the 13th century
• absorption by stronger Rus' princes (Roman of Volhynia, the Turov-Pinsk princes)

Churches

Orthodox; the town churches, among them the Kalozha church of Sts Boris and Gleb, belong to the metropolitan of Kiev's province through a Rus' bishop (which see is not pinned). The Latin Church has no presence.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1201-1202 (later)Roman Mstislavich of Volhynia and Galich takes Kiev from Rurik Rostislavich; the Black Ruthenian princes' Kievan patron changes.Depends on: Roman's break with Rurik Stopped by: a settlement between Roman and Rurik
2. 1205 after 19 June (later)After Roman's death Lithuanian and Yotvingian raids fall on the Volhynian lands to the south.Depends on: Roman dying at Zawichost Stopped by: Roman surviving

Places of note

• Gorodno citadel and the Kalozha church: princely citadel on the Neman bluff; the Kalozha church of Sts Boris and Gleb stood before 1183
• Novogrudok Castle Hill: detinets of the later 11th century and the Small Castle settlement
• Volkovysk hillfort: the fortified hill (the later 'Swedish Hill') and its settlement
• Slonim fort: a small fort on the Shchara

Where the sources disagree

• The assignment asks for a gorodno realm record only if a prince of its own holds Gorodno that winter. No source settles this. The record is written because the line of Vsevolodko is the only known holder and no transfer is recorded; the campaign may prefer to treat Black Ruthenia as not pinned or as Volhynian.

Evidence: Gorodno is in the Kievan Chronicle from 1128 to 1183; Novogrudok, Volkovysk and Slonim are first named in the Galician-Volhynian chronicle in the 1250s, though excavation shows them as fortified Rus' towns from the 11th-12th centuries. Nothing written survives for 1184-1240 on any of them.

On the map: The outline joins four towns whose 1200 lords are not all known; the forests between them were thinly settled. The western edge follows the Neman and the modern Polish border, the southern edge the line of the Shchara and the Zelvianka forests. The Lida country between Dainava and the Neman towns is given to Black Ruthenia by convention; it may as well have been Lithuanian or Yotvingian forest.