College: Trinity College

Email: ajmr5@cam.ac.uk

Supervisor: Prof Simon Franklin

Research Topic: Transmission of Mongol fiscal models in late medieval and early modern Moscow

Research 

Angus’ doctoral research focusses on the transmission of Mongol fiscal models to Moscow across the long fifteenth century, from the reigns of Vasilii I (1389-1425) to Vasilii III (1505-33). By assessing charter evidence in particular, his project seeks to define the interplay of Muscovite institutional norms with their analogues in the Qipchaq Khanate (‘Golden Horde’) and its successor polities. Building on his earlier work investigating both the Mongol relay network (iam) and forms of Inner Asian landholding, Angus is interested in delineating forms of mediation between putatively nomadic and sedentary societies. To this end, he explores how such bureaucratic transmission mirrored contemporary ideological currents that perceived the khans’ rule as antithetical to Byzantine imperial heritage, alongside comparing the evolution of Muscovite practice with administrative innovation in neighbouring regions of Eurasia.

Before coming to Cambridge, Angus obtained an undergraduate degree in History and Russian, and a master’s degree in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, at the University of Oxford. For the 2021-22 academic year, he is based at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO) in Paris.

Scholarships/Prizes  

AHRC OOC DTP Doctoral Studentship

Cambridge Trust Honorary Vice-Chancellor’s Award

Trinity College Honorary External Research Studentship

Teaching  

SLA3/SL1: Introduction to Russian Culture

SL2: The History and Culture of Early Rus’

Conference papers

‘Unjust collection: institutional and monastic (un-)networks in northern Rus’’, Communities and Networks in Late Medieval Europe, c. 1300–1500, Cambridge, UK, 9–10 September 2021

‘Tamga, myt and the politics of Muscovite fiscal appropriation’, The State Between: Oxford University Byzantine Society International Graduate Conference, Oxford, UK, 28–29 February 2020

‘Fiscal dues of early Rus’: between “church” and “state”?’, Christian Russia in the Making: Conference in Memory of Andrzej Poppe, Warsaw, Poland, 30 January–1 February 2020

Publications

‘“Выведеть свободна два мужа или мытника”: typologies of trading taxation in pre-Mongol Rus’’, Ruthenica 17 (forthcoming)