Tiun

a term used in ancient Rus’ in the 11th to 13th centuries to designate certain privileged servants, or stewards, who helped to administer the feudal estates of princes and boyars.

In the 14th to 17th centuries there were three types of tiuny: (1) the tiuny employed on the estate of a grand prince or grand princess and engaged in the administration of individual volosts (small rural districts) and cities: (2) the tiuny of namestniks (vicegerents) and of volost officials, engaged in the initial hearings of court cases; and (3) the tiuny of bishops, supervising the clergymen’s performance of their duties. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the term tiun in the 14th and 15th centuries was applied both to the feudal lords (later vicegerents) who administered the volosts and to well-to-do peasants—the elders on the estates of grand princes.