berkovec

[Robert De Lossa]

You might want to have your library order Omeljan Pritsak's "The Origins
of the Old Rus' Weights and Monetary Systems" (1998, Harvard University
Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute).

There is a nifty table on p. 58 that gives one berkovec' as 10 puds and
400 great grivenkas. Therefore, one berkovec' is 163,800 g (or 163.8
kilograms) or about 360 English pounds (as you mention), which gives you
the numbers you described. I don't think the berkovec' would have varied
in the period your talking about (cf. Pritsak's various relationships of
weights at the time). However, since I'm home with a sick little one, I
went to the kitchen and measured a half gallon of maple syrup as a
surrogate for honey. It weighs 5 lbs. If our prince had barrels of
approximately 40 gallons (which I think is not unreasonable), then we
would be talking about 400 lbs per barrel, or a total of 450 barrels of
honey. The question is whether that is an unreasonable amount for a prince
to be storing in a stronghold? Maybe someone knows some princely
inventories or tributes? It was a major trading item, too, so 450 barrels
doesn't seem excessive to me...

Our books are distributed by Wiley and Sons in the UK (for HUP).

Best, Robert De Lossa


====================================
Robert De Lossa
Director of Publications
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
1583 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02138
617-496-8768 tel.
617-495-8097 fax.
rdelossa at fas.harvard.edu
www.sabre.org/huri/

On Tue, 22 Jun 1999, Ralph Cleminson wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
 -----------------------
> Sender:       "SEELangs: Slavic & E. European Languages & literatures list"
>               <SEELANGS at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
> Poster:       Ralph Cleminson <ralph.cleminson at port.ac.uk>
> Organization: University of Portsmouth
> Subject:      berkovec
>
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Can anyone help with the weights and measures of mediaeval Rus'?
> In the Kievan Chronicle we find, s.a.6654, that when Izjaslav
> Mstislavich plundered Svjatoslav Ol'govich's property at Putivl',
> vpogrebekh bylo 500 berkovezk' medu, a vina 80 korchag'.  Now,
> according to all the reference books that I can find, a
> berkovesk/berkovec is equal to ten puds, that is to say 400 Russian
> pounds.  500 berkovec would therefore be over eighty tons, or nearly
> 82,000 Kg.  Did Svjatoslav really have this much honey in his cellar,
> or did the berkovec not always weigh this much?
>
> R.M.Cleminson,
> Professor of Slavonic Studies,
> University of Portsmouth,
> Park Building,
> King Henry I Street,
> Portsmouth PO1 2DZ
> tel. +44 1705 846143, fax: +44 1705 846040
>