The traditional historical picture of the monastery has been as a separate entity under different laws, serving a parallel but removed part of the local community. However, my study is a local history of a provincial monastery in seventeenth century Riazan’. Using Solotchinskii monastery as a focus, I examine how the monastery functioned as a local religious institution of power, intersecting with the secular institutions. This explores a system of shared governance that came to assert the primacy of local power structures in opposition to the centralization of the Muscovite state. At the same time, the monastery served as a spiritual body and a substantial administrative organization that oversaw a diverse population on its estates. Two critical features provide a framework to this study: First, the foundation of Solotchinskii as a “princely” rather than “saintly” institution routinely endowed by local elite (thus allowing me to trace the long-term relationship between monastic personnel and local elite and gentry). Second, the location of Solotchinskii makes it a unique study: it in Riazan’ province and was peripheral to the consolidation of the Muscovite state. This had a critical effect on the formation of political structures and boundaries of negotiation with respect to the multiple political and social polities, and created an atmosphere of compromise that conditioned Riazan’ to look for alternative methods of political expression.

I trace the monastery’s development from a subordinate entity in the local community, to an independent and highly organized polity that competed with the local secular organizations. I analyze more than 100 types of documents in four categories: economic, legal, administrative, and social. This analysis reveals the myriad connections with local nobility, which allowed the monastery to become a competitive political entity. I survey different forms of land tenure in Riazan’ and the dependent populations on secular and ecclesiastic estates, giving the monastery authority in a legal and economic sense as it became effectively a “landlord” or administrator of estates. I argue that monastic participation in the local economy as producers of handicraft and artisanal goods, as well as competition for labor, brought it into conflict with the local secular economy.