Many words from old fairy tales in modern children cause only bewilderment, and for adults it is not entirely clear how to explain this or that concept. For example, what does “columnist noblewoman” from Pushkin's tales mean? Where did this word come from? Let's try to figure it out.
Nobility in Russia
In Kievan Rus, the concept of "nobility" has not yet developed. Naturally, princely families already existed, but, in principle, any free person could join the ranks of combatants or boyars. As a class, the nobility took shape already in the XIII-XV century in Moscow Russia. The emergence of this estate is inextricably linked with the revision of the principles of land ownership.
Estate and patrimony
In Muscovy there were two types of private land - patrimony and estate. Patrimony was called private land, which was passed from generation to generation. The estate is land for temporary use, which was given for service in the public service. In connection with the expansion of the territory of Moscow Russia, due to the increment of land from the south and Eastern Siberia, agricultural land became more, but they could only be obtained in the service of the tsar.
Columns
The lands that were provided to service people were issued according to the laws of that time in special decrees - columns. In them, each employee could find out if he had land, and whether he had the right to cultivate it. Lists were compiled quite often, and were viewed and certified by the king himself. So the emperor of all Russia had ideas about the number of people faithful to him who owned estates. To get on such a list is the dream of every servant, because it meant not only possession of earthly lands, but also the probable attention and grace of the king himself.
In the lists, the names of the owners of the estates were written from top to bottom - “in the column”. Thus, the person whose last name was in the "columns" and were called "Pillar Nobleman" and "Pillar Noblewoman". This honorary title spoke of the presence of land holdings, and of the special mercy of the sovereign. Getting into the coveted “columns” was not easy.
Female noblewoman
At first, only men fell into the “columns”. But over time, women's names appeared in the cherished lists. And so the concept of “pillar noblewoman” appeared. The meaning of the word "noblewoman" implies a good origin or a profitable marriage. The term "pillar" indicates the presence of marked lands and a privileged position.
Thus, the noblewoman is a woman from a good family, the wife or widow of a civil servant who owns the estate. After the death of a civil servant, his widow had the right to preserve the local land "for living", after her death, the estate returned to the treasury and could be transferred to other pillar nobles. Cases where wives or daughters owned the estate in person were quite rare. As a rule, only a pillar noblewoman had this right. This property was usually under the special tutelage of the tsarist government, and the woman could not sell, mortgage or inherit the land.
Land reform
The confusion among the owners of estates and local lands was so typical that it created a lot of inconvenience and incorrect court decisions. It is worth clarifying that court decisions in those days mainly took place on case law, and the chain of illegal court decisions on the transfer of inheritance, lease or sale of local possessions spread throughout the country. To legalize the current state of things, land reform was undertaken.
Land reforms at the beginning of the 16th century equalized the position of owners of patrimonial and local lands. The lands belonging to families from generation to generation, and the lands owned by one or another nobleman or a columnar noblewoman are lands subject to the same laws. Such a decision was made in order to legalize the huge local lands which, relatively speaking, did not belong to their owners. Thus, the pillar nobles became hereditary nobles - only they themselves could dispose of their right to land. Naturally, in those years the autocracy grew and strengthened, and the tsarist government reserved the right to take the land and demolish the nobleman.
Summary
So we figured out the term "pillar noblewoman." The meaning of the word lies on the surface - this is a representative of the nobility, whose surname is in the "pillar lists" of the sovereign himself. Perhaps this is the daughter of a nominal royal servant or his widow, behind whom there were abandoned local lands "for maintenance." But after the adoption of land reform, this word begins to go out of use and practically loses its meaning. A.S. Pushkin in his tale used this word in order to denote not only the greed of the old woman, but also her desire to be famous for the tsar himself. But how it ended for a greedy woman is known to everyone.