Personal list of Novgorod Archbishop Court in 1559-1618

This work was written as part of the study of one of the important aspects of the social history of Novgorod land in the middle of the XVI - beginning of the XVII century. The focus is on the courtyard of the Novgorod bishop and a special social group of the Novgorod service people - metropolitan Sofia children of the boyars. This group held a special position, which made it dependent simultaneously on secular and spiritual authorities: on the one hand, they were vassals of secular sovereigns, and on the other, they were dependent on Novgorod church hierarchs who had the right to grant and take their land. However, despite the existence of a voluminous body of research devoted to the study of the “service corporation”, this social group remains virtually unstudied in historiography. This determines the relevance of this work: this gap in historiography should be filled, given the special importance of the territory of Novgorod lands in the processes of the XV-XVII centuries, during which this territory went from the main rival of Moscow (and a potential alternative as a leader in the unification of lands) to an active participant in a fierce struggle during the Time of Troubles. Therefore, in the context of the study of church tenure and service corporations of the XV-XVII centuries, the issue of the personal composition of this social group and the main trends of its changes becomes especially relevant. To study this issue, it is necessary to turn to the personal composition of the court of the Novgorod bishop and trace the changes taking place within this social group during the selected chronological period. The choice of this time period is due to the historical context of the events. It includes events after the Novgorod pogrom of 1570 and the events of the Time of Troubles. The prosopographic method used in the study is most applicable to similar tipping points in history provided by written sources. Also, the chronological framework of the work is connected with the source base of the work, which is used as local letters issued by the Novgorod rulers. The first of them dates back to 1559, and the last - 1619.