Yaroslav's Court and the Torg

The Court received its name from the residence of Yaroslav the Wise: at the beginning of the eleventh century, the prince moved it here. The Court included the residential and service buildings of the princely court; nearby, by the shore, merchants kept goods in storehouses and sold them in market rows. None of the princely buildings remain, and the open space in front of St Nicholas Cathedral occupies part of the former Court. The white arcade by the Volkhov River belongs to the later Gostiny Dvor.

At the end of the year one thousand two hundred twenty, Prince Vsevolod, invited by the people of Novgorod, came to this court with his entire retinue. The men were in armor, as if before a battle. The prince wanted to kill the ailing posadnik Tverdislav.

The posadnik was the elected head of the city administration. Tverdislav came from the wealthy landowning Mikhalkevichi family of Prusskaya Street. Income came from ancestral landholdings, while the office of posadnik allowed him to manage city affairs. Tverdislav risked both his life and his family's position.

The reason for the prince's anger is not reliably known. The Novgorod chronicler writes that unnamed people turned Vsevolod against the posadnik, and explicitly considers the accusation baseless. Two years earlier, the townspeople had already refused to remove Tverdislav at the demand of another prince. The people of Novgorod chose the posadnik; the prince could not replace him with a single order.

Vsevolod chose Yaroslav's Court because two things familiar to Novgorod met here. It was an old princely territory, and the Novgorod Veche gathered near St Nicholas Cathedral—a city assembly that made decisions about officeholders, war, and inviting princes. Vsevolod's supporters joined the armed prince at the Court.

Meanwhile, Tverdislav was taken by sledge to the Church of Sts Boris and Gleb. He could neither walk nor mount a horse. Residents of the city districts that supported him gathered around the ailing posadnik and divided into five armed detachments. The prince saw that these people were ready to die together with Tverdislav and stopped his retinue.

Bishop Mitrofan became the mediator. He secured a reconciliation, after which the prince and the posadnik sealed it by kissing the cross—an oath before God. Vsevolod did not get Tverdislav's head. The posadnik kept his life and left office because of illness, then took monastic vows at Arkazhsky Monastery and built a stone gate church there. The armed detachments dispersed without a battle.

The name of the Court itself is almost two centuries older than this clash. At the beginning of the eleventh century, Prince Yaroslav the Wise, who was later given that epithet, moved his Novgorod residence here. The Court included the entire princely complex, with residential and service buildings. The Torg stood nearby: piers lined the shore, merchants kept goods in storehouses and sold them in market rows. That is why the princely court stood amid the most active part of the city.

Archaeologists have not yet found traces of Yaroslav's palace. In August two thousand twenty-five, his lead seal was found here; the prince could have used it to seal documents during his reign as prince of Novgorod. St George is depicted on one side—Yaroslav bore the baptismal name Georgy—and his princely emblem appears on the other. The seal confirms that a city center was already active here under Yaroslav, although the location of its buildings remains unknown.

The white arcade by the Volkhov River belongs to the much later Gostiny Dvor. The princely buildings near which Vsevolod placed armed men have disappeared. St Nicholas Cathedral already stood nearby during that clash; the open ground in front of it still occupies part of the former Yaroslav's Court.