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# The 17th-century Kirillo-Novoezersky Synodikon lists dozens of forms of death
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/ot-chego-umirali-prostye-liudi-drevnei-rusi/
- Published: 2018-11-29T18:28:47.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:08:05.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Faith, Museums, Mores

What Did the Common People of Ancient Rus' Die Of?

*Of wild beasts, the elements, disease and clumsy cookery.*

The synodikon, a handwritten church book listing names for commemoration, is recorded in Rus' quite early. In theory, a synodikon ought to name every Orthodox Christian who had ever died and was to be prayed for in a given church. But synodika were copied out in different monasteries, and so they differ considerably from one another and speak chiefly of those whom a particular house especially wished to remember.

This unique document yields information not only about people who died in the various Russian lands over the period it covers, but also, for instance, about the rarest of names, which with the passage of years are to be found nowhere else. Yet besides this, the synodikon contains a special section devoted to the nameless dead, who are sorted by manner of death. Naturally, these are people killed by war, by pestilence, by captivity: God knows them, and God will look after them. There are also some rather unusual ways of dying: those who perished in mountain defiles mining gold for the Tsar, and those buried beneath sand.

A weighty part of the Kirillo-Novoezersky synodikon, written in the 17th century and now kept in the Novgorod Museum, is devoted to the various forms of death, and several dozen are mentioned. Among them are, for example, those slandered, who under torture slandered themselves, and who perished in vain; those driven to frenzy of mind who deprived themselves of life; those who fell from the heights of mountains, trees and houses; those who cast themselves into a ditch, into fire or into water and died; those gored by horns; those who departed this life eaten by birds; those struck down by thunder and burned by lightning.

But what surprises most of all is the commemoration of people who choked on a morsel and were throttled by a crumb. Indeed, judging by its place in so modest a list, this kind of death was considered quite commonplace in the 17th century. That is understandable: meat was mostly eaten not boiled through, and on occasion one could easily choke to death on a tough piece.