Pages: 295-306 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.55086/sp265295306

According to the Galician–Volhynian Chronicle’s account of the Mongol assault on Kiev in 1240, the city’s inhabitants fled with their belongings to the Church of the Tithes, where the weight of the crowd allegedly caused the walls to collapse. As early as the nineteenth century, scholars questioned whether the stone walls could in fact have yielded under such a load. Alternative explanations were subsequently proposed, including damage caused by Mongol battering rams and stone-throwing engines, or even a literary invention by the chronicler.
A textual analysis of the source, however, indicates that the original account described not the collapse of the walls but that of the “kamara” (vaults)—the church’s outer galleries, which may well have served defensive purposes. Archaeological evidence largely corroborates the chronicle: numerous civilians as well as soldiers sought refuge in the church, and the building appears to have collapsed in stages, beginning with the “kamara.” The chronicler attributed the disaster primarily to the strain placed on the vaults by the crowd, although the devastating fire—traces of which remain visible on the monument—must also be considered a major contributing factor. The fate of the Church of the Tithes thus accords with Mongol urban-warfare tactics attested in written and archaeological sources: stone buildings used by residents as final strongholds were ruthlessly set ablaze with the most advanced incendiary weapons of the period.

Keywords: Old Kiev, the Church of the Tithes, Mongol conquests, medieval firearms, the Galician-Volynian Chronicle

Information about author:

Fedor Veselov (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Saint Petersburg State University. Universitetskaya Emb., 7-9, Saint Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]
ORCID: 0000-0002-2445-6497