The mental bases of monarchism in ancient Russia between the mid-thirteenth and the mid-fifteenth centuries: the fealty/treason and vassal/subject relationships.

We call monarchism the set of explicit concepts a given community has of the monarch and his power. In medieval Russia, between the mid-thirteenth and the mid-fifteenth centuries, monarchism was based on contractual ("equivalent") or quasi-contractual ("non equivalent") bonds. The most important contractual bond was that involving the overlord and the vassal, and the most important quasi-contractual bond involved the despot and the subject. It must be noted that a prince could at the same time be overlord and despot, vassal and subject. All these relationships were interpreted by contemporaries through the fealty/treason opposition. This opposition in turn rested on a distinction between "We" and "They", but did not become the basis of patriotism in the modem acception of the word.