ABSTRACT
The chapter discusses the Novgorodian Torg (literally, “market”), the market square on the right bank of the Volkhov River on which the city is located, at the time of the independence of the Novgorod Republic (twelfth century to 1478). Both trading and civil activities defined the topography of the Torg. The Marketplace hosted the trading infrastructure (market stalls). Basically, the Marketplace and Yaroslav's Court, the square where the popular assembly called the veche, the highest political authority of the Novgorod Republic, gathered, were in fact one single space. There were also the Churches of Saint John the Baptist-on-Opoki and Saint Paraskevi, which were the patronal churches of Novgorodian merchant associations. Saint John's Church held the reference scales (merila) to check the weight of goods sold at the Marketplace. It was near the Marketplace that foreign trade yards were located: the “Gothic Yard” (Gotenhof) founded in the early twelfth century by merchants of Gotland, and the “German Yard” (or Saint Peter's Yard, Peterhof, named after Saint Peter's Church that stood there) founded by German merchants at the end of the same century. Later, these yards would become the basis of the Hanseatic Kontor in Novgorod. The key purpose of the chapter is to demonstrate how the relatively small space in the Marketplace and the surrounding area was not only the site of commercial activities and related conflicts but was also one of the most important Novgorodian “republican” public spaces—the arena of interaction between various social and ethnic groups, authorities, and local communities.
