ABSTRACT
In the works on the history of old Russian architecture little has been written about the role of the architect. This is due, above all, to the scarcity of records about architects and builders.1 The chronicles do contain much information about the building of churches, and also on which prince ordered a church to be built and which bishop consecrated it. They show little interest in information about the actual builders and therefore rarely mention them. We know the names of only four architects for the whole pre-Mongol period, three names are mentioned in chronicles and one in an ecclesiastical source. Instead, it is the patron who is almost always described in the chronicles as: "the builder of the church". It is usually mentioned that the prince: "founded" or "broke ground" for the church; "built" it, or, more rarely, "erected" it. In the Sermon on Law and Grace by Ilarion, it is said of Prince laroslav the Wise that he "built" the Cathedral of St Sophia. Describing the burial of princes in the churches, which they had had built at their command, the chronicler mentions that the prince was buried in the church: "which he himself built", and sometimes "which his father built". Sometimes princesses are also mentioned, and the chronicler writes: "which she built".
