Noi perspective asupra relațiilor dintre mănăstiri și orașe: cazul mănăstirii Sf. Ioan Zlataust din Iași
New insights into the relations between monasteries and towns: the case of the St. John Zlataust monastery of Iași

Summary/Abstract: This study will continue to investigate the relations between monasteries and towns, by using an applied research approach, relevant for how monasteries influenced towns, and especially their population. The town in this case is Iași, one of the oldest urban settlements in Moldova, which had become the main seat of the country in the 16th century. The monastery is St John Chrysostom (known until today as Zlataust), with an unclear origin and a tortuous evolution. Around 1800, the relations between the monastery and the town were fraught with tension, and this gives the researcher opportunity for a complex evaluation, with compelling social and economic insights. Based on donations made by the rulers, the St. John Chrysostom monastery came to possess, in the 18th century, a huge tract of land, which spanned the eastern and southern edges of the town of Iași. Discontent that they had to pay rent (bezmen) to the monks for the places they owned, the inhabitants of the Tătărași and Broșteni neighbourhoods (mahala) brought the monastery to trial. The archives have preserved several documents related to this trial, which paint a miniature of the local universe, with inhabitants whose lives and pursuits were affected by the monastery's interests. These documents are also an important human inventory, that benefits us by completing the data in censuses of that specific period.

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