The Monastic Account Books and Price History of Seventeenth-Century Russia

Abstract

This article uses the records of monastic account books to assess the level of prices in Russia in the second half of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The data from these books allow us to construct salt and rye price series, and identify prices of other goods for single years. The resulting numbers demonstrate that the prices remained largely unchanged. The exceptions were the mid-1640s and the early 1660s, when the price fluctuations were driven by the failed financial reforms. The available data shows the prices did not change synchronically in Russia and Europe. Our assumption, therefore, is that Russia stood apart from the price revolution of Western Europe in the seventeenth century.

Keywords: price revolution, monastic account books, price lists, price series, Alexei Mikhailovich’s reforms

JEL Classification: Z