Yaroslav's Court

Yaroslav's Court ("Yaroslavovo Dvorishche" [Ярославово Дворище] in Russian) was the princely compound in the city of Novgorod the Great. Today it is roughly the area around the Trade Mart, the Church of St. Nicholas, the Church of St. Procopius, and the Church of the Myrrh-bearing Women. The Trade Mart renovated and heavily modified in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is all that is left of the princely palace itself. [A. I. Semenov, "Iaroslavovo Dvorishche i Torg" (Novgorod: gazeta “Novgorodskaia Pravda,” 1958).] The prince also had a compound called the "Riurikovo Gorodishche" south of the Marketside of the city.

Yaroslav's Court is named after Yaroslav the Wise who, while prince of Novgorod (988-1015), built a palace there. The Novgorodian veche often met in front of Yaroslav's Court and in 1224 several pagan sourcers were burned at the stake there.

According to the traditional scholarship, after the Novgorodians evicted Prince Vsevolod Mstislavich in 1136, Novgorod began electing their princes and forbade them from holding land in Novgorod. Yaroslav's Court then ceased to be a princely compound and the prince resided at Riurikovo Gorodishche. [Janet Martin, "Medieval Russia 980-1584" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)'.]

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