ON THE STRUGGLE OF THE NORTHERN PEASANTS FOR LAND IN THE 16th CENTURY

The article presents an analysis of three documents from the collection of the Antoniev-Siya Monastery in the Archive of the St. Petersburg Institute of History (Russian Academy of Sciences) related to the monastery's lawsuit against the peasants of the Morzhegorskaya volost (judgment list, otstupnaja gramota and otvodnaja gramota). Some peasants of the volost renounced the claims of the monastery and retreated from the disputed land during the trial, while the others insisted on their rights. As a result, the dispute was resolved peacefully; the monastery refused the monetary claim and, perhaps, the peasants managed to defend some part of the land, although the sources do not allow be absolutely sure of it.