The monastery of Petschenga

by J. A. Friis

(Wash away uncleanness, not from the face alone)—a reminder that water is used in the administration of Holy Baptism.

The monks, who year by year became more numerous, obtained by degrees still further privileges from the Czar of Russia.

According to the rules of the monastery, the monks had both ‘to till the ground and to follow all such profitable employment as was practicable.’ There were people among them who had a very fair knowledge of secular affairs, and who, moreover, did not always despise the good things of the world. Accordingly, the monks summoned competent artisans and work-people from Russia, and with their help they devised boat and ship building on the river Pasvig, and also further out in the Munkfjord at the Warehouse Inlet, where the water was clear of ice even in the winter. They had their own store of timber, and they were enabled to build comparatively large ships; in these they exported [[23]]the produce of the country. A great number of rafts and boats were also built, and these were sold to the Russian and Norwegian fishermen. Besides boat-building, they also had salt-pans on such a large scale that they not only provided the whole fishing population with salt, but also exported salt to the interior of Russia. In their ships they brought back in return, ‘flour, wax, drapery goods, and cordage.’ The salt-pans were probably situated on Fiskerö, where the sea-water is least mixed with fresh-water from the inland rivers.

One of the most remarkable of their doings was the erection of a mill at the Kujasuga River, immediately behind the monastery. This is the only establishment which existed during the prosperous days of the monastery of which there is any trace still left. The monks must have found that it was more profitable to import corn and to grind it themselves, than to import the ground flour, as is usually done now.

They had also out-houses, and must have owned a considerable herd of cattle. They had occasion to clear out and till meadows, both on Fiskerö and along the Petschenga River. Several of the meadows where the monks used to mow their hay are now overgrown with birch-trees that are more than a century old. It may not have been exclusively for the sake of the flesh that they kept these herds of cattle, because the long fasts allow the Russians only to eat sparingly of meat. It was no doubt also for purposes of trade as well as for the sake of their skins. It is expressly stated that the monks possessed a tannery, and that they tanned leather both for their own requirements, and for supplying the people of the country.

They are also said to have worked mines. Possibly the monks were the first people to wash gold in the rivers in the interior of Lapland. Their most important means of support were, however, the fisheries, both the sea and the fresh-water fisheries, involving the exportation of fish. They understood how to make good use of the deed of gift, which they had obtained from the Czar Ivan Wasilievitsch. According to it, everything that was found in land or water belonged to the monks, and the inhabitants were compelled either to deliver up or sell to the monks what they did not themselves use, of course at the price which the monks saw fit to arrange. The fisheries were carried on by their own numerous servants or the lay-brothers of the monastery. Some of these lived at the monastery [[24]]itself, others at the Warehouse Inlet, at the mill, or in Kjörvaag, or West Bumand Fjord. By these fisheries the monks obtained such an immense quantity of fish, that they not only exported it to Vardö and Archangel, but also entered into mercantile connection with foreign towns, principally with Antwerp and Amsterdam. Information as to this is obtained from a Dutchman named Simon van Salingen, who for several years made business journeys in Finmark and Russian Lapland. He records that in the years (1562–1564) when Eric Munck was bailiff of Vardöhus, ‘the monks from the monastery in Munkfjord were in the habit of coming with their fish, train-oil, and other local produce, which they collected during the summer and winter, that they might sell them. In Munck’s service there was a youth named Philip Winterkonig, a Dutchman from Oltgensplaet, in Zeeland; but either voluntarily or otherwise, he left his master, and entered into partnership with John van Reide, Cornelius de Meyer Simonsen, of Malines, and in 1564 he came in a large vessel from Antwerp to Vardö, under the impression that Munck was still bailiff there.’ He must have sailed direct to Vardö without touching at Bergen, and so he had not heard that this town had recently obtained the monopoly of the trade of Finmark. ‘When he arrived at Vardö, he found that Munck was no longer bailiff there, and that a certain James Hansen held the office in his stead. Hansen made Winterkonig and his crew prisoners, seized the ship and its cargo, and maintained that Winterkonig had forfeited his life, because he had acted in opposition to the privileges of the citizens of Bergen.’

While these people were detained in custody, God vouchsafed such a rich harvest of fish that the Lapps, the Norsemen, and the monks at Munkfjord, caught so large a quantity that there were not ships, or yachts sufficient in draught, to carry the fish to Bergen.

James Hansen therefore arranged with Winterkonig that he should be let off his punishment if he would load his vessels with fish, and take them to Bergen on behalf of Norway, and would also promise never again ‘to trade contrary to the privileges of the town of Bergen.’ Winterkonig readily agreed to this, and was set at liberty. At the same time some of the monks of Petschenga, who were present at Vardö, made an arrangement with Winterkonig, that next year he should come [[25]]to them, and lade his ship with the things which they would have ready. According to this agreement Winterkonig came to Munkfjord in 1565 with a large ship, which he loaded with fish, and then despatched back again to the ship-owners at Antwerp. He hired, on his own account, a Russian lodje (yacht), with thirteen men in order to carry the rest of his goods from Antwerp to St. Nicholas.[2]

On the way, however, near the promontory of Tiriberka, on the Murman coast, he was overtaken by such a severe storm that he was obliged to seek a harbour of refuge. While he lay there another Russian lodje arrived, also having goods on board, which the captain sold to Winterkonig. But as soon as the Russians saw the valuable cargo which Winterkonig had on board his lodje, they were seized with a desire to possess it, and they fell on him at night, and cut the throats of his three servants and thirteen sailors while they were asleep. Winterkonig awoke and escaped to land severely wounded, but he was followed, and was shot through with an arrow from behind a tree. The robbers then hastily plundered the ship, and, as they saw another yacht approaching, they left the seventeen corpses unburied and escaped. However, they could not take everything with them, and among the things left behind were ‘four hogsheads of wine, and these remained on the beach.’

The firm at Antwerp, who had not heard of the murders, directly after the big ship had arrived from Munkfjord, sent two more ships to Winterkonig, and these were laden with all sorts of goods which he had ordered. Both the ships reached Munkfjord safely in the autumn, and anchored off the Warehouse Inlet. As soon as the monks heard of this, they despatched one of the ships back to Antwerp with the news that Winterkonig and his men had been murdered on his way to St. Nicholas, and that the goods had been stolen. The other ship the monks sent, with Cornelius de Meyer Simonsen, to Malmis (Kola), from which place Simonsen travelled to Moscow, in order to lay a complaint concerning the murder, and the plundering of the ship. He failed, however, to obtain an audience with the Grand-Duke, because the name of the Grand-Duke (Ivan the Cruel) was not written sufficiently large in his [[26]]letter of complaint, and he had to return to Kola with his object unaccomplished.